When you're hot you're hot

When you're not you're not. I. Hate. Being. Wrong... but when I am, I'll admit it.

Free Dominion's Hate Speech Complaint: The offending thread that got FD in some hot HRC water this week has been revealed, and it wasn't, as I was thinking, just a typically ignorant comment that some Sensitivista over-reacted to, it was a doozy.

Not surprisingly it came from a guy named Bill Whatcott, by far the most outrageous poster on the site, a rabid bigot who routinely posts jaw-droppingly ignorant screeds against gays and Muslims; in this case the offending thread linked to this post against Muslims. Even by my forgiving standards, the post in question would qualify as hate speech, so I shudder to think how the HRC views it. It would definitely incite hatred of Muslims in those already so predisposed, some of whom might be found browsing forums like FD. Racist garbage of the highest order. In addition, the complainant went through the forums and found more anti-Muslim posts by Whatcott, clear evidence that this wasn't a one-off situation, but ongoing hate speech by the legal definition.

I still question the wisdom of going directly to the HRC with this, but that's probably just because my kneejerk response to everything is always, as they say in Mexico, "No policia! No policia!". However, there's a line between free speech and the abuse of free speech, and Mr. Whatcott's post clearly crosses it. I hope he intends to pay the fine.

Free Dominion HR complaint

Many will be saying "What the hell took so long!?" now that a Human Rights complaint for Hate Speech has been filed against Free Dominion. Apparently someone saw some thread on FD that they deemed as hateful, took it to the Government and now the wheels are in motion for I guess a fine(?) against the site's owners. Ooooh nooo. Big mistake.

I think it's a load, and I might add one that makes liberals look like the friggin Thought Police the right-wingers accuse us of being. As chock fulla nuts as FD is, what in the world is someone expecting to see when they go there: a bunch of people posting "Kumbaya" verses? Of course not, they're wingnuts and FD is their message board, so anyone going there can expect to see the usual wingnuttery, which unfortunately may be tinged with racism, homophobia, and misogyny. I'm not saying it's good, but it's their site and that's the way they roll, so forewarned is forearmed. I've been known to screencap a couple of FD posts that I found offensive or idiotic and post about them here, but complain to the government? Not a chance, that's out of line and really, quite uneccessary.

This reminds me of last month's dust-up over a fly-buzzed pile of racist excrement RightGirl posted on her blog -- yes, it was reprehensible, but on her blog it's her right to say what she pleases. Other bloggers can show their displeasure (or not) by de-linking or, in RG's case, asking the Canadian Embassy to stop linking to another site she runs. Surely we can police ourselves.

In a perfect world, we wouldn't have to be concerned about hate speech. But it's an imperfect world, and there will always be a minority of people spewing varying thicknesses of bile; the FD-ers of the world are the least of them. Forcing them underground would only divide people further and make the real haters that much harder to isolate. And while silencing hateful comments might seem like a good thing at first blush, isn't it better to know who's making them? The leveling of something as serious as a hate speech complaint against a site like FD (where nobody says anything you won't find on most hard-right blogs) only trivializes truly, dangerously, actionably hateful speech.

So as I write this I'm shocked and awed to say I'm on Freak Dom's side on this particular issue. I hope they emerge unscathed and continue on as a place where nutty conservatives can go to play (and lefties can go to be, in turns, entertained and offended, by wingnuttery at its finest).