In many countries hate-speech is a crime. Should thought-speech be a crime too?

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Supposing police find a private diary expressing racist ideas. Should they be allowed to prosecute?
 
No. Hate speech shouldn’t be a crime either. I stand for your right to say that which I most detest.
 
Under existing law yes.

But should the law be changed to incorporate the idea that society itself is harmed when its members harbour such thoughts, because the potential for them to act on such thoughts is there.

By analogy: if police discover a conspiracy they so not have to wait for it to be implemented before acting.
 
No.

Among other problems with this: Define racist.

You realize we’re now living in a world where certain people define almost anything as ‘racist.’ Milk, I see in one article is ‘racist.’ As a for instance.

While many may laugh this off, this is exactly why ‘a private diary expressing racist ideas’ should not be prosecuted. What if that private diary says “I bought milk today” and the authorities in charge define milk as racist?

While this may sound ridiculous, there have ALREADY been articles that talk about milk being racist and this speaks directly to the point: WHO DECIDES what is ‘racist’ in your private diary?

Furthermore, will it also be a prosecutable offense if someone writes in their diary, “I don’t want my brother marrying a white woman.”? Will such ‘racist’ thought crime laws be applied equally?

This brings us back to the question of WHO DECIDES what is a ‘hate crime.’
 
Poet said:
Furthermore, will it also be a prosecutable offense if someone writes in their diary, “I don’t want my brother marrying a white woman.”? Will such ‘racist’ thought crime laws be applied equally?
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Of course not. Since all whites are supremists, whites are not a protected class, and people of color cannot be racists in hating whites. That is the new Alice in Wonderland mantra on the streets.
 
Hmm, I wonder, if I (Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.) your post, will I be guilty of hate crime? 🤔
 
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Is it illegal to have racist ideas? I’m not talking about inciting violence, just the ideas of not liking a group of people because of their skin color. (No, I don’t condone racism, btw)
 
At the moment it’s legal to have any ideas you like, but in some cases you are not allowed to express them.

As the old German goes:

Die Gedanken sind frei
 
What would be an example of it being illegal to express racist ideas? And would that extend to a diary?
 
In England, if you make a racist statement it is incitement to racial hatred and can be prosecuted. In practice this would only happen if it were done in a very public way.

You are still allowed to write what you like in your diary if it’s unpublished.
 
Then I think you’ve answered your own original question. You can’t prosecute something that isn’t illegal to begin with.
 
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I didn’t ask “if” I asked “should “. There’s a difference.
 
Maximian said:
Supposing police find a private diary expressing racist ideas. Should they be allowed to prosecute?
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You asked if they should be allowed to prosecute, no? DAs prosecute people for committing crimes, no? If something isn’t illegal to begin with, what’s there to prosecute? Are you asking if it should be illegal to have a racist thought that’s discovered in a diary? That’d be a different question. No…I don’t think so because it’d be a slippery slope and what constitutes racism is rather subjective these days.
 
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You said “Should they be allowed to prosecute”. I copied and pasted it. I’m not sure what I’m not getting here. I’m sorry for that.
 
Presupposing the actual statement of the topic, which is that it should be made a crime.
 
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