this post was submitted on 12 May 2025
1270 points (97.1% liked)
Comic Strips
16520 readers
2028 users here now
Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.
The rules are simple:
- The post can be a single image, an image gallery, or a link to a specific comic hosted on another site (the author's website, for instance).
- The comic must be a complete story.
- If it is an external link, it must be to a specific story, not to the root of the site.
- You may post comics from others or your own.
- If you are posting a comic of your own, a maximum of one per week is allowed (I know, your comics are great, but this rule helps avoid spam).
- The comic can be in any language, but if it's not in English, OP must include an English translation in the post's 'body' field (note: you don't need to select a specific language when posting a comic).
- Politeness.
- Adult content is not allowed. This community aims to be fun for people of all ages.
Web of links
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world: "I use Arch btw"
- !memes@lemmy.world: memes (you don't say!)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I find that it is mostly Americans who do this sort of thing because of exaltation of free speech. I don't wish it would happen to the US, but it is primarily because they haven't had much experience with inciting hatred that led to genocide. Other parts of the world have had this experience so they have restrictions.
Don't get me wrong, I love free speech as much as the next guy, but as seeing how unbridled speech led to genocide in many cases, I used to be absolutist and now I am on the fence. I think free speech is something that will be perpetually debated. I was told the social contract could define what is acceptable speech and what isn't; but society at times is not a great arbiter of many things.
The indigenous peoples of North America might have something to say about that.
I am not saying hate speech hasn't had any role at all on what happened to Native Americans, but to my knowledge there wasn't a deliberate and systemic call to eradicate Native Americans unlike with the Holocaust or the Rwandan genocide. A lot of native people and colonisers have initially gotten along, but many colonial conflicts happened because of neither misunderstanding or some trumped up cassus belli orchestrated by local colonial officials, which the central government may not know due to poor communications over long distances at the time. Even the Spanish crown have gotten appalled after learning what Christopher Columbus did to indigenous population in Hispaniola, which took a long time for Spain to find out because of long distance.
Again, I am not trying to say hate speech hasn't had any role whatsoever on the genocide on Native Americans, but it is more complicated than that. Western colonisers still saw indigenous people as humans, but lesser if that makes sense. That's why even for the Western Allies, the systemic hate speech and call to rid the Jews had been a step too far, even though they themselves own colonies.
As an American, I can assure you, there absolutely was a deliberate and systemic call to eradicate Native Americans. They were (and often still are) completely dehumanized (there was a period of time in America where bounty hunters could be paid for "Genuine Indian Scalps". It's also still happening, it just seems like nobody cares anymore.
Take the border for example. It's the biggest thing that nobody will shut up about. The border. Border. Border. Border. But what do they fail to mention every single time? Who's home are they building that wall through? Who's land is that?
The Spanish were appalled by some of Columbus's actions, sure, but withing 50 years that cranked that dial up! Or did you think all of those missions and plantations built themselves