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JK Rowling has challenged Scotland’s new hate crime law in a series of social media posts - inviting police to arrest her if they believe she has committed an offence.
The Harry Potter author, who lives in Edinburgh, described several transgender women as men, including convicted prisoners, trans activists and other public figures.
She said “freedom of speech and belief” was at an end if accurate description of biological sex was outlawed.
Earlier, Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf said the new law would deal with a “rising tide of hatred”.
The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 creates a new crime of “stirring up hatred” relating to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or being intersex.
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Ms Rowling, who has long been a critic of some trans activism, posted on X on the day the new legislation came into force.
You can weaponize an opinion, that is what is getting punished.
Where you draw the line? And who is drawing it? Will you be equally happy when conservatives will use the same tools against opinions they see as dangerous?
The line was drawn by Western governments that all agreed gender identity is a protected group of people. Stop trying to pick apart policies that protect people at the cost of bigots’ freeze peach. Free speech is the ability to criticize your government without going to jail for it. It is not meant to protect your right to trash minorities.
And my point, governments have a history of using such laws in the end to get rid of critics. Sure this time it will be completely different. I would love to share your optimism, but you will have to allow me to remain skeptical.
Interesting that no one makes this point outside of the trans debate over whether or not they deserve equal rights against hate rhetoric.
I make that point in general, that I don’t trust governments with regulating speech. By the way I’m all in for private platforms regulating speech, would not hang around here otherwise.
There is no slippery slope if the law protects the weak from the strong.
And I don’t trust governments with defining and enforcing those lines, when it comes to speech.
So you would let people yell Fire in a theatre?
I don’t think it’s a case of a law protecting weak from the strong. Since that was what I replied to.
But it’s a fair question where I draw the line. It’s somewhere with direct and indirect consequences, which is hard to define. I absolutely agree that her speech might have very tangible real consequences to real people from a group she is targeting. But than again it’s due to actions of other people “inspired” by her words. While when shouting fire, you create panic just with your own words. Than again one can definitely incite violent actions through media. But that it is even more complicated since it becomes about intent and interpretation.
So you do think governments should enforce speech laws. I just want you to stop using this as an argument by itself.
If you look a bit on the history of fascism, they often attack liberal systems as oppressive because of laws that muzzles the hateful. Once in power, their first move is to muzzle the opposition.
Don’t be duped by their tactics, the oppressed few can barely get equal rights and the hate army is marching to take that away swaying the weak-minded with a narrative of free speech.
There is plenty of discussion to have about “the line” but we need to move away from free speech absolutists like Musk that once they get power they use it for censorship.
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Please spare the rest of the world with your preaching about the abuse of freezepeach laws. America’s is so much more abused than any other western country, its a joke.
What do I have to do with USA? USA would be a rather good example why government should not have the power to censor speech.
Its usually only Americans who are that totalitarian in their presence of protecting freezepeach, thinking we don’t all know what they really want to protect.
What speech exactly is it that would be stopped from saying here, that you feel a need to say?
I think the line is being drawn at “don’t sympathize with
terrorist groupsan opressive theocratic government” (publicly stating “at least the taliban know what a woman is”) and “don’t directly fund hate groups”.(Edited, see comment below)
That’s not sympathizing with terrorist groups.
Using the Taliban as your source for moral authority is 100% aligning yourself with a terrorist group. Perhaps “sympathizing” isn’t the most accurate word, but are we here to be insufferable pedants or understand the issue?
That’s not what “at least” means. It’s saying “even these assholes–”
She referenced the Taliban as a moral authority over anything
She is literally saying the Taliban holds more moral highground than trans folks.
Neither of those is “using them as a source for moral authority” or “aligning herself with” that group.
When I say “even Mitch McConnell knows The Idiot is responsible for January 6th,” I still fucking hate Mitch McConnell.
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Can you think of one valid reason why anyone would cite a terrorist organization as a moral authority in anything? Replace the word “Taliban” with “Nazis” and see how it sounds.
Terrorist for ones are maybe freedom fighters for others - kind of sketchy line over there.
Whose freedom does the Taliban fight for? Because the people in the country of Afghanistan don’t feel very free.
They were fighting against first Sowjet and than US-American occupation.
Technically correct, the best kind of correct! (they are technically the legit government of Afghanistan despite being a proxy warzone for the US and USSR(?) as I understand it)
When you woke up today did you decide you were gonna make excuses for the Taliban right there and then or did it kinda just happen? Holy shit.
Taliban are obviously the only terrorist group on the planet and rebels were never before labeled as terrorists.
Which other terrorist group did that TERF sympathize with?
How should I know? I personally don’t follow those crazy people.
They’re not rebels. They literally are the government of Afghanistan.
Do you ever try to understand what the other person is saying? Why bother otherwise?
Who draws it? The government?!
Is this really what you want? Do you realize those in power may not always share your same idea of wrong-think?
What could go wrong? Assange and Manning would like a word with you.
Bad faith framing of the issue. OPSEC in critical national security operations is a little different than respecting people’s gender identity. Not even in the same ballpark, it aint even the same sport.
Maybe bad faith interpretation of my argument on your side.
Or, maybe I got it right when I assumed that you were comparing Assange and Manning leaking information critical to military operations to Trans people not being the target of hate speech?
Or maybe you got it wrong and that’s not the point I was making?
The reasoning used in Assange and Manning case, is that information they made publicly available is endangering peoples lives. That is not unsimilar to the argumentation that hateful speech is endangering people targeted by it.
Slippery slope fallacy “You’re okay with the government saying certain ingredients can’t go in food? Where does that stop? Will you be equally happy when a government you disagree with uses the same tools to dictate everything that goes in your food?”
“You’re okay with the government saying certain areas are off limits to the general public? Where do you draw the line? Will you be equally happy when a different government uses the same tools to forbid you from leaving your home?”
Is this specific step reasonable? Then it’s okay. When they try to take an unreasonable step then it is appropriate to do something about it.
My argument is more, that while I trust at least some governments with deciding on what food is safe, I don’t trust governments at all with decisions about what speech is permitted.
Hate crime laws already exist. In Germany it’s illegal to deny to Holocaust. These are good laws. The creation and acceptance of good laws does not necessitate the creation and acceptance of bad laws.
“But what if conservatives ape what you’re doing and make shit up?” is an all-purpose argument against doing anything.
“But what if conservatives call you a terrorist?” is both a real problem that happened to people, and an obviously shite reason to say “therefore let’s not fight terrorism.”
Stop treating “but who decides?” like a table-slapping counterargument. Every law has a line. Unless you’re an outright anarchist, someone has to draw a line, somewhere, and choosing not to draw a sensible one never seems to stop assholes from drawing an unreasonable one. I mean for fuck’s sake, have you seen American states censoring school libraries for fear of acknowledging queer people? That’s not some backlash or ironic reversal. They’re just bastards. The fact they’ll latch onto whatever we’re doing, as an excuse, doesn’t make us responsible for their bastardry.
Yeah, so let’s not play their game and not give governments any tools to be able to censor anyone. In best case in some constitutional form.
“Yeah, the opposite of what you just argued.”
Try again.