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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 135168
Posted: 23 August 2025 at 3:41pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

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Matt Reed
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Robotmod

Joined: 16 April 2004
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Posted: 23 August 2025 at 4:28pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

Banning books is terrible.  Full stop.  That said, I always get a chuckle from the people who ban any of a number of things mostly having to do with thoughts and ideas as if their banning it means that children (mainly) won’t be exposed to it.  First lesson about banning anything is that people will always seek out that which others hope you never see.  The very act of banning means it draws more attention to it than it otherwise would have.  
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Brian Miller
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Joined: 28 July 2004
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Posted: 23 August 2025 at 6:04pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply

I’m just waiting for MEIN KAMPF to be made required reading in all schools.
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Petter Myhr Ness
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Joined: 02 July 2009
Location: Norway
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Posted: 24 August 2025 at 8:26am | IP Logged | 4 post reply

One of my favourite quotes from the third Indiana Jones, courtesy of Henry Jones senior:

"It tells me that goose-stepping morons like yourself should try reading books instead of burning them!
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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
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Posted: 24 August 2025 at 10:48am | IP Logged | 5 post reply

I attempted to read MEIN KAMPF when I was in college. My motivation was a desire to understand the mind of the man who unleashed upon the world the greatest horrors of the Twentieth Century. I got about a third of the way in before giving up. But I would still recommend that any thinking person give it a try. Especially now.
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Stéphane Garrelie
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Posted: 24 August 2025 at 11:12am | IP Logged | 6 post reply

I can understand banning books, or persons, preaching hate.
I can't understand banning a fiction.
Book of thoughts, even wrong, of science even false, can be explained and need to be anoted and commented, not banned. 
Some, of any of those categories,  shouldn't be in the children section, but that's it. Adults should have access to everything or close to it.
Particularly in a public library or a bookshop.
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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
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Posted: 24 August 2025 at 12:44pm | IP Logged | 7 post reply

I can understand banning books, or persons, preaching hate.

••

By whose definition?

On the internet the word "hate" has come to mean any disagreement. "Haters gotta hate."

Watch Trumf ban anything that is less than super flattering to him, labeling it "hate speech".

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Trevor Smith
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Joined: 21 September 2006
Location: Canada
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Posted: 24 August 2025 at 1:43pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply

He's already firing people that report statistics he
doesn't like. He's not that far away from it.
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Stéphane Garrelie
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Posted: 24 August 2025 at 2:12pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply

By whose definition? (JB)

*********

Preaching a genocide is an exemple, or racism.

And i think people shouldn't be allowed to stand a rally in front of an abortion clinic where very vulnerable women can be their victims. Harrassment isn't ok with me.
That's not a question of being in favor or against abortion, it is about accepting bullying of vulnerable people or not.
They can still write about it or do a rally, but somewhere else.
I know it is not the american way, and that the american law allows this.
For me, and i am more in favor of adoption than of abortion (even if i think that if abortion there is, it should be done with the maximal security of modern medecine.) bullying is never acceptable, and even less on vulnerable people. 
The freedom of some ends where the one of the others begins.

To avoid that a tyran (or anybody else) could label anything a hate speech, a legal definition can help. It may be imperfect, but it is a point of reference. A point that can be contested, and changed by the parliament (the United States Congress in this case), but as long a it stands it is the law (or would be, if it was) ; moral or immoral ; good or bad. And it is not just the whim of the said tyran, or the opinion of a citizen or a preacher. That's how i think it should be, and it is sad that some behaviors makes it necessary.
Without a law what is orr not a "hate speech" is a matter of opinion. Without a law, the strongest wins, whether he is right or wrong, fair or unfair. 

But as i said, i am not American. This is what i think, but not my decision nor the country where i live.
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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

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Posted: 24 August 2025 at 2:18pm | IP Logged | 10 post reply

Preaching a genocide is an exemple, or racism.

•••

You miss my point. Once we start to ban “hate speech” we quickly lose control of what is defined as “hate speech”.

What is conceived as protection becomes a weapon.

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Stéphane Garrelie
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Posted: 24 August 2025 at 2:26pm | IP Logged | 11 post reply

Not if it is fixed by the law. A common, legal, defenition, that can evolve, but only through a process, and a vote.

It may be a bad definition, but it won't be constantly changing on a whim.

A law that should not be necessary, and would not be between decent people.


Edited by Stéphane Garrelie on 24 August 2025 at 2:27pm
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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

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Posted: 24 August 2025 at 2:40pm | IP Logged | 12 post reply

Not if it is fixed by the law. A common, legal, defenition, that can evolve, but only through a process, and a vote.

••

What planet are you from, Stéphane?

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