Originally Posted by WildGunsTomcat
As distasteful as it might be to you, yes, that bigot has rights.
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And his rights end where those of others start.
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He can say whatever he wants as long as he is not physically harming anyone.
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Technically... no. Take slander for instance. In most of Europe vigilante type stuff like publishing suspects' pictures or even full names is not allowed. Let alone phone numbers and provide other tools by which (potential) purpetrators can become victims.
Yes, felons have rights to protect too... Even pedophiles (regardless of the physical harm most people would wish them).
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But in Canada, I guess harm to someone's ego is the same as physical harm. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but your words put you in jail.
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Inflicting mental harm is an offense according to human rights. Though mere insults are not, structural, hate mongering language does more than just physically harm. It can cause people to create paranoia and stereotypes towards people with specific visual or other properties. That can eventually lead to bodily harm.
On another note. Things like stereotyping stimulates inferiority complexes. Your gang wars? Your... "gangsta" hip hop culture? A lot of those people are self-inflicting and self-affirming those stereotypes and wasting their potential of human beings, because they actually believe that's what they are, or should be. It's not exactly beneficial to society to allow stereotyping.
The question though is, which nations hold the largest racial extremist groups? Those where it's okay to be openly discriminating? In Germany right wing extremists try to intimidate people out of entire villages to slowly create racist communities. You honestly think that will stop at words?
If I were you, I'd be more than a bit upset that you got severe racial segregation and racial gang creation occuring in US prisons. Something not true for most other countries.
But yes, Voltaire on free speech. Just a shame free speech is abused so much. Like freedom of religion it is often used as well to propagate hate or to prey on the weak through sektarian cults (mass suicides, Japanese metro gas attacks). The way these rights are abused until they lead to mass violations of the human rights of others is despicable. Attempting to stop the spreading of lies and hate, eh... Would have less problems with that.
It's ironic though that right wing Americans always cling to freedom of speech and other freedoms, after having created the huge anti-Communist manhunts before and being one of the last nations to give blacks similar rights. Even today their voting rights are often sabotaged in certain states and you even have a law that every voting law has to be double checked by Washington because certain states are untrustworthy.
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And the USA is backwards compared to Canada how exactly?
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Considering the above, don't get anyone started on that.