{"id":53475,"date":"2015-05-21T12:00:46","date_gmt":"2015-05-21T17:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=53475"},"modified":"2015-05-20T19:53:41","modified_gmt":"2015-05-21T00:53:41","slug":"if-you-can-keep-it-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=53475","title":{"rendered":"If You Can Keep It"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m not going to say that this is the most depressing thing I’ve read in ages<\/a>…<\/p>\n

…oh, the hell I’m not. \u00a0It absolutely is:<\/p>\n

YouGov\u2019s latest research shows that many Americans support making it a criminal offense to make public statements which would stir up hatred against particular groups of people. Americans narrowly support (41%) rather than oppose (37%) criminalizing hate speech…<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And yes, as PJ O’Rourke reminded us, the ones who’d burn the Rights of Man to save the snail darter are mostly left of the aisle:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

…but this conceals a partisan divide. Most Democrats (51%) support criminalizing hate speech, with only 26% opposed. Independents (41% to 35%) and Republicans (47% to 37%) tend to oppose making it illegal to stir up hatred against particular groups. Support for banning hate speech is also particularly strong among racial minorities. 62% of black Americans, and 50% of Hispanics support criminalizing comments which would stir up hatred. White Americans oppose a ban on hate speech 43% to 36%.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And just so we’re clear – “stir up hatred” doesn’t mean “actively advocate violence”, which is already illegal. \u00a0This refers to, for lack of a better term, offensive speech.<\/p>\n

I’m becoming genuinely depressed about the future of this country, as a country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m not going to say that this is the most depressing thing I’ve read in ages… …oh, the hell I’m not. \u00a0It absolutely is: YouGov\u2019s latest research shows that many Americans support making it a criminal offense to make public statements which would stir up hatred against particular groups of people. Americans narrowly support (41%) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,18,310],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","category-pc","category-speech-rationing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53475"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53478,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53475\/revisions\/53478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}