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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   28357 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 28, 2023

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I would push even further than Nybbler and assert that "the Holocaust should happen" is not specific and concrete enough to be a candidate for "call to violence" exception.

Given the very special treatment of the holocaust in comparison to other genocides one could make a good case that the holocaust legislation amounts to little more than anti-blasphemy laws.

Agreed.

If you can say "Maybe it's true though?", no matter how abhorrent, it is speech that needs to be protected. In fact, the more abhorrent the more it needs the protection.

You can't "Maybe it's true" a call to violence like "Shoot this bastard".

"Maybe it's true this bastard should be shot"?

That would apply if the person said "This bastard should be shot", instead of the statement they hypothetically said.

Which does bring in the complication of how you deal with mafia threats like "Nice place you got there. Would be a shame if something happened to it". But again, the principle is clear: you're allowed to express that people have nice things, and you're allowed to argue that this bastard should be shot, you're not allowed to threaten.

So the burden is on you to make the case that "this bastard should be shot" or "nice place, would be a shame" is actually a threat, because the statement it is pretending to be is absolutely protected speech.

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