Resturant Owner Defends "Muslims Get Out" Sign, Says there was not enough room for "Extremists" - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Cloak Raider;51122528]if you don't see the difference between me asking you if you think the idea of racism is wrong, and calling you a racist, then i think i gave you too much credence when i first started arguing with you[/QUOTE] You aren't posing the question "do you think racism is wrong" because you're genuinely curious, you're trying to insinuate that the only reason someone could possibly disagree with making it illegal to be racist is that they themselves do not think racism is wrong; ergo you are implying that I am a racist for disagreeing with you. I don't feel like being called "literally hitler" by an anti-fascist today so why don't you cut the bullshit?

[QUOTE=Grenadiac;51122543]You aren't posing the question "do you think racism is wrong" because you're genuinely curious, you're trying to insinuate that the only reason someone could possibly disagree with making it illegal to be racist is that they themselves do not think racism is wrong; ergo you are implying that I am a racist for disagreeing with you. I don't feel like being called "literally hitler" by an anti-fascist today so why don't you cut the bullshit?[/QUOTE] no, i'm posing the question do you think the idea of racism is wrong how about you answer the question rather than thinking i'm persecuting you or something

I do think the idea of racism is wrong. I also think the idea of criminalizing people for holding opinions I disagree with is wrong. I think racism, a belief system born of ignorance, crumbles in the face of reasoned discussion and education. Unfortunately, this isn't an instant fix, but it's better than trying to eliminate fascism by exterminating fascists, don't you think? You must give people the tools to reach the right conclusion on their own. If they aren't hurting other people, they can sit and be ignorant if they choose to; time will get them if reason doesn't.

[QUOTE=Grenadiac;51122566]I do think the idea of racism is wrong.[/QUOTE] right now we're getting somewhere do you think that, someone who believes in racism/is racist, is wrong - by extension that they believe in something that you think is wrong?

I don't think it's inherently wrong to have an opinion that I disagree with, because my opinion might be wrong and can be changed by reason and logic, which is why I don't think opinions should be crimes.

[QUOTE=Grenadiac;51122583]I don't think it's inherently wrong to have an opinion that I disagree with, because my opinion might be wrong and can be changed by reason and logic, which is why I don't think opinions should be crimes.[/QUOTE] then I've found the dichotomy you believe that "racism is wrong", is an opinion - and that while someone who is racist is [I]wrong[/I] in your [I]opinion[/I], they aren't objectively wrong. the european viewpoint would be that racism is as wrong as 1+1=3 is wrong - that racism being wrong is a fact. Therefore, the reason that educating someone to not be able to express racism, is akin to educating someone that the earth revolves around the sun - there's no reason for someone to believe otherwise [I]because it isn't true[/I] i'm not going to explain which one is better because it clearly depends on upbringing, but the reason there is so much tension is because [I]generally[/I] the idea of racism is considered wrong on a fundamental level in a european mindset, and that action taken in lieu of this belief is as wrong as me using 1+1=3 in an equation

I consider racism wrong "fundamentally" because it isn't a belief system you reach through critical thinking; it's not a reasonable perspective. I don't expect any racist would ever be able to convince me that racism is OK. Yet even though I consider it fundamentally and objectively wrong on account of not making any sense from any rational perspective, I don't think it's acceptable to simply squish people who haven't "seen the light". If they aren't causing harm to anyone and refuse to learn better, then whatever -- they'll die in 70 years and the odds are their offspring will be more tolerant. Even if it is a slow process, it can't be abused to suppress opposing viewpoints through actively imprisoning people for having them. "Racism is wrong and racists should be silenced" is a dangerous thought process that can be applied to "conservatives are wrong and conservatives should be silenced" and so on once you have a system in place for thought policing, even if it was only intended to suppress specific, objectively wrong thoughts to begin with -- thoughts that can be changed passively through education -- which is exactly what Orwell wrote about in 1984. When you look to 1984 as an example and go "yeah we can do this one fascist thing it'll improve us so the ends justify the means," you are missing the point of 1984. That is how INGSOC took power to begin with, it was the entire point of 1984, and that is why his comparison left me speechless.

[QUOTE=Grenadiac;51122638]"Racism is wrong and racists should be silenced" is a dangerous thought process that can be applied to "conservatives are wrong and conservatives should be silenced" and so on once you have a system in place for thought policing, even if it was only intended to suppress specific, objectively wrong thoughts to begin with -- thoughts that can be changed passively.[/QUOTE] the slippery slope is entirely ymmv, as mrjazzy has already said, there's no instance where someone has been jailed for hate speech for anything other than that afaik it should be mentioned that thinking racist thoughts isn't illegal, but advertising them in a public place (such as in this thread's OP) is illegal - because the harm that these statements do isn't as obvious as physical violence, but the emotional impact on people that live there, or people of that race, is considered severe enough to be prevented it's not in our interests to protect an opinion that we believe to be objectively incorrect, and one that when expressed causes harm

Not in modern Europe (arguably) but we have historic examples -- the USSR, Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, etc. didn't start out committing their respective genocides and publicly advertising their complete manifestos. In each example, it was a "slippery slope" - again to use the "first they came for the socialists" quote, people let them take power by overlooking things that didn't affect them. If you start jailing people for being racist - a belief system - you are opening the door for significantly worse applications of that power. I do not like having that door open when hate speech is a problem that can be tackled through less heavy-handed means.

[QUOTE=Grenadiac;51122670]Not in modern Europe (arguably) but we have historic examples -- the USSR, Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, etc. didn't start out committing their respective genocides and publicly advertising their complete manifestos. In each example, it was a "slippery slope" - again to use the "first they came for the socialists" quote, people let them take power by overlooking things that didn't affect them. If you start jailing people for being racist - a belief system - you are opening the door for significantly worse applications of that power. I do not like having that door open when hate speech is a problem that can be tackled through less heavy-handed means.[/QUOTE] USSR, Nazi Germany and Fascist italy didn't have blanket bans on hate speech, they had [I]government-endorsed hate speech[/I] that is not a reasonable step to argue for a slippery slope, because in none of those examples was hate speech against minorities outlawed and any and all power opens the door for worse application, that's power for you - it's whether or not you believe the risk outweighs the reward and whether or not there is just cause to believe that the power will be abused

I'm drawing this comparison to say - "Jews are undoing our society so they must be removed" and "racists are undoing our society so they must be removed" are not dissimilar sentiments. The biggest difference is that you agree with one. To you this is a black and white issue, but understand that Soviets, Nazis, and blackshirts all saw it conversely, which is what led to their respective nightmare societies. We must avoid opening the door to actively suppressing opposing viewpoints. I'm not making this link to accuse you of being a closet Nazi, I'm illustrating parallels to show how this thought process can very easily lead to really bad things, and even if it doesn't, you've still persecuted a group of people for a belief system which could have been defeated with reason and time rather than jail.

[QUOTE=Grenadiac;51122701]I'm drawing this comparison to say - "Jews are undoing our society so they must be removed" and "racists are undoing our society so they must be removed" are not dissimilar sentiments. The biggest difference is that you agree with one. To you this is a black and white issue, but understand that Soviets, Nazis, and blackshirts all saw it conversely, which is what led to their respective nightmare societies. We must avoid opening the door to actively suppressing opposing viewpoints.[/QUOTE] right, but in the same way that i'd say if someone forced me to the ground, tied me up and threw me in their car, it'd be different from when the police did it same method, difference target and cause and nobody is saying anything as robotic as "racists must be removed", that's a distortion to support the comparison, "racism must be removed" would be the correct form with totally different meaning

A very tangible example of how this sentiment is currently being twisted would be the way Europeans are turning their guns on Islam - many "tolerant" Europeans view Muslim refugees as an infestation: "I'm not racist, but these Muslims are all sexist/racist/etc, send them back!" And yes I realize you aren't advocating to exterminate racists in camps but imprisoning people for being racist is still in the same vein. It is virtually (if not literally) fascist to imprison people for belief systems, even if someone else gets offended by that belief system. If they aren't out assaulting people for being a different race, gentler methods must be applied.

[QUOTE=Grenadiac;51122723]A very tangible example of how this sentiment is currently being twisted would be the way Europeans are turning their guns on Islam - many "tolerant" Europeans view Muslim refugees as an infestation: "I'm not racist, but these Muslims are all sexist/racist/etc, send them back!" And yes I realize you aren't advocating to exterminate racists in camps but imprisoning people for being racist is still in the same vein. It is virtually (if not literally) fascist to imprison people for belief systems, even if someone else gets offended by that belief system.[/QUOTE] that's not twisting the sentiment, that's completely violating it when the sentiment is that one shouldn't make hateful remarks concerning others based on religion, race or gender, and you make hateful remarks based on religion and racism, you're violating it, not twisting it. and once again, nobody has been imprisoned for being racist, however people have been imprisoned for publicly expressing racist views

So, what - "don't ask, don't tell"? You can't be arrested for being racist as long as nobody knows! You might as well be arresting them for being racist.

[QUOTE=Grenadiac;51122723]A very tangible example of how this sentiment is currently being twisted would be the way Europeans are turning their guns on Islam - many "tolerant" Europeans view Muslim refugees as an infestation: "I'm not racist, but these Muslims are all sexist/racist/etc, send them back!"[/QUOTE] Which makes me wonder how bad it would be if that kind of hatespeech was tolerated.

[QUOTE=MrJazzy;51122759]Which makes me wonder how bad it would be if that kind of hatespeech was tolerated.[/QUOTE] In the US we are moving the opposite direction. The crazy raving racists are a rapidly shrinking minority and we aren't imprisoning them for expressing themselves, they are just learning better- although we have some divisive movements that aren't helping to speed this along, we are becoming a more tolerant nation without making the "bad" group feel like it's being oppressed and motivating them to take action... whereas we have seen an increase in neo-Nazi activity in Europe, yes?

[QUOTE=Grenadiac;51122758]So, what - "don't ask, don't tell"? You can't be arrested for being racist as long as nobody knows! You might as well be arresting them for being racist.[/QUOTE] no, you can't be arrested for being racist there's a clear and obvious difference between arresting someone for expressing racist views in public that cause distress, and arresting someone for being racist you're arguing against a strawman, not the actual point [editline]28th September 2016[/editline] [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_the_United_Kingdom[/url] i recommend reading this

[QUOTE=Cloak Raider;51122656]the slippery slope is entirely ymmv, as mrjazzy has already said, there's no instance where someone has been jailed for hate speech for anything other than that afaik[/QUOTE] You don't have to look at Nazi Germany or the USSR, we have ample examples in modern Turkey and Russia as I already mentioned of speech laws ostensibly intended to curb hate speech being used to quash dissent. The fact that it hasn't happened on a large scale in Europe yet is not intrinsically evidence that it can't happen. [QUOTE=Cloak Raider;51122656]it's not in our interests to protect an opinion that we believe to be objectively incorrect, and one that when expressed causes harm[/QUOTE] This is almost word-for-word the justification Russia is currently using to crack down on anti-Putin activists. Like, you don't need to reach back into history to see examples of how 'we'll just fine or arrest people who say things we consider untrue and nebulously harmful' can be easily abused. But if we wind back the clock a few hundred years, this is the sort of reasoning used to persecute people like Voltaire. I'm not sure you realize just how many influential Enlightenment-era writers were significant in standing up to the political and religious establishment and writing opinions that in their day would be considered every bit as 'objectively incorrect' as racism is nowadays. And you'll throw away that legacy of free thought because... racist words hurt people's feelings? Really? The cherry on top is that by your reasoning, civil rights activists in the 1800s should have been fined or imprisoned for harming the social order by suggesting the objectively incorrect idea that the races are all equal. Objective truths change.

[QUOTE=Cloak Raider;51122788]no, you can't be arrested for being racist there's a clear and obvious difference between arresting someone for expressing racist views in public that cause distress, and arresting someone for being racist you're arguing against a strawman, not the actual point [editline]28th September 2016[/editline] [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_the_United_Kingdom[/url] i recommend reading this[/QUOTE] I can't see the difference between this and "you can't be arrested for being gay, you can only be arrested for being publicly gay" (I feel the need to make very clear that I don't think being gay and being racist are in any way similar, I'm still just drawing a correlation to all-too-familiar laws in certain countries) The point is: it's an unpopular perspective to the arresting entity which results in your arrest when they come to know of it

[QUOTE=catbarf;51122798]You don't have to look at Nazi Germany or the USSR, we have ample examples in modern Turkey and Russia as I already mentioned of speech laws ostensibly intended to curb hate speech being used to quash dissent. The fact that it hasn't happened on a large scale in Europe yet is not intrinsically evidence that it can't happen. This is almost word-for-word the justification Russia is currently using to crack down on anti-Putin activists. Like, you don't need to reach back into history to see examples of how 'we'll just fine or arrest people who say things we consider untrue and nebulously harmful' can be easily abused. But if we wind back the clock a few hundred years, this is the sort of reasoning used to persecute people like Voltaire. I'm not sure you realize just how many influential Enlightenment-era writers were significant in standing up to the political and religious establishment and writing opinions that in their day would be considered every bit as 'objectively incorrect' as racism is nowadays. And you'll throw away that legacy of free thought because... racist words hurt people's feelings? Really? The cherry on top is that by your reasoning, civil rights activists in the 1800s should have been fined or imprisoned for harming the social order by suggesting the objectively incorrect idea that the races are all equal. Objective truths change.[/QUOTE] can you point to me an example in modern day turkey and russia where a law protecting citizens against racist, sexist or homophobic speech has led to laws against free speech and then government tyranny [editline]28th September 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Grenadiac;51122815]I can't see the difference between this and "you can't be arrested for being gay, you can only be arrested for being publicly gay" (I feel the need to make very clear that I don't think being gay and being racist are in any way similar, I'm still just drawing a correlation to all-too-familiar laws in certain countries) The point is: it's an unpopular perspective to the arresting entity which results in your arrest when they come to know of it[/QUOTE] the difference is you get arrested for the act of communicating in public, not the act of having there is an enormous difference [editline]28th September 2016[/editline] also catbarf, the sticks and stones argument re: hate speech is an enormous simplification, and belittling the idea to say that "it hurts peoples feelings" is a total joke representation that bears no relation to reality considering that "words" happen to cause pretty high suicide rates in transgender people

[QUOTE=Revenge282;51121875]Do either of you care to provide anything beyond that? I know that there are cases for both sides, but I also think that alienating your consumers is in no way beneficial financially. Someone that eventually comes along with a more logical mindset is going to overtake them.[/QUOTE] racist consumers exist, along with apathetic ones if the business continues to exist due to such patronage, then the owners aren't going to learn their lesson and the cycle will continue - the racism will still be viewed as a normal activity what was it that ultimately brought an end to the segregation in the US south? it wasn't market forces for sure [editline]28th September 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Grenadiac;51122771]In the US we are moving the opposite direction. The crazy raving racists are a rapidly shrinking minority and we aren't imprisoning them for expressing themselves, they are just learning better[/QUOTE] trump could potentially become president and he's helped encourage a massive resurgence of far-right politics recently not to mention that hating moslems has become fashionable in 21st century america (although this holds true for the west as a whole). your claims that america is becoming more tolerant is at serious odds with reality when one of your presidential candidates literally calls mexican people murderers and rapists

[QUOTE=Cloak Raider;51122788]no, you can't be arrested for being racist there's a clear and obvious difference between arresting someone for expressing racist views in public that cause distress, and arresting someone for being racist you're arguing against a strawman, not the actual point [editline]28th September 2016[/editline] [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_the_United_Kingdom[/url] i recommend reading this[/QUOTE] This is probably more relevant, at least to the thread. [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_and_Religious_Hatred_Act_2006[/url]