So you know nothing about othering and the dehumanising effect it has.

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The difference between here and jez is that this is an actual thing to get genuinely mad about. Over on that side, the writers spend a lot of time inventing outrages and spurring on the community. I think everyone will agree that though you have a right to say and draw whatever you want, any form of discourse inciting violence and intolerance is working against the goals of a secular, modern state.

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Do you really want to live in a nation where newspapers are only allowed to print what the majority finds inoffensive? Has that standard been historically favorable to radical queers? The best response to despicable speech is to call for not less speech, but more speech. Write something funnier, smarter, and more persuasive in response. But let the bigots hoist themselves with their own petards.

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I think we're past the age where it can be argued that anything like this is still a worthwhile opinion. As much has been learned from hateful propaganda as can be learned, and the population of your country has decided to go so far as to democratically enact laws against it because of its pernicious effects.

I think that's a pretty fair example of free speech. If you believe that freedom is simply saying whatever you want regardless of consequence, then you're not a fit citizen for a democratic country.

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THe difficult part is to decide when an opinion is one that is genuine, and should be argued respectfully, and when one has as simple goal to raise hatred and promote violence towards a group. This is an extremely difficult thing, but all the most worthwhile intellectual efforts are always very fine balances.

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@dogisdead: First of all, political cartoons by their nature invite discourse. These aren't the sidewalk drawings of some random person. They were drawn and published precisely to get a message across to people. When you publish something, you are participating in a public conversation and inviting dialogue.

Furthermore, the people who make the laws do not come from a vacuum. They are affected by the same social messages we all receive. If we don't react to intolerance and prejudice where we see it, then those ideas can take hold and will seep into the legal system. That is why courts long upheld laws precluding blacks from being treated as citizens, preventing interracial marriage, allowing women to be discriminated in employment, etc. It was was not until the implicated parties were able to affect the public discourse that they began to make headway in the law. Culture and law are not separate; they reinforce each other.

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Mill was mostly talking about two things. 1) freedom of the press, and 2) freedom of opinion in religious matters.

In terms of freedom of opinion, he spoke pretty much exclusively about two things 1) the opinion is true, or 2) the opinion is false. His whole thesis is about when people take intellectual disputes into the public IN GOOD FAITH.

If you actually look at the end of the "on liberty of thought and discussion" section, he starts to touch on what happens when people deliberately misstate their arguments, exaggerate, etc. But he never actually goes into what happens when people outright LIE in order to damage another group.

But if you go into the last section "applications", you'll find the following "there are many acts which, being directly injurious only to the agents themselves, ought not to be legally interdicted, but which, if done publicly, are a violation of good manners and, coming thus within the category of offences against others, maybe rightly be prohibited".

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