>
> > Racism and racist speech _do_ lead to immediate
> and unpreventable
> > effect. And if you don't "believe" so, just check
> recent history
> > (Yugoslavia, Rwanda, to name only a few easy
> references).
> > > Speech is a very special category of activity
> because it creates the
> > mental conditions that automatically lead to
> actions. Hate speech
> > generates heinous feelings and hate crimes.
>
Thi certainly doesn't give people much credit for being able to think, and endows hate speech wuth unique properties unknown to any other kind. Why doesn't socilaist speech have this effect? Or even hate speech directed at the capitalists and the state?
In fact there is nothing automatic linking hearing speech of any kind to behavior.
In Rwanda, the genocide was the product of years of careful preparation, including the prior purchase of hundreds of thousands of machetes and other deliberate plans by a clique in the government bent of mass murder which had to assassinate the President to carry through their scene, many previous massacres on a lower level, ethnic oppressions, and Malthusian conditions in circumstances of severe environmental degradation. The final call to "exterminate the cockroaches" would have fallen on deaf ears without some such background. Analogous remarks in different circumstances hold for the much less horrific though still inexcusable massacres in the former Yugoslavia.
As I remarked earlier, European nations seem to be able to maintain liberal democracies with on balance as much or more free speech in the broad sense as the US, despite the specific laws there outlawing hate speech. Although I ardently defend the First Amendment, it's clearly not a prequisite for a free society. I wouldn't support hate speech laws here, and they would not pass constitutional muster (though I have no problem with hate crimes legislation that makes discriminatory intent an element of another crime, e.g., assault and battery, arson, rape, or murder). But I can see why other countries might want them given their particular histories. Nonetheless, the idea that hate speech automatically triggers lynch mob reactions won't hold water.
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