The “Harry Potter” author slammed a newly enacted hate-crime law in Scotland in a series of posts on X in which she referred to transgender women as men.
J.K. Rowling shared a social media thread on Monday, the day a new Scottish hate-crime law took effect, that misgendered several transgender women and appeared to imply trans women have a penchant for sexual predation. On Tuesday, Scottish police announced they would not be investigating the “Harry Potter” author’s remarks as a crime, as some of Rowling’s critics had called for.
“We have received complaints in relation to the social media post,” a spokesperson for Police Scotland said in a statement. “The comments are not assessed to be criminal and no further action will be taken.”
Scotland’s new Hate Crime and Public Order Act criminalizes “stirring up hatred” against people based on their race, religion, disability, sexuality or gender identity.
And you are acting as if because there is one struggling democracy somewhere on the world who has yet to abuse it, all other incidents and examples throughout history for the inevitable abuse of such power are not valid.
You’ve given me one single example of abuse. The one in your country.
Again, that sounds like a problem with your country’s laws in specific.
Do you really want me to list the dozens of instances throughout history where the right to restrict people’s expression has inadvertently caused or helped authoritarians consolidate power? I would think you largely know about those already.
A quite recent example is ironically related to the same topic, namely conservatives and religious zealots wanting to police speech the other way by banning inclusionary language. The other side of the exact same coin. I’m sure you are familiar with that issue since it most prominently happens in america, though plenty of European right wingers are looking to do similar things.
I want you to list the dozens of instances throughout history where, specifically, hate speech laws have done so.
And if your example is one where Rowling was not arrested, it’s not a very good one.
Why are you moving the goalpost now? That’s pretty lame.
I am arguing that the right to free speech is a central element of a free and pluralistic society, and that allowing the government to interfere with it beyond the direct prevention of harm, such as incitement of violence, will inevitably help erode those values, as it has done countless times before. And curtailing them, even with the best intentions, is the start of doing just that.
How am I moving the goalposts? My argument this entire time is that hate speech laws are a good idea. You have given me one single example where they didn’t work properly, which I still contend is about the way the laws were written, not the law itself.
Again, the fact that Bolsonaro did not abuse Brazil’s hate speech laws suggests that autocrats can’t do so if the laws are robust. Your lack of addressing that uncomfortable fact does not make it less of a fact.
The fact that Rowling was not arrested after trying very hard to get arrested (same with Jordan Peterson in Canada) also suggests that this is not the horrific problem you imply.
I don’t want to be rude, but do you really not understand that this first small infraction isn’t the issue, but the precedent it sets? One of my first comments in this increasingly exhausting thread of talking in circles was that this specific instance of interference might even be justified, but that it would open the door to unjust interference.
Just look at your own political system. Reactionary forces are constantly eroding, amending, and expanding on overreaching legislation once it is passed. And your Democrats are just as happy to make use of it too.
One great example off the top of my head is the ”temporary” patriot act, an overreaching anti terror measure that was extended for almost 20 years by various political actors, and (as far as I know) the most critical parts of it got spliced off into other legislation and made law indefinitely.
So if we open that door, and the political climate continues to polarize, chances are at some point in the reasonably near future (a few decades maybe) an authoritarian party or movement will use this ability to interfere with or outright suppress their opposition, dissidents, minorities, the citizens in general, what have you. It only takes a few complicit judges in high places to compromise even the most benevolent legislation. Guided democracy is only ironically cool in helldivers.
As for Brazil, I don’t see how that has any bearing on my point. Just because a government hasn’t abused or wasn’t able to abuse the law this time doesn’t mean that the next won’t do so. Reactionary forces are always at work; patiently and silently lobbying, bribing, influencing, working to control the narrative. Always to slowly erode and subvert the system.
Anyway, I don’t think there is much point in continuing this discussion, you seem very set on the government policing speech and I am dead set on the opposite. We probably won’t convince each other.
Yet again, the only example of this setting any sort of precedent is Germany and yet again, I contend that is because of the laws there being poorly-written.
What happened in Brazil absolutely matters because it showed that, due to the robustness of their hate speech laws, even a would-be dictator couldn’t abuse them.
Badly-written laws will be badly applied no matter what those laws are.