Posts Tagged ‘“hate speech”’

Pat Condell on Britain’s Hate Speech Police

Sunday, January 7th, 2018

“Hate speech is free speech that hurts people’s feelings. It’s illegal in Britain because we don’t have a First Amendment to protect us from this kind of arbitrary police state law and the police, for reasons best known to themselves, pay special attention to Internet hate speech. They’re always telling us how seriously they take it. It’s almost as if they prioritize it over real crime for some kind of ideological reason, because it seems they’re all over social media combing out thought criminals like head lice.”

“It seems that you’re as likely to be arrested in Britain today for being abusive on Twitter as you are for gang raping a child. Maybe even more so.”

Also this:

“Recently on Channel 4 News we heard that the grooming gangs in Rotherham are still operating openly for all to see, including the police. And they wonder why they’re losing trust and respect.”

The Religion of Peace and the UK progressive thought police organization “Common Purpose” puts in an appearance as well.

Condell also has a rant called “A Word To The Criminal Migrant.” Unfortunately, due to the oppressive atmosphere of progressive censorship, YouTube has made it so that I can no longer embed it here, so click on that as well.

There Is No Hate Speech. Only Zuul.

Monday, June 19th, 2017

Today the Supreme Court unanimously reaffirmed what conservatives, libertarians and honest liberals have been arguing for some time now: when it comes to the First Amendment, there’s no “hate speech” exemption:

From today’s opinion by Justice Samuel Alito (for four justices) in Matal v. Tam, the “Slants” case:

[The idea that the government may restrict] speech expressing ideas that offend … strikes at the heart of the First Amendment. Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express “the thought that we hate.”

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote separately, also for four justices, but on this point the opinions agreed:

A law found to discriminate based on viewpoint is an “egregious form of content discrimination,” which is “presumptively unconstitutional.” … A law that can be directed against speech found offensive to some portion of the public can be turned against minority and dissenting views to the detriment of all. The First Amendment does not entrust that power to the government’s benevolence. Instead, our reliance must be on the substantial safeguards of free and open discussion in a democratic society.

And the justices made clear that speech that some view as racially offensive is protected not just against outright prohibition but also against lesser restrictions.

This is a great blow to Social Justice Warriors looking to limit or eliminate the speech of their political opponents as “hate speech.”

Thank God for the First Amendment, or we might be looking at situations like Canada’s, where you can be fined for using unapproved pronouns.