When conservatives can get fined, lose their job, and in some parts of the world go to jail for using the wrong pronoun, “hate speech” has become too much of a joke to be taken seriously.
And when liberals can get away with defending the murder of innocent civilians, the rape of women, and the torture of children, the phrase has clearly become a partisan bat with no objective meaning whatsoever.
I agree in substance but maybe not in principle, if that makes any sense.
The definition being used today is clearly not that useful, but the fact that so many people on the left and the right can correctly predict what’s going to count as “hate speech” means it’s got _some_ objective content. There are a lot of people who _do_ get confused, but it’s mostly because they’re trying to apply some sort of principle to what’s really a thin mask around a power play. More traditional leftists can get themselves into trouble when they try to apply the principles they thought they stood for instead of the real “kto kogo?” rule.
It’s like trying to point out to a convinced caste-ist (castist? casteist?) that the varna/jati system doesn’t make much sense. That’s true, but it’s not that unclear which groups stand above which others, so people can figure out the hierarchy and know what to do.
Does the the fact that something is predictable mean it’s based on objective content? I’m not so sure about that, but maybe.
My best guess at a rule or principle underlying “hate speech” is that it’s any speech by an oppressor against the oppressed. The oppressed can say or do anything they like against the oppressor.
How you define oppressor and oppressed is another question.
Well, in the last two weeks it has gone beyond defending…it has gone on to advocating. You can see the protests all over Europe. UK police telling folks to put away their British flags because the flags are inciting violence (allegedly), but the Palestinian or a flag indistinguishable from an ISIS flag is permitted to fly.
I’ve seen lots of videos of people ripping down posters of the kidnap victims…ripping down in the US, UK, or Europe. Now, I don’t know what the point of these posters are… Am I supposed to call a number if I see the person walking about Tulsa or NYC or London?
The west’s overall response to the cancer within is analogous to wimpy parents raising a spoiled kid. We’ve tolerated idiotic leftism to the point that it’s grown up to be the worst possible teenager. And now it’s threatening to burn down the house.
I haven’t read the book, but I suspect this was all predicted in “The Strange Death of Europe.”
I interpret the posters as communicating that we should not ignore the plight of the victims (even if there’s nothing we can individually do about it) and the tearing down of the posters as communicating “Yes, we should.”