Hate Speech Laws FALL APART — When You Ask This Question
Episode Stats
Summary
In this episode, we discuss the topic of hate speech and how it can come across as hateful. Do you think hate speech should be criminalized? Should people be jailed for hate speech? Is it a matter of free speech? Should we criminalize hate speech in order to protect people from discrimination? What is hate speech, and what does it mean to be hateful?
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Do you think truth could ever come across as hateful?
00:00:03.140
Yes, there's fact, and then there's also my opinion of what's true, right?
00:00:06.820
How can we be absolutely sure that there's no absolute truth?
00:00:09.800
Because then that would be an absolute truth in itself.
00:00:13.740
The conversation I'm hoping to have with people today, though, is if you think that hate speech is free speech.
00:00:22.560
So do you think we should criminalize hate speech?
00:00:26.720
um yeah i would say so yeah but what is hate speech like what constitutes it right because
00:00:35.320
like we need to define if we're going to criminalize it we should define it right yeah
00:00:39.620
um i would say like discriminating people based on like gender or like class or like any of those
00:00:48.000
factors would be like um constituted as hate speech like i like i don't know like or any like
00:00:54.320
bias along like those lines of like class gender age like any sort of that kind of thing right
00:01:00.000
okay but so what happens say we have a world where okay we have that sort of no one's allowed
00:01:06.160
to discriminate and someone thinks that they're being discriminated against but it was never the
00:01:11.660
intent to discriminate should that conversation to be had between the people who like said it and
00:01:18.800
the intent behind it you know like that that's between them to kind of like maturely have the
00:01:24.560
conversation of like that wasn't my intention but like also for the person to have um have like a
00:01:30.980
place to say like you know this is how what you said could be misinterpreted as such and like this
00:01:37.320
is how you can be more careful in the future right so but if we're going to report discrimination
00:01:42.160
then it's up to the person who feels they've been discriminated against to report it and it could
00:01:47.460
be more of their perception right of whether they were discriminated against that's true yeah right
00:01:53.940
so then we're then we're viewing everything on like a personal lens right which could it could
00:02:01.120
be a dark path because some people like personalities aren't alike some people might
00:02:05.500
just generally be more tough love and that might be how they interact whereas other people might
00:02:11.800
just be like view that differently they might view that tough love like even just in different
00:02:16.140
cultures if you go out west there's so much more tough love right yeah and that could be viewed as
00:02:21.440
discrimination then if you're like if you're I don't know just like any tough love right it could
00:02:26.180
be any instance yeah right so like I feel like it's a dark path to just say like any perception
00:02:33.160
of discrimination could be hateful right so like we need something a little more firm
00:02:39.480
yeah right so i think so i think the rules should be necessarily that you have to agree with
00:02:46.760
everyone's like cultural beliefs and stuff like that though even if you meant it without intent
00:02:50.440
still think that those things can come off the wrong way or like right the wrong way because
00:02:54.580
i mean we do live in canada yeah we're like you know there are certain gender norms and
00:02:59.960
or cultural norms that exist here as well and you know like certain things from another culture
00:03:05.620
like you don't have to agree with that i know there's things that have been said to me that
00:03:09.240
i definitely wouldn't agree with right like i've been told by people like who live in countries
00:03:14.560
where women's rights aren't valued as much right like that um i shouldn't have as much rights as
00:03:20.540
i do and stuff like that and right and i should be thankful for that i have so much right as i do
00:03:24.440
for living in canada but like to me that's just normal right so yeah yeah and i would say though
00:03:32.220
when we go down the path as far as like people viewing what is discrimination what isn't like
00:03:37.700
we would basically seek to create a society where offense is not possible where no one ever gets
00:03:42.460
offended ever but i don't see that it's not possible right so i think i think it's a little
00:03:49.520
tough to say that like if someone gets offended yes they could personally view that as hate speech
00:03:55.000
but everyone else might be like well no that's that's just your opinion it wasn't meant to come
00:03:59.880
across as that right so i think i don't know i think it's that standard i mean it's different
00:04:05.000
if you're just seeing it from the public view whereas if you're actually in the situation
00:04:09.200
it's you're the one who it's being said to right like I feel like that's a lot more personal because
00:04:15.360
like I don't know if that person who says like oh it might not be hate speech is actually in the
00:04:20.820
actual position right I feel like then they're going to interpret that way differently okay
00:04:25.440
yeah that's yeah because I feel like it's it's a lot different when you're actually in the
00:04:30.820
position right like you can be like oh like maybe that was you know like not in context of what the
00:04:35.800
person actually meant but then if you're the one in the situation right I feel like that's way
00:04:40.020
different because okay you're more likely to personalize that right yeah um and the thing I
00:04:46.160
would ask you too though um as far as like hate speech do you think truth could ever come across
00:04:53.340
is hateful yes because I think everyone has a different definition of what truth is I have my
00:05:01.180
truth right but lots of people don't believe in the same things I do I know I don't agree with
00:05:05.360
everyone else's beliefs um and so yeah I think truth can be hateful because like there's fact
00:05:11.440
and then there's also my opinion of what's true right so for example like if I'm religious and
00:05:15.860
I believe in God that's my truth but it's not everyone's truth right so if I'm imposing that
00:05:20.500
on someone else then yeah that could definitely be hateful even if it's with good intention right
00:05:24.820
right my truth isn't for everyone and i think it's unfair to impose that on someone else so
00:05:30.380
yeah yeah so then i feel like then the the path we go down is like everything is entirely
00:05:37.880
personalized which could be a very very narcissistic society in my opinion if we have
00:05:45.820
no standard of how we're going to apply law right because the law the law that we apply can't just
00:05:51.900
be like personal and change all the time i think there's got to be one universal standard though
00:05:57.560
of how we go about everything possible because everyone has different cultures and beliefs and
00:06:02.460
i don't think it's i don't think we're ever going to come to a place in society where everyone has
00:06:05.880
the same like belief system right but our standard of justice though should be fairly universal would
00:06:13.840
you agree yeah for sure but um i feel like it's subjective based on what you believe in
00:06:19.520
right but the government should represent all people yeah yeah i agree with that so then like
00:06:28.100
they should have their their what they institute their justice shouldn't be like like determined
00:06:36.900
based on like i don't like each demographic right they should well like it shouldn't be like pandered
00:06:42.480
to one group of people they should be like impartial right yeah no for sure yeah so then
00:06:47.720
there are problems of that that probably exists in the justice system for sure but i don't think
00:06:52.720
that should be the case i think but yeah for sure they definitely need to be impartial yeah but i
00:06:57.740
think no matter what it's important like it's still very important to like value one another's
00:07:02.200
beliefs right yes definitely yeah give space for that so yeah i think our society is very
00:07:07.400
personalized and that can definitely be a negative thing but then again that's also just
00:07:11.820
the freedom of what society is right yeah yeah but then yeah so i don't it's a deep it's like a
00:07:18.660
very long conversation that we could have i'm sure you got somewhere to go but but yeah like
00:07:23.860
just like the thought though of like personalizing all justice like it it it could it could be a
00:07:30.340
weapon where it's like too much right like a personalization because it's hard because when
00:07:36.040
the intent is isn't negative right then that makes that conversation really difficult yeah and like
00:07:40.820
it's like yeah it's hard to be the one like in the situation because obviously anyone could
00:07:46.220
interpret anything personally right like I feel like anything that is said could be interpreted
00:07:50.560
as I don't know something negative towards someone else right like right that's just
00:07:55.500
kind of how our society functions which is difficult because people are constantly going
00:08:00.240
at each other being like oh that's all that right yeah yeah no I do I agree with you yeah so I don't
00:08:06.500
know i just i think i think when it comes to hate speech though when it comes to discrimination there
00:08:11.160
needs to be something it should be universal it shouldn't be it shouldn't be personal standard
00:08:16.040
yeah for sure and if we go about i don't know it's it's difficult to even go where you're like
00:08:22.620
criminalizing based on a feeling that was given right it's difficult i don't think that's
00:08:29.680
necessarily the path that we should be going down for sure and it shouldn't be personalized justice
00:08:34.220
it should be like a universal standard so we do need yeah in our government held accountable yeah
00:08:38.620
standard for sure yeah so we do need some truth then yeah like some standard of truth in our
00:08:43.600
government and i think that's a difficult thing to determine like what is truth right because
00:08:47.980
i mean again it's hard to have unbiased truth right that everyone agrees upon right okay yeah
00:08:57.320
i don't know that's like a whole other deal though right to go about truth but um i do think
00:09:03.120
there has to be some like objective truth right like that's the whole idea of government and
00:09:08.500
i would say though like like if we think that there's no absolute truth like how can we
00:09:15.620
be absolutely sure that there's no absolute truth because then that would be an absolute
00:09:19.760
truth in itself exactly right exactly right so that's a good point so yeah i think i don't know
00:09:27.080
it's it's it's just something to think about um but i think there's got to be you know there's
00:09:31.600
got to be some standards some truth somewhere yeah for sure