• wagesj45@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    You’re partly right. But it’s the job of the citizenry to stand up to this stuff, not the state. We can’t keep our heads down and hope it goes away on its own. We shouldn’t allow the state, with its monopoly on violence, to fight our social battles for us.

    I dislike the idea of the state getting to start making decisions on what is “hateful”. And I’m disgusted we don’t have more people standing up and loudly declaring how wrong the hateful viewpoints are. It is our responsibility and we are failing.

    It is a tempting proposition to let the state handle hateful speech, but we don’t have to look much further than Florida to see what happens when the shit side is in power and starts redefining what is “hateful”.

    • lemmyvore@feddit.nl
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      1 year ago

      But it’s the job of the citizenry to stand up to this stuff, not the state.

      So what’s the state for?

      • gowan@reddthat.com
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        1 year ago

        Regulate an economy, maintain a border (meaning this is our stuff and everything outside the border is not it isn’t necessarily manning a border), and enforce laws. That’s the three basic tasks of any government.

          • gowan@reddthat.com
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            1 year ago

            Those are optional. The three things I listed are the basic requirements for all governments.

              • gowan@reddthat.com
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                1 year ago

                If you take intro to poli sci literally anywhere in the world this is part of your first lesson. The three things listed are what makes a government a government. Kenya has no space program and is still a government.

                • pinkdrunkenelephants@sopuli.xyz
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                  1 year ago

                  There are many schools of thought on what a government is for or should do and most people do not ascribe to the notions you are presenting as fact.

                  • gowan@reddthat.com
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                    1 year ago

                    The three things listed are what every single nation state does. There is zero debate on this and it would be nonsensical to suggest otherwise.

        • TehPers@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          This doesn’t define what a properly constituted government is though. Any government can prevent other worse governments from forming, all they need to do is massacre their citizens and there will be nobody left to form a government.

    • wahming@monyet.cc
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      1 year ago

      ‘Hate’ is vague. ‘Intolerance’ however, is probably legally definable.

    • liv@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      It is a tempting proposition to let the state handle hateful speech, but we don’t have to look much further than Florida to see what happens when the shit side is in power

      You seem to be suggesting that separating hate speech prevention from legislation will protect you from a “tyranny of the majority” situation.

      But if the populace has a bigoted plurality, won’t that also create a tyranny of the majority?

      • wagesj45@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        If the populace has a bigoted plurality, then they get to declare what is officially hateful. So yes, you’re right.

        I put the onus on the collective citizenry, but there is no perfect solution in reality. There is a role for the state to play in protecting people, I just don’t think they should dip much into what speech is or isn’t allowed. The majority should rule in my opinion, but we have the job of maintaining a majority that isn’t regressive bigoted shitheads. It’s an eternal struggle, unfortunately.

        • liv@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          Defamation, intellectual property, stalking/threats, harmful digital communications, false advertising, accurate declarations of food contents, protected names, conspiracy to commit serious crimes: all these forms of speech are regulated by law and the judiciary where I live, so I have no problem with hate speech laws as long as they are clear and reasonable.

          Personally I am in favour of proportionally representative democracy with a lot of checks and balances to enshrine human rights in law, so that if a populace wavers toward the hateful there are still protections for minorities and the non-hateful.

          • wagesj45@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Fair, but the more people you have, with more diverse viewpoints, the harder it will be to get people to agree on what is hateful. And the more nuanced your laws, the harder it will be to agree on what is reasonable or even clear.

            • liv@beehaw.org
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              1 year ago

              That’s a fair point.

              But we have got people to agree on everything from what is a fair defense against defamation, right through to the percentage of meat a product such as a meat pie has to contain in order for it to be able to be labelled “meat”.

              Democratic consensus is something that gets built up and refined over time. We don’t try to invent it all in a single day.