How much hate is enough to warrant repercussions?

I hate finding stupid grammar and other mistakes after the editing time has elapsed.

*I am of the strong opinion that bigotry and hate in any amount need to be held up to the light and shown for the evil they are.

It is sort of a grey area for me. I will think differently about a 15 year old kid and a old ass man.

And once again censorship is when the government tosses you in jail. Getting fired or being publicly shamed isn’t a violation of the first amendment.

Hate and intolerance need to be exposed whenever possible. daylight is the best disinfectant

There isn’t a yardstick. Largely because five different people will have ten different sensitivities to what is hateful and worth punishing, and what is just normal conversation. (By the way, this is why I don’t believe that the various “hate speech” laws are anywhere close to being constitutional – hate speech is so much dependent on the intentions of the speaker and the sensitivities of the listener. There isn’t any good way to measure this, and therefore, how do you apply a standard?

I certainly understand where you’re coming from (I read what you wrote on Thursday), and I understand the pain that you feel every day. Nevertheless, how do you quantify it? Is the threshold for offensive speech different in Georgia? New York? Honolulu? That can’t make for good law.

I don’t see an an easy answer. And I know that this won’t be of any solace to you, but for years I have advocated free speech and discourse, because I think that censorship and sanction are in their own way just as damaging and reprehensible as offensive speech.

I haven’t closely followed the situation. I never watched the program this person was on, but I have heard of it, just as I’ve heard many people comment and post about it.

My opinion is like jp’s – every person has their opinions about different things, and in the US we have the right to speak those opinions out loud. Similarly, other people have the right to form their own opinions about our statements and behaviors, and to speak or act upon their opinions of us (as long as they do not harm us or our property, or threaten do do harm).

If someone has a business deal and the other parties to the deal take offense at something one says or does, they can choose to react accordingly. If there are provisions in the contract that state that it can not be broken because of something one party does or says, than there may be legal consequences regarding breaking the contract. But such a provision is highly unlikely; and in the case of these “reality” programs, I am confident that the opposite is true and the corporate interests have clauses in there to allow themselves to end a contract if any of their pseudo-celebrities does something that they consider ill-advised.

In similar news, I suspect that this statement by the Head of Public Relations for a large corporation will have similar fallout, after all, she is the head of PR, and really should know better; as opposed to being a clueless person who became famous because some corporation decided to exploit for “entertainment”.

@hearkat I am really hoping that someone hacked her account and she wasn’t really that stupid to post something that ignorant. But that is probably not the case.

If “repercussions” include social pushback, then I’d say they’re always warranted. This is how we advance. Positions that were formerly taken for granted (e.g. “Blacks are inferior to whites”) finally get brought into question, then get challenged, then achieve a critical mass that overturns the conventional “wisdom”.

People tend not to question the ideas they’re raised with unless they hear dissenting voices. Most people want to fit in, so our default is to go along. Even if you’re somewhat inclined to take a different view, it takes an extraordinary amount of courage to openly challenge the stance of your social network. That can shift when you see that people not so different from you are taking a stand.

@thorninmud: “If “repercussions” include social pushback, then I’d say they’re always warranted. This is how we advance.”

^ This.

I support everyone’s right to say whatever they want – including things that are “hateful”. I support them as much as I support the right to say something “not hateful”. As a strong advocate of free speech, the right of racist homophobes to spout their views is as important as my right to shout all of my progressive socialist bullsh*t.

That said, as I have said many times here in discussions about religion, I am an advocate of judging people’s opinions and beliefs. They matter. If someone states an absurd belief in public, the appropriate response is often ridicule. We can’t continue to wrap certain belief systems up in a protective bubble and call them “off limits”.

I have been called intolerant of religious beliefs. This is very fair. I am. I am tolerant of religious people, but extremely intolerant of their incorrect and immoral beliefs. The sooner we realize the difference, the better. And most importantly – all beliefs or opinions put on the table are open to analysis and ridicule. This type of intolerance is a good thing. @Hawaii_Jake‘s intolerance towards the bullshit beliefs and opinions that lead to the suffering of humans is a good intolerance.

Here in the U.S. we are surrounded by Christianity. It’s extremely difficult to find solid ground to criticize homophobia in this context. A very reasonable interpretation of their holy book supports this. It is therefore up to liberal Christians to do the philosophical gymnastics to convince their fellow Christians to abandon the relevant parts of the bible. It’s also up to the secular community to stop pretending that there is something valuable in keeping this off-limits for discussion, criticism, and ridicule.

And finally, we have made progress. Like @thorninmud mentions, it takes people – in critical mass – challenging these ideas.

We don’t need censorship. We need to be intolerant of beliefs that are wrong.

^ What he said.

@hearkat “In similar news, I suspect that this statement by the Head of Public Relations for a large corporation will have similar fallout, after all, she is the head of PR, and really should know better; as opposed to being a clueless person who became famous because some corporation decided to exploit for “entertainment”.”

You’d be amazed at how many PR people are absolutely terribly at PR.

A company is under no obligation to retain an employee who violates the terms of employment explicitly stated in a signed contract.

I would wager that there were stipulations regarding “unacceptable behavior”, including any behavior that reflects poorly on the employer.

Contract law is a double-edged sword. Some people are just pissy because one of their own got bit in the ass by the sort of policies they support.

Take it from someone who has played for both teams. I read his FULL statement and he was asked a straight up question and gave an honest answer. He also added that we’re supposed to love people and it’s God’s job to judge. That was left out of the witch hunt propaganda.

Seriously, he’s not a bigot nor is he a hate monger. If anything, the overwhelming backlash that this poor guy has received is immature and uncalled for. His words, I believe, are being henpecked and taken grossly out of context.

Fact from fiction truth from diction, I have yet to be able to find the interview so I will have to go off what has been said about it by the talking heads. What they (the talking heads) have put out there to me doesn’t seem like bigotry, malice or hatred. I can’t say how ignorant or smart he is, but when it comes to the will of God, I have not seen a breech, at least off what the talking heads have presented. To a world dying in their iniquity it would seem like hatred, malice or something like it. He spoke the truth of God, all sin is sin; it doesn’t matter if you are blowing up a bridge you don’t own in the attempt to murder people, boinking your golden retriever, or redacted with another man forsaking women. Man has a sinometer, or want to view one act worse than the other. Then, if you are like some, do not believe in the authenticity of the Bible or the incontestable reign of God, what is in the Bible will look like intolerance, It would be as a plumber trying to make sense of an engineering schematic; there would be no way to figure it out.

Other celebrities are allowed to say things much worse, and be directed at a specific person, not just some generic person in a particular group. That redacted Rosie O’Donnell have more than once maliciously slandered Roman Polanski, and Woody Allen but no one pulled the plug on her. I say it is gross overkill to pull the plug on Phil for speaking his beliefs, even if he said them less than eloguently.

I found the GQ article in question. Couldn’t find the slightest hint of hate, bigotry or any of that.

http://www.gq.com/entertainment/television/201401/duck-dynasty-phil-robertson?currentPage=2

“How much hate is enough to warrant repercussions?” To answer your question, I think the press should be ashamed and a hefty fine should be pursued for every news outlet that openly lied about the intent and context of this harmless interview.

I’m with @tom_g and @thorninmud. All ignorance/bigotry/hate should be subject to social consequences, though not necessarily legal consequences.

In this particular case, I don’t think his suspension from his TV show was unwarranted. If I, as a representative of Fluther, made a stupid ass remark in public, I could be fired, too…and rightly so. That’s just common sense. The first amendment doesn’t guarantee you won’t be fired for being an idiot.

@DWW25921 “Seriously, he’s not a bigot nor is he a hate monger”

Whether he is a hate monger is an open question – I’m leaning towards no. But I do not understand how anyone could read what he said and conclude that he is not a bigot. He’s very obviously a bigot.

@glacial It’s not bigotry if he doesn’t use the word “fag(s)”, or something.

@Darth_Algar Are you fucking serious?

I do believe @Darth_Algar is speaking sarcastically.

I hope so.

I knew this question would devolve into a thread about Phil Robertson’s fucked up interview in GQ. Unfortunately, many jellies don’t take the time to fucking read the details of a question. This question was not meant to talk about his comments. There is a question devoted specifically for that. This question is a different one.

There are some excellent answers in this thread, but there is the inevitable derailing. I am for the first time in my 4 years here. Going to stop following one of my own questions. You all have fun. I’m outta here.

I thought the sarcasm was glaringly obvious.

@Hawaii_Jake Frankly, if you did not want Mr. Robinson and his remarks discussed here then you probably shouldn’t have brought him up yourself. You can’t claim thread derailment when your first words in the opening post were about him.