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comment by b_b
b_b  ·  4416 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Freedom of speech? or hate crime?
Whose quote is that? I love it. We're legislating thought crimes away by popular demand, and it scares me. I think that hate crimes are a terrible idea, in principle. If you beat someone, or kill someone, or destroy property, then you should be punished. Obviously, motive has to come into play somewhere, as in, was this crime intentional, and is the criminal likely to repeatedly offend? But where do you draw the line? I'm surprised that hate crime legislation hasn't been found unconstitutional. The current Court, as much as I don't generally like them, is certainly hell bent on protecting free speech.




cliffelam  ·  4416 days ago  ·  link  ·  
George Orwell, I believe it was from Winston, but it's been years. And I may have mangled the quote.

I blew up a meeting the other day when we did a 'bout face and I said "We have always been at war with East Asia."

_XC

caio  ·  4416 days ago  ·  link  ·  
I believe it's actually from his nerdy friend who's into dictionaries. Ampleforth is his name.

Here's the whole quote from WikiQuote:

    Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten.
cliffelam  ·  4416 days ago  ·  link  ·  
Nice, I'd forgotten that last bit.

I had a friend whose wife thought that everyone should wear a uniform so that you could glance at them and know their job, their SES, etc, etc.

_XC