Originally Posted by Zichao

Does it matter what it was about? Apparently the key fact here is that it caused harm.

Harm as in physical harm. Such as in "let's burn the gays" and "let's lynch the Blacks". Not as in "I think gays are little sissies who can't stand a bit of pain the way true men do" or "Blacks, yes, you have to admit, they do have funny costumes"...

But the danger is and always will be that the latter can mutate in the former unpleasantly fast.

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Getting beaten to death because you gay, or black, or female, is indeed "harm".

Quote:

Harm as in physical harm. Such as in "let's burn the gays" and "let's lynch the Blacks".

We already have laws against causing physical harm.

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Yes. So whats? You claimed that racism didn't do any real harm, but I think Stephen Lawrence might disagree.

If we're going to ban racism on the grounds that it might lead to violence then we should certainly ban you from advocating communism.

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So is it harmless or not?

Anyway, rather different isn't it? If I said "there might be a ruck at the footy" that's rather different to "lets beat up that darky".

Originally Posted by Zichao

If we're going to ban racism on the grounds that it might lead to violence then we should certainly ban you from advocating communism.

Apart from Contra's point that the two are somewhat different (and I would agree), that's why freedom of expression is such a difficult topic with countries drawing the line in different places.

Basically, I'd say that's one of those question where the border is fuzzy. Sometimes, we clearly can see dangerous talk for what it is: "X are sub-humans and should be enslaved/done away with" and sometimes it's more borderline: "X are funny-looking and they smell too".

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