California neo-Nazi trying to crowdfund tour of city council meetings to provoke free speech lawsuit

CaractacusPotts@lemmy.ca to News@lemmy.world – 58 points –
sfchronicle.com
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Hate speech is an explicit threat and should not count as free speech. It is very clear what someone saying bigoted things would do if they could get away with it.

A tolerant society tolerates everything but intolerance. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

You don't even need to cite the paradox of tolerance. Explicit threats are already deemed not to be covered by the First Amendment. It's pretty hard to argue that hate speech is not an explicit threat.

Its not even a paradox really. Tolerance is a social contract. If a party violates it through intolerance they are no longer covered by this mutual agreement.

Agreed, but I'm not sure what a better name for the concept would be and a lot of people really need to understand it.

I am so sick of assholes saying, "you lefties are supposed to be tolerant!" when called out on their bigotry.

I’d probably just rename it more descriptively: The Contract of Tolerance

I largely agree with this and in the context of the extremely broad conception of free speech under the Constitution it is an important critique.

However, I think we also need to be thoughtful and careful in how we define hate speech. I am worried that as this idea becomes more popular, some valid and even important speech might get inappropriately labeled as hate speech. A current example is critiques of Israeli military violence being labeled as antisemitic. If we ban hate speech, will it be used to silence those who speak out against similar atrocities? How do we keep the concept of hate speech narrowly defined to the speech that is most likely to cause physical harm?

Also, the first amendment doesn't restrict them from trespassing you.

You can say almost whatever you want , you just can't do it wherever you want.

Time and place restrictions are permissible in certain circumstances but I think you'd have a hard time applying that in a court of law towards a town hall meeting during the public comment period.

Disturbing the peace laws exist. I'm sure whatever jurisdiction he's in has laws that would cover kicking him out.