superpentil wrote:
Quote:
First off the Supreme Court already settled the debate on freedom of speech along time ago.
SCOTUS said "FREEDOM OF SPEECH IS NOT ABSOLUTE!" and has reaffirmed this many times in different rulings.
Limits on speech are legal under certain circumstances, such as banning hate speech.
You cannot get away with putting offensive, inappropriate and normally controversial symbols, objects, and items on public grounds and/or any place that receives funding via taxes and/or other government funding.
As it is in most places in the U.S., you cannot put objectionable material on your property for these reasons:
1) It is in plain sight!
2) Your neighbors bear witness to it with great ease
3) It negatively effects your neighbors property physically and monetarily
4) It is in clear violation of local codes
Essentially if you have the resources to take your neighbors to court and are willing to risk losing ruling, then neighbors beware.
Recent case in Metro Detroit a guy painted his house with bright colored artistic mural with nothing offensive and his neighbors took him to court!
The neighbors claimed his brightly colored mural was hurting their properties and the neighborhood as a whole.
They took him to court and... WON!
The judge ordered him to repaint his house a proper solid house color and was banned from painting another mural within easy view of his neighbors.
The judge reminded him of that he lived in a neighborhood and had to act appropriately.
That doesn't make sense because that would make this country a huge joke. That goes against everything The Revolution was for.
As for the protection of hate speech, that is part of free speech
period. You can't say "I support free speech" and ban others from saying something you think is wrong. What's the difference between you and your opponent? You both think you're right and the other is wrong in terms of 'morals' or whatever it may be. So who's right? The answer is nobody. To suppress hate speech no matter how bad it is makes you just as closed minded as the side you're against, and just because you
think you are on the moral high ground doesn't make up for it.
Verbal abuse and harassment is not legal I am pretty sure...and plenty of hate speech would fall into those categories, which certainly should not be 'protected'. Sure the state cannot tell you what words you can and cannot allow out of your mouth or what you type....but with the nature of hate speech much of the time it does carry over into the territory of harassment/verbal abuse which certainly should have consequences. For instance that Westboro Baptist church...sure a law cannot be passed that says 'they cannot say god hates gays', but there is nothing unconstitutional about laws to bar them from harassing people who don't want to hear it, like people at funerals. Just like a group of Neo Nazis would not legally be allowed to go picket a black church and scream about how they should be sent back to africa...obviously that would than be harassment of the people at said church. And on the street if someone starts talking trash about a certain race, well they could easily say something to the wrong person and get beat, people will just find it very distasteful and tell them to shut up or someone might call the cops if the person keeps it up and is getting in peoples faces.
So constitutionally hate speech in general cannot be entirely illegal...you can say whatever you want, but there are social consequences even for things said that may not be technically 'illegal', and if and when the hate speech is directed at the hated group in a harassing manner...there can be legal consequences, without violating the upholding of 'free speech'.
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Tis the time to melt the Ice.
29 Jun 2015, 1:51 pm
