That's how law enforcement works everywhere. You don't have to have committed a crime to be arrested.

Say it three times for posterity.

That's how law enforcement works everywhere. You don't have to have committed a crime to be arrested.

What about in your country?

To arrest you the police need reasonable grounds to suspect you’re involved in a crime for which your arrest is necessary.
The police have powers to arrest you anywhere and at any time, including on the street, at home or at work.

The rules are different in Scotland.
The police arrest procedure
If you’re arrested the police must:

identify themselves as the police
tell you that you’re being arrested
tell you what crime they think you’ve committed
explain why it’s necessary to arrest you
explain to you that you’re not free to leave
If you’re under 18 the police should only arrest you at school if it’s unavoidable, and they must inform your headteacher.

The police must also contact your parents, guardian or carer as soon as possible after your arrival at the police station.

https://www.gov.uk/police-powers-of-arrest-your-rights

That's an ignoratio elenchi.

Which country can you be arrested for not committing a crime, then?

That's how law enforcement works everywhere. You don't have to have committed a crime to be arrested.

All of them.

Expect in your country, which states the exact opposite.

Expect in your country, which states the exact opposite. — NOS4A2

Expect?

Anyway, no it doesn't. You be trollin'.

For posterity. The dumbest thing I’ve heard all day.

That's how law enforcement works everywhere. You don't have to have committed a crime to be arrested.

To arrest you the police need reasonable grounds to suspect you’re involved in a crime for which your arrest is necessary.

https://www.gov.uk/police-powers-of-arrest-your-rights

It would be really funny if you genuinely don't realise your glaring error here. I'm not going to spell it out for you, though.

I haven't been following this thread, and it is 61 pages long now, so I am not going to read all of it. I apologize if I go over ground already covered.

It occurs to me that speech acts might not always be truly distinct from acts of violence.

Speech isn't always simply a matter of passing information. It is also often gestural and emotional, and potentially injurious. Think of the difference between a person telling you when your plane will depart and someone getting in someone's face and aggressively yelling a terrible, demeaning insult. The content is qualitatively different, even though both involve speaking.

Whether the violence sometimes involved in speech is serious enough to warrant banning speech acts is another matter. And the difficulty of deciding in a court when speech acts constitute violence is another matter. And it could be argued that the benefit of allowing unfettered speech is greater than that of banning some forms of speech.

But what does violence really amount to? Must it always involve overt physical damage to a body? Even if it does, given the current tendency to reduce minds to physical processes, you could argue that verbal attacks actually cause physical brain changes that damage mental health and even physical functioning. An insult can sometimes be more damaging than a punch. Sometimes verbal harassment even drives people to suicide.

And it isn't really clear to me that actual physical attacks can be fully distinguished from speech acts. They often are a sort of communication. Sometimes, you kill people just to get obstacles out of the way or to eliminate threats, but often, punching someone is a way of expressing your feelings to them, of telling them how strongly you feel, a way of rebuking. I remember clearly as kid when I was ceaselessly pestering my nephew and he finally punched me in the eye. I got the message!

I actually think even in the case of mass shootings that it might be fruitful to see these acts as gestures by which the person is trying to communicate something. If we want to understand and deal with mass shootings, there might be value in trying to understand what these people are trying to say and why. Perhaps they are partly motivated by their intense feeling that they are not being heard.

To say that mere speech can't hurt (sticks and stones...) makes me think of my brother when we were kids. He would often sit next to me and point his finger at my eye, just and inch or two away, and keep at it, and when I'd complain, he'd say, "I'm not even touching you!" With speech acts, I'd say that you really are touching people. You are touching them often in their innermost regions, in their hearts and minds. You can get past the heaviest physical armor and go straight to heart of a person with the right hurtful remark. And you can cripple them with such a blow.

Consider that there is even such a thing militarily as psychological warfare and social engineering, which largely consist of speech acts. Consider the recent events in US politics, where it seems that Russia was using social media to drive wedges into the cracks in American culture, helping to bring us down from the inside. This could be seen as an act of war. No shots were fired. But we can all see the damage.

If some forms of speech are indeed acts of violence, how do we square freedom of speech with restrictions on violent behavior?

But what does violence really amount to? Must it always involve overt physical damage to a body? — petrichor

In my view, yes. I'd have no psychological crimes.

But that's arbitrary, like saying that I'd have no crimes that begin with the letter "M".

You could be detained as a suspect and suspect doesn't necessarily mean perpetrator.

You could be detained as a suspect and suspect doesn't necessarily mean perpetrator. — Shamshir

Ah, you ruined it. He probably already knew the answer but was just trolling, anyway. Hard to believe someone could be that stupid.

You could be detained as a suspect and suspect doesn't necessarily mean perpetrator.

Suspected of what? Committing a crime.

Don’t let the sophist’s casuistry convince you that you can be arrested without committing a crime. That’s arbitrary arrest.

But that's arbitrary, like saying that I'd have no crimes that begin with the letter "M". — S

We'd have to define how you're using "arbitrary," but do you think that non-arbitrary stances are possible? If so, how?

We'd have to define how you're using "arbitrary," but do you think that non-arbitrary stances are possible? If so, how? — Terrapin Station

I'm using arbitrary in the way made obvious by the example I gave. And yes, through reason.

Suspected of what? Committing a crime.

Don’t let the sophist’s casuistry convince you that you can be arrested without committing a crime. That’s arbitrary arrest. — NOS4A2

I've never been more convinced that you're a troll until now. I think you've gone a little overboard and need to work on your subtlety.

You’re trying too hard, pal, and digging yourself into holes you can’t get out of. Try relaxing a bit and discussing the topic.

I'm using arbitrary in the way made obvious by the example I gave. And yes, through reason. — S

How do you reason to a moral stance?

How do you reason to a moral stance? — Terrapin Station

From premises to a conclusion. You know how reason works, so why ask?

Try relaxing a bit and discussing the topic. — NOS4A2

Sorry, I got distracted by your apparent stupidity relating to how law enforcement operates. (I say "apparent", because if it's not stupidity, it's trolling).

The problem with so called hate speech as opposed to other modes of speech is that it is not easily defined. When does an expression of opinion become an expression of hate? Of course it can be both at the same time and we do want to protect the expression of any opinion. Sometimes it may look like pure hatred, but even then the speaker could probably make the claim that there is some legitimate opinion at the bottom.

Also, most utterances about anything would usually articulate some sort of like and dislike and where do we draw the line between dislike and hatred? Maybe it’s obvious any many cases, but in many other cases it isn’t. Anyway, a law that cannot clearly define what constitutes a crime, is a poor law.

Take the recent case of someone who said online that all homosexuals belong in the gas chamber. That person was convicted of hate speech. Now as much as I disagree with everything that person expressed, there are more ways than one to interpret what was said. It probably wasn’t a direct incitement to commit any specific crime. It was probably said in a context where homosexuality was judged as sinful or against nature and even though I find such attitudes despicable I must consent that it is a legitimate opinion that should be protected by the freedom of speech.

True, we do get the sense that there’s strong hatred underlying this remark, but it may conceivably be cool-headed calculation, and that’s an argument one can always make in court. We can never know for sure that there is hate involved because we cannot determine anyone’s true feelings, at least not in the formality of a court.

It is not a very sober statement. It is reckless and rude, but that is a quite different problem. Uncivil behavior is prevalent on the internet, isn’t it, but should it be banned? That would hardly be possible. The best we can do is to create awareness of it and encourage each other to behave with consideration.

Take the recent case of someone who said online that all homosexuals belong in the gas chamber. That person was convicted of hate speech. — Congau

Good.

It was probably said in a context where homosexuality was judged as sinful or against nature and even though I find such attitudes despicable I must consent that it is a legitimate opinion that should be protected by the freedom of speech. — Congau

No, it isn't. That's a misleading statement, since although it accords with the law in the US, it doesn't in most other liberal democracies. It would be similarly misleading to say that the right to bear arms is legitimate. Just try that crap in Europe and see what happens.

And if you mean instead that it's justified, well, no it isn't. Like you said, it's despicable, and there should be consequences, and there are where I'm from, and there are in other European countries.

It is not a very sober statement. It is reckless and rude, but that is a quite different problem. Uncivil behavior is prevalent on the internet, isn’t it, but should it be banned? That would hardly be possible. The best we can do is to create awareness of it and encourage each other to behave with consideration. — Congau

Off-topic.

Good point. Hate speech laws are so poorly defined that it isn’t so much “hate speech” as it is “speech I hate”.

Take the recent case of someone who said online that all homosexuals belong in the gas chamber. That person was convicted of hate speech.

Where did this occur? I’m always interested to see which coddled population requires a Nancy-state to tell them what they can and cannot say or read.

Don’t let the sophist’s casuistry convince you that you can be arrested without committing a crime. That’s arbitrary arrest. — NOS4A2

Consider that you find yourself amongst a crowd of protesters. You're not one, but are detained anyway for interrogation, simply due to being in the wrong place at the wrong time - coming home from school.

This has happened. Where is the crime?

From premises to a conclusion. You know how reason works, so why ask? — S

How do you reason the (moral stance) premises? Or would you say that for some reason, you're simply not allowed to state premises? (For example, if not legislating with respect to psychological states is a premise)

How do you reason the (moral stance) premises? Or would you say that for some reason, you're simply not allowed to state premises? (For example, if not legislating with respect to psychological states is a premise). — Terrapin Station

A number of ways, but yours doesn't tick the right boxes. You seem to purely rely on some feeling of yours without testing it properly. I might have a feeling that there shouldn't be any crimes which begin with the letter "M", but if I just leave it at that or don't test it properly, then it's no good. You'll probably next as me about what tests should be performed, but really you can and should think about that yourself. You wouldn't endorse a methodology which would allow that sort of thing to pass, would you?

A number of ways, but yours doesn't tick the right boxes. You seem to purely rely on some feeling of yours without testing it properly. I might have a feeling that there shouldn't be any crimes which begin with the letter "M", but if I just leave it at that or don't test it properly, then it's no good. You'll probably next as me about what tests should be performed, but really you can and should think about that yourself. You wouldn't endorse a methodology which would allow that sort of thing to pass, would you? — S

The only thing I can imagine that would work as a "test" here is thinking about whether the principle really matches one's feelings/intuitions. Is that the sort of thing you have in mind?