I went to look up the precise hour in which Hillary first described Limbaugh et al as "hate radio"... I think her husband was still President. But there are too many recent Google citations for her machinery (Kos, etc.).

She won.

He has a different definition of "hate speech" than the one I've always heard/used.

The one I've always used never included threats, since we already have names for those terms. When you're in a position to act on a threat, that's simply "assault." When you're threatening someone without being in a position to act on it immediately (such as over the phone), I believe that's "harassment."

As a result, there really is no need to include threats under the definition of "hate speech," and without that, the correct response to accusations of hate speech is simply, "So, what?"

Hate speech is not a crime, much as the SJWs would like it to be.

For speech alone to be a crime, it must entail threats, such as vowing to blow up an airplane you're boarding or more recent phenomena such as cyberstalking and cyberbullying.

This is another problem. What we call "cyberstalking" and "cyberbullying" does not entail threats.

As I said, threats are already criminalized.

The problem is, we punish outcomes. For instance, when Rebecca Sedwick committed suicide, we called for the heads of Katelyn Roman and Guadalupe Shaw, her tormentors. The problem is, they didn't do anything illegal, but because of Sedwick's self-destructive act, we now need to make someone accountable. (The charges against the two girls were dropped.)

But the reality is, there is nothing to be done. At least not from a legal perspective. Telling someone to "Drink bleach and die" is not a threat, nor is it any other type of crime.

When Tyler Clementi (the gay Rutgers student whose roommate Dharun Ravi live-streamed him having sex with his boyfriend) committed suicide, Ravi was charged with invasion of privacy.

The problem with that is that it was in Ravi's room. You have no expectation of privacy from your own roommate.

Had Tyler Clementi simply realized that very few, if any, would actually care about this or even remember it after a month or so (and put a piece of tape over the camera on Ravi's computer the next time) we simply would have never heard about this. But because Clementi committed suicide, we employed a creative (and incorrect) definition of "invasion of privacy" to convict Ravi.

Don't get me wrong. Ravi and his accomplice Molly Wei are total assholes, as were Roman and Shaw. Their actions were despicable but not criminal. And they certainly deserve all the opprobrium we can muster, but the law should not be interested in this.

Don't worry. Once Clinton is in the White House we (just that staffer that was concerned about her email server) will be told what to discuss and what not to bring up ever again.

Unbelievable but this stuff just keeps on getting on. Move along folks, nothing to see here, trust me.

I'm still amazed at how many self-styled civil libertarians have caved on this issue. A lot of people don't have much of a problem with the government suppressing speech, as long as it's speech that they don't like. Polls since the 1970s have pretty consistently shown that if the matter were to be put to a direct popular vote, a majority would vote to circumscribe the First Amendment. Of course, they always assume that only speech of which they disapprove would be restricted.

The authoritarian Right uses censorship to try to control the culture. The authoritarian Left uses censorship to try to control the politics.

> He has a different definition of
> "hate speech" than the one I've
> always heard/used.

If you think it matters, you're the problem.

You're the problem.

Someday, Crid, you might actually say something useful.

I'm not holding my breath.

If "hate speech" has no consequences and should not, why bother offering such a wordy perspective on what it's made from? For whom are you building this delicate crystal palace of insight? You seem like the sorta little fella who wants nothing more in the world than to affirm that feelings —hate, for example— are something that should guy us, if only in avoidance.

I say hate all you want. Talk about it if you want, too.

CD, which self-styled libertarians are you talking about?

If "hate speech" has no consequences and should not, why bother offering such a wordy perspective on what it's made from? For whom are you building this delicate crystal palace of insight? You seem like the sorta little fella who wants nothing more in the world than to affirm that feelings —hate, for example— are something that should guy us, if only in avoidance.

First, Cridso, if you could have forced yourself to slog through my "wordy" post, you would have discovered that I took issue with the idea that threats should be included under the blanket term "hate speech."

We already have legal terms for threats of all kinds. And threats are illegal.

Then, since I concluded that the rest of what we call "hate speech" is still protected speech, our response to an accusation of hate speech should be a resounding, "So, what?"

In other words, we shouldn't give a fuck if someone is offended by our "hate speech."

Are we clear on this, child? I had to extract threats from the definition of hate speech, because it certainly doesn't belong there. Then I could dismiss the rest of it as something we shouldn't be concerned about.

You should actually be pleased with my position, since you are the biggest promulgator of hate speech on this blog. I know, because both you and I have the distinction of being participants on this blog since it was created.

Second, out of the seven-plus billion people on this planet, you are the last person that should complain about wordiness. You write like you dip a quill in perfume before inscribing your (so you believe) artfully-chosen words onto vellum.

You cannot say in 400 words what most people can say in four. To paraphrase the Immortal Bard, your posts are "a lot of sound and perfumery, signifying nothing."

"CD, which self-styled libertarians are you talking about?"

The ACLU, to name one. Although some of their chapters are pursuing pro-libertarian cases, the national organization has had little to say about asset forfeiture, campus PC, eminent-domain abuse, or universal surveillance. And in some cases it has supported the government on these issues.

> if you could have forced yourself
> to slog through my "wordy" post

I doubt anyone will ever care about your thoughts enough to give them the bootlick you imagine they deserve, but...

> you would have discovered that I
> took issue with the idea that
> threats should be included under
> the blanket term "hate speech."

You missed my question, or else had no idea what you've been typing. If "hate speech" is not something for which we should enforce consequences, why are you fussing to compose such a darling definition of it?

Your comment suggests a reticent, brittle acceptance of free speech, the kind that has collapsed under the merest challenge in so many contexts lately... As illiterate professors of communi-fucking-cation demand 'muscle' to constrain petty cubscout journalists, etc.

Mostly, you give the impression of being a young person who's spent a great many of your short years stewing about the really mean things done by the mostest rillymeen people. You've been holding personal resentments close to your heart, so you know stuff about this that others doesn't know, darnitall...

So, sure... Deep down in the PDF fine print of your comment, people should be able to say what they want.

But first of all, you want us to know that if it turns out that the free expression of ideas is just a fad, you're totally equipped to tell us who should have an opinion and who should not. Because meen peepil suk, and you understand this with a private preciousness that the rest of us can't even fathom, so you expect to be put in charge when the revolution comes.

Fat chance, biscuit boy.

I humbly apologize for the first comma in the second graph.

Arrhythmic compositions like that are tremendously rude, like being insulted by the waitstaff at the start of what had otherwise promised to be a wonderful dinner party. I'll make it up to you.

Crid effuses:

Your comment suggests a reticent, brittle acceptance of free speech, the kind that has collapsed under the merest challenge in so many contexts lately... As illiterate professors of communi-fucking-cation demand 'muscle' to constrain petty cubscout journalists, etc.

"Muscle" is a direct quote. Melissa Click said, "I need some muscle over here."

As such, it goes in quotation marks.

And fuck Melissa Click. I don't feel the least bit sorry for her, nor for the pathetic lost souls who are now destitute without her, as evinced by their idiotic protest outside of the board meeting that would eventually fire her.

"Cub Scout" is two words, and it's capitalized.

What was petty about Mark Schierbecker? The student protest cordoned off public property and declared it their "safe space," and further felt they had the right to declare it a "media-free zone," even to the point of physically ousting student reporters.

Those freaks needed a reality check. I'd like to think that Mark's (he even has the same first name as you, Crid) actions, and the consequences stemming from their ill-considered response, provided them one.

You know nothing about my age or my experience. And to be blunt, I'm not inclined to share it with you. What little you do know about me is already used by you in the most obnoxious manner possible. I wouldn't expect your sympathy, nor would I want it, but decent people (which you are not) would at least have the courtesy to refrain from using sensitive information in ways that are intended to be hurtful.

Not that you're hurtful to me. You pretty much galvanized yourself into the obnoxious prick mode the first day I actually responded to you. If you ever deigned to be even neutral to me, I simply wouldn't buy it. I'd wonder, with wry amusement, when the sucker punch was coming.

It would take decades of civility from you before I was even remotely convinced that you were being sincere.

But that's fine. I can handle your hate. You have a gift for it; you may as well use it. I was a moderator on AOL message boards for years. One of things that drove me to distraction was the complaints I would get from members on debate forums who would complain about their personal information being used to attack them.

And I would always be thinking, 'If you do not care to have your personal information being used as a weapon, why did you share this information on a message board where you know that certain regulars are hostile to you?'

So, now, of course, I'm supposed to step in and take care of everything. But I couldn't, even if I wanted to. Saying really clever, cutting remarks did not go against AOL's Terms of Service.

Besides, why would I remove such delightful reading material from the regular members' sight? Don't they have a right to be entertained?

But no, Crid. Despite my experiences, I'm not prepared to decide who gets to talk when the revolution comes. And I will be opposing it if it ever does come.

Don't make credible threats of physical harm against people, don't tell lies about them that threaten their lives or livelihood and keep your limbs to yourself, and recognize that other people are not your urinals or spittoons. These are crimes that the law will punish you for. Beyond that, say what you like.

> You know nothing about my age
> or my experience.

Affirmed! ☑ Totally true! Judging only by what we see here! Okay with that!

> before I was even remotely convinced
> that you were being sincere.

Sincerity but you don't care, "hate" but you don't care, so one last time: With free speech, why worry so much about interior conditions?

I think that the impulse in today's America to judge people by their emotional particulars (whether genuinely and correctly identified by an observant onlooker, or merely presumed in the style of a defensive schoolchild, or even in the criminally bogus accusation of almost every other culture on Earth) is bad news... Don't you agree?

This comment about parenting from one of Amy's recent posts comes to mind:

"Their happiness is not my responsibility. Their character is my responsibility."

So why do you care?

People may hate me for being a little shorter than average, or for being a little heavy for the height. Some may hate me for being white, for being American, for being blessed so often by seemingly divine Providence, or even for being right about everything. Certainly many loathe me for being so attractive, even in these later years. People may well want me dead... In the privacy of their interior lives.

But when they behave well, to me and to everyone else, why would I care?



"Hate" is not the problem with this planet. No matter what's in the fine print, talking about it soothes the animals less-well domesticated than you and I.

Honestly, what's the worst that could happen to me?