I wish the ACLU didn't think the number three came after the number one. I'm actually wondering if anyone has done any serious sociology studies (if there is any such thing really, snerk) on what effect if any hate speech laws have. Is the fact that Vlaams Blok can be declared an "illegal party" actually a good thing for Belgium, or does it have the result of making the snake in the grass better suited to its background? Sure, we're gagging Goebbels, but at what cost? Can anyone actually point me at an analysis of the effect of anti-hate speech laws on the spread, development, adoption, or surpression of radical ideas?
I mean. I know where I stand morally on this; it's dictated my career path since I was 12. But do we even have any evidence that hate speech prohibition "works"?
(Remember, the real purpose isn't to make sure that some part of the population doesn't get upset of offended -- the goal is to ensure that no socially-undesireable egregores are manifested using the collective consciousness of a part or most of a population. Mob justice, lynchings, or goose-stepping to the tune of Fascism, it's all just a matter of degrees of power, or intent. (I'm deliberately phrasing this using a different set of vocabulary and mental constructs than the legal and social-science based arguments in favor of these laws uses, but they're equivalent.) )
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Date: 2009-07-25 03:15 am (UTC)I mean. I know where I stand morally on this; it's dictated my career path since I was 12. But do we even have any evidence that hate speech prohibition "works"?
(Remember, the real purpose isn't to make sure that some part of the population doesn't get upset of offended -- the goal is to ensure that no socially-undesireable egregores are manifested using the collective consciousness of a part or most of a population. Mob justice, lynchings, or goose-stepping to the tune of Fascism, it's all just a matter of degrees of power, or intent. (I'm deliberately phrasing this using a different set of vocabulary and mental constructs than the legal and social-science based arguments in favor of these laws uses, but they're equivalent.) )