Stew Peters Advocates for a Violent Overthrow of the Government

Flying Squid@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 269 points – Stew Peters Advocates for a Violent Overthrow of the Government | Right Wing Watch
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Why this is important:

Stew Peters is a far-right virulently anti-LGBTQ bigot who regularly uses his nightly “The Stew Peters Show” program, speeches, and social media accounts to promote white nationalists and antisemites and to spread wild conspiracy theories, bigotry, and calls for violence. Despite his bigoted views and unhinged rhetoric, Peters regularly manages to get Republican leaders, elected officials, and candidates for office to appear on his program. In addition, Peters has participated in ReAwaken America events alongside various Trump insiders and members of the Trump family.

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At least in the US, speech is a protected right. So protected that it's actually the first part of the bill of rights. So naturally, any limitations on speech must be limited. This changes from place to place. For example in Europe you don't have such strong speech protections so something like showing a Nazi flag can get you years in prison.

Having said that, I think speech is one of the very few things that the US actually does better than Europe. While it may allow for people to say obscene hateful things, I believe it is dangerous to give the government the power to interpret what is valid and non-valid speech. Right now the government, while having many problems, is more or less reasonable. It doesn't take much imagination, however, to envision a future where a couple radical strongmen politicians (or even just one) fundamentally changes the nature of the federal government to a point where any dissent can be considered "hateful"

I say "white families have 10x higher net worth on average than black families" and all of a sudden it's a hateful statement because some government official claims I'm trying to guilt all white people. I go to jail or otherwise get censored.

How come Alex Jones was not allowed to state that the Sandy Hook massacre was staged?

It wasn't a criminal charge so he never was at risk of going to jail. He got sued for defamation.

Defamation must involve someone making a false statement of fact publicly — typically via the news media — and claiming that it’s true. An opinion can’t be defamatory. The statement also must have done actual damage to someone’s reputation.

The parents suing Jones say his lies about their child’s death harmed their reputations and led to death threats from Jones’ followers.

Essentially if he had said "I think sandy hook was a hoax" he would have been fine. I think the judge also wanted to make an example out of him, given the nature of his statements.

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