Danish Politician Convicted of Racism For Offending Muslims

[Elok]

What criminality rate? Our general crime rate is high because we've made an obscene fetish of gun ownership and pursued unworkable drug policies. Among other things. I don't think our failure to fine or jail skinheads for talking crap is a major factor.

[Bereta_Eder]

Cops shooting blacks because everyone can say they are inherently dangerous might contributed to that though.
Also freely discriminalizing someone could lead to what is called a self fulfilling prophecy.
Pedagocially for example it's confirmed.
I think it's called "re-enforced attitudes"

[Elok]

Cops shooting blacks is much more complicated than that. I can't claim to be an expert on it myself, but I think the two factors I cited are the big ones there. The WoD created an awful lot of black criminals, since the lower classes the drug trade fed on were and are disproportionately black and our prisons tend to reinforce criminality. And of course when the streets are flooded with guns cops are a lot likelier to shoot first.

I'm not arguing for a world where everyone's chipper about racism, let alone where it's taught in schools. I just don't like the brainless bum-rush that occurs every time anyone says anything offensive. We should argue against racism firmly, calmly and rationally, not by screaming BIGOT and calling for sanctions at the drop of a tweet.

EDIT: I am arguing against the status quo here, mind you. Ours is not a society where a public authority like a cop can say something like "blacks are inherently dangerous" out loud and expect to be employed at the end of the week. I would allow for such virulent reactions to police chiefs, because they are definitely in a position to do serious harm. In reality, of course, the mindless mob phenomenon cannot be stopped; in its modern form I believe it's the inevitable result of the proliferation of information channels.

[Bereta_Eder]

If there are no amalgams (=the lumbing together of people in one group) then it's fine. If not then it's a... fine.
That's fine by me

edit: hate speech is hate speech. if one wants to analytically explain why a group of other people are inherently dangerous/inferior that's hate speech too.

Hate speech is:"I hate you because you're you and everyone else that's like you".

That danish politician claiming that "muslims are picking up where hitler left off" is hitler.
I agree that his position augments his responsibility (or lack of, as is the case)

[Elok]

He doesn't look like Hitler to me. He looks like a dumb loudmouth making a glib statement on a medium essentially designed to encourage glib statements. If his organization is doing criminal things--say, harassing local Muslims--I would advise the Danish authorities to focus on prosecuting that, or speech ancillary to that. E.g., "hey, Hans, let's go throw rocks at the Pakistanis" probably counts as conspiracy to commit assault or some such. Saying stupid crap on Twitter, by contrast, is basically farting in the pool. I don't know how Denmark can resolve its particular issue with Islam (I know nothing of the country), but I suspect the fines will do little more than give them some extra revenue.

[Bereta_Eder]

It is helpful, in this instance to point out that Denmark is a laguard (is that the word?) in receiving immigrants, especially muslims compared to its more tolerant swedish neighboor.
They basically quarel all the time about that.
The bad immigrants (muslims) are eating away on their beautiful socialist paradise and its welfare, is the narative.

But coming back to the point: someone saying that a group of people is bad is laying the foundations for going to stone that group, and, when circumstances allow it, do more than that.
When an elected person is saying that, then it has even more authority. (this is the second largest party there, lest we forget)

It's also morally wrong from the onset.

[Elok]

Well, when they start feeling resentful towards the group, that's laying the foundations for saying bad things about said group. If technology allowed, would you criminalize that? Where exactly do you draw the line when it comes to penalizing people for theoretical future consequences of actions that are not, by themselves, harmful? As for morally wrong, not everything immoral is, or should be, illegal. To return to the Ashley Madison example Imran dredged up, while adultery might have legal repercussions when it comes to divvying up the spoils from divorce, it is not itself illegal.

By laguard, do you mean laggard? Someone who is slow and late to do something? We have a similar narrative to Denmark's concerning Mexicans, but since our welfare state is relatively small we tend to also whine about them stealing our jobs. Which is weird since we really shouldn't feel threatened by a bunch of uneducated day laborers who barely speak English.

[Bereta_Eder]

Well I suppose the answer in where you draw the line, is in that article.
You say some racist stuff on twitter because you've drunk a couple of beers and you can't get laid (probably because of your racism), you pay a thousand bucks.
You do it again, it's probably going to cost you more
etc etc

I suppose the promptness of the reaction by the authorities is explained by the fact that he's a politician.
You won't go immidiately to jail if you say racist stuff, no.

yes, laggard, thanks.

[Bereta_Eder]

For example a stellar example of a greek politician twitted that now europe is the europe of gays or smoething like that, just because his pants got in a twist after the luxembourgian PM married his male sweetheart.
There was a swift reaction and condemnation by the gov. (the former right wing mind you) but he didn't got slapped with a fine. Denmark is more advanced in that it seems.
Although I doubt how you would prosecute him since a "europe of gays" is hardly offensive. But the spirit of it was.

[Elok]

Okay, what's the point of hassling the drunk in your example? Beforehand, he was (I assume) watching his mouth in general; something obnoxious slipped out when he was drunk. And it cost him a thousand bucks. The fine is not going to change his mind. On the contrary, it will very likely harden his opinion, because now not only are the Jews evil, they obviously use their control of the government to silence anybody who points out how evil they are. The loss of his money would make something previously abstract into a concrete grievance. And, since he can't blow off steam by talking crap anymore, I would argue he's actually more likely to let out his feelings by random acts of moronic violence. In the meantime he'll just grouse about his feelings to like-minded coworkers over lunch. This is not logical, no, but if he were logical he probably wouldn't be a racist in the first place. If the goal here is to reduce the incidence of racism, I think you're going about it very poorly.

[giblets]

Are fines actually necessary? It seems like being condemned by your party is enough.

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[Sava]

Imran, Niko is obviously not endorsing genocide in any way, shape, or form so can we please despense with the claims that he is a Nazi? That is just childish.

You're a racist piece of **** too. **** off.

[Bereta_Eder]

Okay, what's the point of hassling the drunk in your example? Beforehand, he was (I assume) watching his mouth in general; something obnoxious slipped out when he was drunk. And it cost him a thousand bucks. The fine is not going to change his mind. On the contrary, it will very likely harden his opinion, because now not only are the Jews evil, they obviously use their control of the government to silence anybody who points out how evil they are. The loss of his money would make something previously abstract into a concrete grievance. And, since he can't blow off steam by talking crap anymore, I would argue he's actually more likely to let out his feelings by random acts of moronic violence. In the meantime he'll just grouse about his feelings to like-minded coworkers over lunch. This is not logical, no, but if he were logical he probably wouldn't be a racist in the first place. If the goal here is to reduce the incidence of racism, I think you're going about it very poorly.

I think he will never say that again (and remain in politics).

[Bereta_Eder]

Are fines actually necessary? It seems like being condemned by your party is enough.

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Well, I guess the law should be applied to all equally.
If the law calls for such a fine then why shouldn't he pay it, as every other one would have.
Being a politician shouldn't mean being above the laws.

[Elok]

Re: changing attitudes, I simply don't believe that overt hostility is what does it. I'm not a racist (except in Savaland) b/c I went to schools that taught me to adore people like MLK and Rosa Parks, and a lot of my classmates were black. People in this country didn't change their minds on gay marriage because of endless liberal tut-tutting; they changed as the result of concerted efforts to portray gay people as normal, healthy and sympathetic. My own attitude towards the gay marriage movement actually swung somewhat against it because of the swaggering, bullying tactics they used. I still believe gay marriage ought to be granted, in the abstract, but I'm inclined to think very poorly of the people pushing for it.

In general, people don't like self-appointed moral authorities trying to shame them. It's an illogical tactic vaguely akin to doubling down on threats towards a hostile power "to show them they can't push us around." The natural human response to aggression is retaliation, or if the threat is overwhelming a kind of sullen deference while biding one's time.