this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2025
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Within reason. Libel, incitement to violence, hate speech, etc, should be illegal for obvious reasons
There is an obvious reason why countries like Germany make a strong stance against any "trolling" nazi joke/imagery/salute.
But America's First Amendment seems to not understand that reason (or only understand when it is weaponized against communism, black people, trans rights and all the "woke culture" stuff)
Everyone has a different definition, but yeah generally free speech in an ideal sense extends to just before you start causing what a reasonable person would concern harm to someone.
Fuck that. People spreading racial hate and public lies with the intention to mislead the public should be locked up.
I would say intent matters and while it's impossible to truly determine it, we still have a distinction for murder/manslaughter and negligence.
If a politician lies or hides something for personal gain, that should be illegal, but there's so much stuff the state does where it's best if the general public don't know, public order would probably break down pretty quickly otherwise.
Same with racial hate. If it's just stating an opinion, fine, I probably don't agree but go ahead. If you're actively trying to harm (mentally, economically, socially or physically) that group, or inciting others to do the same, then that's not fine.
I can't think of where "racial hate" could possibly be "just stating an opinion" without also causing harm that is both mental and social.
It depends how you define "racial hate" and how you define mental or social harm. I also do mean social harm, not societal, meaning to catch things like sunset communities (ie restricting where people can live, or where they can go), rather than "society is worse off because of people's opinions."
Again, in my opinion, it depends on intent. If you make a post on your blog with 200 followers saying "I'm tired of X race moving to my city," I don't think that should be illegal, even if it is disgusting behaviour. If you post it to (eg) a community group for those people, I'd say it should be illegal.
That said, I'm very liberal on policing, so believe that the state shouldn't be responsible for policing morality, which people may not like when they realise it involves making things that are pretty much objectively immoral legal, regardless of what they are.
You seem to think that if something is indirect it isn't harmful, so being openly racist with your friends is OK as long as you're not telling the people you're dehumanizing directly? Sounds like you would think cheating on your wife is OK as long as she didn't find out.
Personally, I don't think there is any good or acceptable racial hatred, and pretending that there is is what got the neofascists so much political clout around the world.
I don't think it's ok.
I think it's not the state's job to dictate whether people can do it. I have the exact same opinion for cheating.