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bildung

> But that is always how these things start.

There is no automatism. In many countries hate speech is forbidden, without them devolving into a dictatorship.

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I think that's pretty arguable. Hate speech laws in the UK have been used in pretty questionable ways:

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/stephen-birrell-s-convic...

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-19883828

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/03/satanic-isla...

This is just a small selection. Obviously the UK has not "devolved into a dictatorship", but it is clearly censoring non-violent political speech.

> "Hope they [ie, Celtic supporters] all die. Simple. Catholic scumbags ha ha."

This is non-violent political speech?

Robert Watts said this about the draft during the Vietnam war:

> They always holler at us to get an education. And now I have already received my draft classification as 1—A and I have got to report for my physical this Monday coming. I am not going. If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L.B.J.

L.B.J. meaning president Lyndon B. Johnson. Watts did this in front of a crowd while miming aiming with a rifle. The crowd applauded him.

SCOTUS ruled it legal under the first amendment.[1] I agree with their decision and I wish more countries had such stringent protections for freedom of expression.

1. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/394/705

Birrell and Ahmed's convictions seems to go too far, they didn't actual incite violence or criminal activity and I think that's an important line. Is 'I hope they die' reasonably interpretable as incitement to kill? I'd say no, but is it hate speech? I'd have to say yes so from a legalistic point of view the prosecutions may have been legitimate. The concept of hate speech is a slippery slope though.

On the Satanic Islam case, the guy was acquitted on all charges so I don't think that supports your argument.

Anyway thank you for your last comment. I agree some of these cases went too far, but that doesn't mean we're some kind of oppressive police state. Neither of the two people convicted in these cases deserve any sympathy, in a broader moral sense they deserved everything they got, but at the cost of an erosion of our civil liberty protections at the margins that I hope we don't come to regret.

Ya I don't want to make it out to be more than it is. It's certainly not an oppressive police state. But is it chilling speech a bit at the margin? I'm not sure that the answer is yes, but i'm also not sure that the answer is no, and that is concerning to me.

Count Dankula was a big case as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Meechan#Arrest

He was arrested and convicted for literally saying "gas the jews". That is inciting violence, and a very clear case of hate speech.

He was arrested and convicted for making a pug react when he said "Gas the Jews" to make the puppy appear less cute.

I don't think there was any intent for a Pug to start a new holocaust.

That's not incitement to violence unless he actually has the means to do it. If you tell a joke in bad taste, it's not incitement.

It was clearly a joke. Are we also going to ban stand-up comedians for making Holocaust jokes?

"My GF thinks this pug is the cutest thing ever, so I'm going to make it the least cute thing in history - a Nazi"

And then trained it to react to things like "Gas the Jews" and "Sieg Heil". This is not at all a central example of speech inciting violence.

Funnily enough, Nazi Germany also tried to prosecute someone for training a dog to salute when Hitler was mentioned [0] - apparently that was disrespectful.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_(dog)

How was he inciting violence? He trained a pug to do a nazi salute as a way to make it less likeable to his girlfriend(or at least, that is the set-up to the video). A prerequisite for the joke is that "gas the Jews" is an abominable thing to say, and that the Nazi salute is as far away from "cute pug" as you can come.

Hate speech involves intent. Here he used "gas the jews" as a means to project intent on a pug to make a cute pug Nazi. The joke is that a cute pug is a Nazi, and the joke would not work if that wasn't considered that a bad thing. The point of the video is "Nazi = bad".

Jesus, what a brain dead ruling.

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