I was responding to the examples you brought up. These cases you brought up here infringe on the rights and liberties of other people. In the case of child porn, the child is not able to give concent, and therefore it is illegal. The case of praising Al Quaida is not illegal and is protected by the constitution, the offer of money to kill the President is illegal because you are solliciting for the murder of someone. Same case with the bank; you are threatening physical violence againt another person and property, therefore violating their rights under the constitution. I know the Germans are making the case of holocaust denial being incitement, but I cannot see how someone getting up on a podium and saying "the holocaust never happened" incites anyone.

__________________
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The criminalization of the holocaust-denial would for the idiots only be an approval and helps them to hide their ridiculous opinion from public.
The effect is, that the extremists appeal less extrem than thy really are.

I believe, that freedom of speech would be a greater danger for holocaust-deniers than the ban.

What if those demonstrations are declared (by the government) to disturb the peace? What if they are declared to be inciting hatred of the government?
Once we set a precedent that the state has the power to ban the expression of certain historical views, is it really that big a jump to banning certain political views?

Well, interestingly the law about "Holocaust denial" was introduced in in the 1990ies. As far as I know it was a reaction on a decision of the German Constitutional Court that holocaust denial isn't protected by the basic right of freedom of speech. If the other requirements are met, it can constitute a case of "Volksverhetzung". Germans are obviously quite sensitive about this topic, given the catastrophe that started in this country in the 1930ies. As I tried to explain earlier, it's also a reaction on the experience of the failure of the Republic of Weimar after WWI and the rise of the Nazis, where hate speech, propaganda obviously played a very important role. Including "twisted history" like the "Dolchstoßlegende" ("stab-in-the-back legend").

The government can't just declare such things. They would have to take the demonstrators to court. The court then decides if they have broken the law or not.

But you have broken the law haven't you? Out inciting hatred and all that. What if I think something is worthy of hatred? Why can't I encourage people to hate it?

Well, the court decides if they have broken any laws. Is that so unusual?

If you want to encourage people to hate "something", it depends what this "something" is. And how you do it.

But who gets to decide what we're allowed to hate and what we aren't allowed to hate? I fully agree that we shouldn't hate anyone based on their race, but I don't trust the government to stop there if we say its ok to make laws against hating (or encouraging people to hate).

And I feel strongly that there's no real way to objectively determine when antipathy becomes "hatred" or when someone is purposefully stirring up "hatred" as opposed to merely condemning something. There's no obvious line to cross, no clear definition. Any legal decisions would have to be merely subjective.

Well, obviously sometimes the lines may not be so clear. But I guess that's a problem for a lot of laws. You can hate whoever you want btw. It's about inciting hate against a special group (like on race, religion or nationality).

It is a problem with a lot of laws...I hesitate to add yet another.

The problem with this what constitutes 'hatred' and what happens if the incitement is merely truthful but offensive speech?

For example if I were to state that Jews were overrepresented in comparison to their national population numbers in the early Soviet Bolshevik government would this be hateful? If so, would truth be a defence?

If inciting hatred is a crime would black rappers be subject to legal sanction due to the following...

Racist Rap Lyrics

Or would these laws be applied to the majority alone? Would these laws be applied equally without measure or would they be applied in an unequal measure?

Learn from the mistakes of Canada! Here is how our thought-crime tribunals work up here in Soviet Canada.

This racist, sexist, ethnic, implosion of our most fundamental principle and right to be equal of every other person before and under the law is thus replaced by a pernicious and ultimately deadly "Group Rights" legality, totally alien to our historic, inherent legal principles.

Enforcement of the Human Rights Act of Canada and the Human Rights Codes of the provinces has led to the establishment of Human Rights Commissions. They administer the HR Acts and Codes. They try to decide if claims should be brought before a Human Rights Tribunal, for which they also appoint and are responsible for these same judges.

Human Rights Tribunals break every right and principle established over hundreds of years of our legal heritage. These courts are vindictive, biased and an affront to all the fundamental beliefs of our English-speaking and even our French speaking citizens.

Human Rights Tribunals are Racist and an abomination and have no place in our once-free Society.

First, these tribunals are the only tribunals in any of the British Commonwealth nations to presume to have the right to punish non-criminal behaviour. They are separate and apart from our regular court system, although appeals from their judgments may be made to the regular courts (even though many of the so-called crimes have no basis in law). Further, the very concept of "tribunals" in our ancient common law legal system is a totally alien except in a military setting. They are an anathema to free people.

Second, the judge presiding over these tribunals is just one person, not three as the word "tribunal" would suggest. Third, the judge is almost always a Visible Minority person or a Homosexual person while the person charged is always a member of the majority. As such, the judge is always in a conflict of interest situation. Fourth, there are no rules of evidence; anybody can say anything or produce any evidence, verifiable or not. Fifth, there is no right to confront the accuser (the Complainant). Sixth, the person charged (the Respondent) is presumed guilty and forced to prove his or her innocence, the reverse of our most ancient legal right.

Seventh, all investigation and legal costs incurred by the Complainant are paid by the Human Rights Commission. Win or lose, there is no expense to the Complainant.

Eighth, the Respondent, win or lose, pays all his own costs, legal or otherwise.

Ninth, if the respondent loses, he is normally subject to a fine of up to $10,000 (this can be much more and new recommendations are calling for "no limit").

Tenth, and most unfair, if the Respondent (the person or Corporation accused) has to pay a penalty, the money is not a fine going to the State as in a regular court, but is a penalty paid directly to the Complainant. A Win-Win proposition for the Complainant! No wonder the Human Rights Tribunals in Ontario are years behind in dealing with a huge backlog of these cases.

The majority of cases brought to the Tribunals have been cases of discrimination brought by visible minorities. It is therefore, largely, a one-way race-based anti-white mechanism. It is a racist behavioural tribunal which means that Canada has broken our fundamental law of equality before the law. How far has this implosion of our society gone? It is now against the Human Rights Act of Canada (and many Provincial HR Codes) to cause a minority group member to suffer "Mental Anguish" ("Hurt Feelings").

Shades of kids in the schoolyard? "Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me." Well, the adjunct to that saying was, "Listen buddy, if you want to live in a free country, you better have a thick skin!" Apparently, our current crop of lawyers and politicos don't know or don't give a damn about the principles, rights or freedoms of today's ill-informed Canadian citizens.

Canada's Racist Laws -- The Destruction of our English-Speaking British History and our Individual Freedoms

The article is what one could expect with democratic people confusing gleefully ethnicity, lineage and culture.
Quite incredibly enough, this democratic introduces english speaking people are a race. Quite hard.
One point I had to investigate more is about the behaviour of democratic english speaking people to democratic french people in the early days of democratic canada. It seems that I recall a few democratic canadian attempts to ban french language like prohibition of school learning in french and so on.

Whatsoever, with this new democratic law coming up, one can see that democracy is indeed progressing fast in democratic europe.

"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it." (Mark Twain)

I like that, I hadn't heard it before.

I'm going to add it to my sig.

Well, obviously such laws need to be interpreted by the courts. I'm not an expert on this. But I don't think your first example would be problematic. It may depend on the context though.

The Rap Lyrics ... hmmm ... don't know ... I guess some of that stuff could be problematic.

WRT equality ... I guess in Germany (and probably also in other European countries) there is a special focus on "Nazi stuff" ... I guess you could call that "unequal" in some way. Though technically it's valid for all kinds of cases.