Connecticut (et al)

[MrJonno]

There are incitement to riot laws, conspiracy to murder same as everywhere else. Just about any protest can be restricted in time or location if it makes violence likely (from the protestors) or even those who they are protesting against

[MrJonno]

One might also call that "protection money" or even "blackmail".

In the law it's called "extortion" and one is authorized to use force against an extortionist in self-defense, which is the only rational response to extortion.

In the law its called taxes and you don't have a right to self defence from taxes,

Whether you should pay blackmail/exortion is a practical issue not a moral one. What do I to lose/gain by paying/not paying?.

Only a psychopath want's to live in a castle, most of us try to avoid warzones

[aspire1670]

If you want to prevent goverment/public mass murder you would probably be better of restricting the press, the education system and people in general for 'hate speech' rather than the government itself. That of course is a very high price to pay and brings in other issues.

The evidence of history is all against this. In no place where the press is extremely free do we find rounding up of people by the State. We find it happening by governments who turned off the press (express when it suited them) and defined who to hate.

Rounding up of Japanese American citizens by US government during WW2.

That wasn't wholesale, and the weren't murdered, and just as many Germans were "rounded up" during the war too. It was done because we were at war with those countries -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_American_internment But, those are far cries from the holocaust, the purges in the Soviet Union and the Chinese cultural revolution.

But, the point is well taken to this extent -- bad things CAN still happen even in democracies. All the more reason to have a check against majority will.

The No True Roundup fallacy. And the US Supreme Court TWICE upheld the internement of American citizens who happened to be of japanese descent.

[laklak]

One might also call that "protection money" or even "blackmail".

Perhaps, though that is stretching it. The end result is, however, a better result for society.

Nice restaurant you got here, be a shame if something happened to it.

[MrJonno]

One might also call that "protection money" or even "blackmail".

Perhaps, though that is stretching it. The end result is, however, a better result for society.

Nice restaurant you got here, be a shame if something happened to it.

If you pay your taxes, you get a very nice government who doesnt tend to break your legs for not paying only, they just stick you in jail acting as your 'insurance' rather than Keith the mallet man

[laklak]

They're named Keith over there? Generally around here they're called Guido or Tony.

[Coito ergo sum]

There are incitement to riot laws,

Not "hate speech." You said all countries have hate speech laws. Inciting a riot is not that. And, inciting a riot is not "saying something that causes other people to riot." An incitement in the US means "fighting words" - this requires the words to have no substantive communicative value and be of a kind that call for immediate violent reaction by the person to whom they are directed. It's not just offensive or inflammatory speech. Saying stuff like - "hey niggers! You're all a bunch of monkeys and animals! Die niggers! Die!" is - as a matter of law - not fighting words or "incitement." But, "There! That guy! The nigger! Right there! Grab him and kick him in the nuts! Kill him! Kill that nigger!" That's incitement and fighting words.

conspiracy to murder same as everywhere else.

In the US, conspiracy always requires an overt act in order to be punishable. Mere conspiracy - sitting and talking about killing people -- is NOT punishable. If you sit around and talk about killing someone AND take non-speech action in furtherance of the conspiracy (like get your guns and burglars tools together to carry out the plan), then it is punishable. But, without an act, it is NOT criminal.

Just about any protest can be restricted in time or location if it makes violence likely (from the protestors) or even those who they are protesting against

Nope. Not in the US. And, "making violence likely" is not any sort of a test for when protests are allowed. ALL protests make violence more likely than it would be without the protest.

You're just wrong about US law -- in the US, hateful and inflammatory speech is protected. That is why if you see a hate group, like the KKK, holding a rally, the police line up protecting the KKK members hollering their racist diatribes. They keep the counter-protesters away, and if counter-protesters start throwing rocks or rioting, then the counter protesters are arrested. That is how it works here.

[Seth]

Jim

I have no argument with that view. However, it is difficult to implement better systems. While some people always end up on welfare who should not be there, and there are always welfare cheats, the attempts that have been made in the past to reduce these problems rather all too often result in genuine cases being mistreated. Real poverty can be the result.

Which is why it's a community-based problem to be solved, not a federal one. Charity at the community level is much easier to administer because those providing the charity can assess the actual need of those asking for help and decline to provide it to those who don't actually need it.

I give some of my charitable donations to the Catholic church, which administers it much more efficiently and effectively than any government program, which are all filled with fraud and waste at the bureaucratic level.

Government programs often skim as much as 30 percent of donations just to pay "administrative expenses" of the program, which is a code-phrase for "keeping useless bureaucrats employed."

If I really want to maximize my charity dollars and their effectiveness I give them directly to poor people I know who live in my community. Better yet, I talk with them and determine what they really need, then I go buy those supplies and give them what they need so that they cannot take my money and blow it on crack whores and liquor.

Did that just the other day with a very poor woman with eight children living in an apartment with two other meth addicts. I bought clothes and socks for her children, but did not give her any money, which she would have blown on meth.

That's how community-based charity for the poor works best. Federal welfare programs are nothing more than Progressive traps for the dependent class that have absolutely NO intention of raising the people they "serve" (read: enslave) out of poverty. Rather these welfare programs are carefully calculated and designed to keep the people in poverty and keep them dependent on Progressive government for their very lives as a way to ensure their votes for Progressive candidates.

For example, the system is set up so that you can get more in the way of government assistance (about $168 dollars per day per household on poverty assistance on average for all forms of assistance) than you can by working (about $137 per day per household for the national median income). Worse, because welfare benefits aren't taxed, but earnings are, people trying to escape the welfare trap have to find jobs paying substantially MORE than what they get in welfare in order to simply maintain the income they can get from the government.

And as soon as a welfare recipient starts making ANY money, the welfare benefits are cut off completely, so there is no way to work up to self-sufficiency, they have to jump in with both feet and hope that their paycheck gets them at least as much as they were getting from the government.

As a result, many dependent class welfare recipients stay on welfare as long as they can simply because it makes economic sense.

And this is exactly what the Progressives (and Marxists) want...a dependent class that's locked in to the government teat and will therefore vote for whomever (Democrat/Progressive/Marxist) promises to keep the gravy train running.

Welfare is a very cynical plot to enslave minorities and the poor FOREVER, nothing more. We now have three GENERATIONS of minority welfare-forever citizens dependent on theft from others for their very survival. That's got to stop.

[Coito ergo sum]

If you want to prevent goverment/public mass murder you would probably be better of restricting the press, the education system and people in general for 'hate speech' rather than the government itself. That of course is a very high price to pay and brings in other issues.

The evidence of history is all against this. In no place where the press is extremely free do we find rounding up of people by the State. We find it happening by governments who turned off the press (express when it suited them) and defined who to hate.

Rounding up of Japanese American citizens by US government during WW2.

That wasn't wholesale, and the weren't murdered, and just as many Germans were "rounded up" during the war too. It was done because we were at war with those countries -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_American_internment But, those are far cries from the holocaust, the purges in the Soviet Union and the Chinese cultural revolution.

But, the point is well taken to this extent -- bad things CAN still happen even in democracies. All the more reason to have a check against majority will.

The No True Roundup fallacy. And the US Supreme Court TWICE upheld the internement of American citizens who happened to be of japanese descent.

It absolutely is not the No True Scotsman fallacy. We were talking about mass killings on a grand scale.

But, I did point out that EVEN IN a democracy there can be rights violations. In Jonno's conception of the issue, the fact that the Japanese and Germans were put in camps to wait out the war is just no big deal because it just means that the American people were a bunch of jerks -- it's our own fault. In my conception of the issue, it is a danger to be recognized and guarded against.

I clearly pointed out that there is no way to eliminate all violations of rights. But to protect rights you first have to RECOGNIZE THAT THEY EXIST. This is something Jonno doesn't do. What would have happened to the persons interned in, say, Nazi Germany -- Soviet Union - or Communist China? Would a free press be helpful in either preventing or at least subsequently redressing a grievance about internment? Were the millions interned, jailed and murdered in Germany, Russia and China able to receive any redress in those non-free speech countries? Was some redress available to the interned Germans and Japanese in the US? And where were the violations worse and on a grander scale?

[Seth]

Ultimatley the British people can elect parliament to do absolutely anything, they can pass laws rounding up anyone with ginger hair and shooting them. There is nothing in the British system preventing this and nor is there a need to. If the British people want to round up ginger people then they are the problem not government.

Good God, that's the most evil thing I've heard since Hitler decided to kill all the Jews. I find it hard to believe that you're not a poe and that you're just jerking our chains, because that statement is flatly insane.

[MrJonno]

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2 ... tests.html

In it a very sensible statement

"The movement has a right to exercise speech, but the city has a right to regulate its public spaces," Los Angeles Deputy City Atty. William Carter said.

I'm sure one person can demonstrate outside the Whitehouse with little notice, I suspect a million turning up without telling anyone in advance is not likely to be so welcome.

I don't know how it works in the US but if you want a big protest in the UK you are required to tell the police in advance on safety grounds if anything else. They will work with the organisers (who have a right to protest but not anytime/anywhere), to plan a route, marshalls etc

As far as I'm concerned hate speech is anything likely to lead directly to someone being hurt even if accidentially

[Coito ergo sum]

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2 ... tests.html

In it a very sensible statement

"The movement has a right to exercise speech, but the city has a right to regulate its public spaces," Los Angeles Deputy City Atty. William Carter said.

Of course. But, they can't regulate public spaces by censoring speech, even hate speech. In the US "regulating public spaces" means time, place and manner restrictions and noise ordinances. They can't just prohibit Occupy LA from demonstrating in public spaces. And, they absolutely cannot regulate the content of permissible speech.

I'm sure one person can demonstrate outside the Whitehouse with little notice, I suspect a million turning up without telling anyone in advance is not likely to be so welcome.

They turn up all the time. The city is allowed to require permits for large demonstrations, but they can't deny those permits based on the content of speech. They can only deny the permit because there is already another demonstration scheduled. In the US, such permitting is only legally used to allow the city to allocate enough resources to police and clean up after the demonstration. They have no power to refuse the demonstration the right to demonstrate, even if they are hateful.

I don't know how it works in the US but if you want a big protest in the UK you are required to tell the police in advance on safety grounds if anything else. They will work with the organisers (who have a right to protest but not anytime/anywhere), to plan a route, marshalls etc

As far as I'm concerned hate speech is anything likely to lead directly to someone being hurt even if accidentially

That's almost all speech that pisses people off. That's the worst definition of hate speech I've ever heard. "Impeach President Bush!" yelled loudly enough by enough people would be likely to lead directly to someone being hurt, even if accidentally.

[laklak]

Skokie Illinois, The National Socialist Party of America and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Just sayin.

[MrJonno]

Ultimatley the British people can elect parliament to do absolutely anything, they can pass laws rounding up anyone with ginger hair and shooting them. There is nothing in the British system preventing this and nor is there a need to. If the British people want to round up ginger people then they are the problem not government.

Good God, that's the most evil thing I've heard since Hitler decided to kill all the Jews. I find it hard to believe that you're not a poe and that you're just jerking our chains, because that statement is flatly insane.

Shit people commit mass murder, government is the tool not the cause. Hitler didnt decide to kill all the Jews the German people did, blaming Hitler is a copout

[Coito ergo sum]

Ultimatley the British people can elect parliament to do absolutely anything, they can pass laws rounding up anyone with ginger hair and shooting them. There is nothing in the British system preventing this and nor is there a need to. If the British people want to round up ginger people then they are the problem not government.

Good God, that's the most evil thing I've heard since Hitler decided to kill all the Jews. I find it hard to believe that you're not a poe and that you're just jerking our chains, because that statement is flatly insane.

Shit people commit mass murder, government is the tool not the cause. Hitler didnt decide to kill all the Jews the German people did, blaming Hitler is a copout

Sure, and laying blame is interesting. Taking measures to prevent the tool from being used again is a more useful goal. Sitting back and saying "well, it's happened, so we may as well just let it happen" because if we're such jerks we'll do such things, then it's our own fault anyway, is rather pointless and silly.