this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2023
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Hate speech is not protected speech and people advocating for hate speech as "freeze peaches" usually want to abolish the actual freedom of speech
Is it "hate speech" when people are protesting against an oppressive, evil ideology? Would it still be hate speech if someone burned a Bible?
it depends on the form of protest and yes burning the bible in public is hate speech and not a constructive criticism of christianity or the churches, were i'd be happy to join in as there is a lot to criticise. But that criticism can and should be voiced without burning bibles.
Should criticism be able to be voiced without burning literature? Yes. Do I think climate activists should be able to be heard without disrupting people's commutes by blocking traffic? Yes.
Unfortunately, sometimes activists are ignored without an unusual act of protest, and protests should not be considered hate speech unless they're directly calling for violence towards a group. I don't think burning a book falls under that category.
With all that being said, the government should not be responsible for deciding what a person can or cannot do unless they're actively hurting another person.
Climate protests have a specific goal in changing policies and economic practicises.
Burning a Quran has no specific target. It targets muslims as a group entirely. And there is also no goal, no transformation, nothing better to strife for, in it. It is just hate of islam and muslim people. The only target could be to abolish the religion as a whole and ban people from practicising it. that is nothing but persecution. And you cannot argue that the people behind it would want anything less, as they are attacking the key symbol of that religion. Or as a methaphor, you don't slap someone on the wrist by stabbing their heart.
I would argue that their target are Muslim extremists, not just your average Muslim. Why can't the two groups be differentiated?
ItΒ΄s the people who burn the Quran publicly who are not to differentiating though, because burning the Quran publicly as a provocation is an offense to all Muslims, not just the few extremists. If it would really be about targeting fundamentalists they would burn the symbols of those instead of the universal symbol of all Muslims.
If they want to target muslim extremists they could burn a Daesh flag. But they burn the Quran because they don't want to target the extremists. They want to target all muslims, which is why they choose the symbol of all muslims.
In the same wake you wouldn't burn an EU flag to criticise the hungarian government. It would of course be understood as an attack on the EU and all EU countries, because you know, you could just take a Fidesz flag. (Arbitrary example, the same would work for any country, political party or figure)