BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
Why these symbols are no different than verbal or written communication

This may seem a bit trivial, but we believe it is necessary to clarify this issue before we move on. Symbols are not different from any other form of verbal or written communication. They still convey meaning and cause people to take action or form opinions. It is really simple if one thinks about it. If someone sees a "no smoking" sign, a visual symbol with a clearly defined meaning, it is no different from somebody telling them not to smoke. They can feel guilty about smoking, and they can stop. We already assume this in all activities imaginable - nobody would like to see a middle finger pointed at their direction, even though it is not a verbal insult. This is particularly clear with Soviet and Nazi symbols. When someone sees a swastika or hammer and a sickle, he does not interpret these signs as having no modern meaning. Instead, he thinks of the values these things represent. In the case of Baltic citizens, the meaning of these symbols is certainly connected with the atrocities these brutal regimes commited on the Baltic soil. More importantly, these nasty acts were targeting certain ethnic or social groups - Jews in case of the Nazi propoganda or Latvian intelligentsia in case of Soviets. Seeing these symbols in everyday life promotes hatred towards certain groups, and incites people to resort to ugly methods in the pursuit of their aims, as already seen in the actions of local extremist groups.
For the Baltic States it is strategically important to secure good relationship with Russia

Government obviously believes today that international relationship decisions are made only for showing off or complaining. Also they believe that you can yell at Russia as much as you want for the reason that the Baltic States have alternative markets for export and military support from NATO. Mentioned examples about monument in Estonia and reformation of Russian school in Latvia definitely are not examples how diplomacy is supposed to work. Harms of worsening the relationship are way much higher than the government believes. We are talking here not about what Russia might like or what it might not like. We are talking here about which decisions are beneficial for states themselves. You can be arrogant as much as you want, but in the end you would still depend on natural resource (i.e. gas and oil) stream from Russia. We believe that the aim of international relationships is not only soreness and revenges. We believe that international arena is a place where more substantial goals can be reached. And these goals can be reached via cooperation, not conflicting. We believe that upsetting a powerful neighbour, even though you have a protector, just reduces the possible numbers of options and alternatives for future decisions. On the status quo. We are not afraid to admit that for the Baltic States it is very beneficial to trade with Russia. Proximity to Russia is a competitive advantage of the Baltic States, it is a gateway from Russia to the rest of the EU. Being an intermediary between Russia and the EU is what gives most of the benefit to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Geographical location, widespread use of Russian language, and understanding of Russian mentality is something which brings real economic value. So a wise international policy would be to use these trading opportunities, because it gives much more welfare to societies than just keeping the pride and barking at a bear. Having shown the economic benefits, we want to also stress that implementing this plan will make Russia extremely upset for another very important reason. It is the equation of Nazis and Soviets. Russia for whatever reason shows sentiments for all the people who, in their words, liberated the world from the Nazis. They by no means find Soviet regime comparable to Nazis and would be insulted by that. Even though we might consider those crimes being of comparable magnitude, announcing it as the official position would further harm already unstable relationship between the Baltic States and Russia.
Practical harm #1 - Encouraging extremist movements

It is clear that not banning Nazi and Soviet symbols would further encourage violence towards certain social and ethnic groups in the Baltic States. It should come as no surprise that extremist groups are becoming more widespread in across Baltic States. Organisations such as Neo-nazis or Nac-bols are becoming more and more popular, especially in the youth circles. Many find the ideology of these regimes appealing. These symbols play an important role in the activities of the emerging movements. It's easy to see why swastikas and hammer and sickle are so effective for attracting and retaining members for these movements. The presence of these symbols makes these people feel like they are more than just miserable group of youngsters sharing anti-semitic tendencies; they perceive themselves as successors of a grand cause. And there is reason why these symbols were used by totalitarian regimes - they are incredibly powerful. The symbols keep these groups strong. Without them, they are weaker. The reason why we should try to discourage these groups from assembling and engaging in their activities is the great harm they can cause. Already in the Baltic States these groups tend to be violent towards certain ethnic minorities. The crimes commited in the past include desecration of Jewish graves or street violence against gypsies. It is the duty of the state to protect the weakest in our society. By banning Nazi and Soviet symbols we can prevent these violent acts.
Society is ready to live with Nazi and Soviet symbols

Please, read the model more carefully. There is no ban of the usage of these symbols in museums under our plan. We believe that displaying such symbols in museums has a different meaning from displaying them in everyday life (like wearing them on a t-shirt). For example, putting a Ku Klux Klan hooded robe in a museum is very different from wearing it on the streets. On the side of proposition, we also believe that it is important to learn the lessons of the past, and this is the reason why we allow the display of these symbols in textbooks and museums. Displaying them in public by extremist groups has nothing to do with learning the lessons of the past, but is about attracting media attention and thus becoming more powerful or offending other people. We certainly disagree with the last sentence of this argument, and believe that attracting media attention makes an organization politically stronger. First, media is one of the ways to advertise itself and make other people know about this organization. People that share the same ideology will become aware that such organization exists and will enter as new members, thus making the organization more powerful. Secondly, a party that is fighting for the rights of animals have no opportunity to use such powerful symbols like swastika or hammer and sickle. Instead they could use the face of a happy dog as their logo, which definitely won't attract any attention from media and the party won't be able to promote itself by such mean. This puts two parties in unequal conditions and gives one of them a competitive advantage, which harms the competition of different political views. Finally, in the refutation of our first practical harm the opposition says that many people in these organizations have little idea of the ideology that lies behind the organization they are involved in. The reason they join them is a strong symbolic meaning in being a part of this organization which is reinforced by using such powerful symbols as swastika or hammer and sickle. This makes attracting new members for these organizations easier, since they will be able to attract not only those that share their ideology, but also those that like the cool look of swastika on their shoulder and the powerful image the organization using such symbol has.
Right for self-expression

The right for self-expression is not fundamental at all. A person is free to express himself unless he causes harms to other, and what are these harms is decided by society overall. For example, people are not allowed to expose their nudity in public places. They are not allowed to do so not because every individual in society is against it, but because it contradicts norms that are accepted in society. Even if a person exposing his nudity and a person witnessing it don't feel harmed by this action, it is still penalized, because other people in society are against that. This refutes the right for self-expression being a fundamental right. Even if a person wants to wear a t-shirt with a swastika because he supports some good stuff done by Hitler, he still shouldn't be allowed to do so, because society could perceive it other way and because a swastika is a symbol that is generally not accepted by society. For example, a person might wear a t-shirt with a middle finger gesture to show that he likes middle fingers in general and thinks they are beautiful. It is reasonable to assume that other people will perceive such t-shirt offensive. Thus important is how the action is perceived by society, not the primary reason a person had for wearing such t-shirt. Since such misunderstanding is possible, society has developed some basic norms for behaving in public and this will be revealed more in my next argument. Furthermore, a reasonable person from a Baltic state when seeing a swastika thinks about the WWII and all the evil done by Nazi Germany. When he sees a hammer and a sickle he thinks of the Soviet Union and the occupation. It is hard to find a person that would think of public employment for unemployed in Nazi Germany, since there is no link between a swastika and such policy that could be perceived by a reasonable person. These non-evil policies of HItler are more general and were implemented not only in Nazi Germany. If a person wants to promote such ideas, he could wear a t-shirt with a tag "planned economy" on it.
Why is it sometimes legitimate to limit freedom of speech

Both sides of the house agree that freedom of speech can be limited in the case of incitement. Indeed, if we strip the argument of the proposition to its essence, we can see one supporting idea: screaming "fire" incites people to take action, just as the sentence "oppress these minorities" would. This is one of the fundamental reasons to ban hate speech. However, barely displaying a symbol that represents a static set of values and beliefs that were used in a certain period of time by certain countries does incite people take felonious action. It is true that in some cases the Nazi and soviet symbols as static information can generate some dynamic responses, for instance, discussion with friends about skinheads or drunken "communists". In elections, however, it is very unlikely that people will vote for aggressive neo-nazis. The bottomline is, most people do not regard these symbols as particularly offensive here in the Baltic States. These are just textbook history for the youth. And for those who were unlucky to live in the times of Russian and Nazi occupation, the symbols are memories, maybe unpleasant memories, but altering memories is not a government's domain. One more thing. As it was demonstrated with American war veterans [[http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/ARCHIVE/2008/DECEMBER/Pages/ToHealPsychologicalTrauma,TroopsReliveWarinVirtualReality.aspx ]], repetitive exposure to things that make you feel bad can actually heal post traumatic stress disorder. So, repressing symbols might actually do more psychological harm than the SQ.
Practical harm #2 - Hate speech

We do not believe that the hate speech is caused by the ideologies and values behind the Nazi / communist symbols. We do not see any single reason why after banning these symbols the need to hate people of different sexual orientation, nationality, or religious beliefs would change. We think that the real reason for these movements to take place in the Baltic States is the current socioeconomic climate, the perception of such discrimination by the mainstream society. We would love to see the government to show us examples how the youth of the Baltics watched Nazi flags, and then got interested in the Nazi ideology, and ended up beating homosexuals. Most of the extremists are not educated enough to know who Hitler was, and definitely know only small pieces of the Nazi ideology. Instead, we believe that the groups have formed in the society without the influence of the communist / nazi ideologies, and only later, to back-up their views, and to attract more attention, they have picked up the usage of the symbols discussed. In case such symbols were banned, these groups would not be affected materially, as argued in the point above. Even further, as the symbols are only used to display the underlying values, the mere ban of symbols does not have any immediate effect on the values themselves. It is naive to think that the ban would cause these groups to rethink their actions, and the loss of possibility to publicly associate with a well-known ideology would not be a huge one for the reason outlined below: it was not that the ideology formed the groups, it's rather they used it to attract attention, and will readily develop their own symbols if the ones currently in use will be banned.
How this plan will make extremist organizations weaker.

The opposition sees two most probable sequences of events after the ban. 1. The extremist groups will start to use other symbols. The main implication of the change is that the former symbol was not the main uniting force of the extremist group. The symbol was mainly an additional cool-looking accessory that helped people to identify as a group while their main ideology was nothing else but aggression. Since the symbol was not important, a change of it cannot demoralize them. If Nazi / Soviet ideologies would be important, the symbols wouldn't be given up that easily. That leads us to the second point. 2. The extremist group is reinforced because of the prohibition of a symbol. The symbol gains new strength, because now it is a forbidden fruit. You don't say God's name often, because then it would lose its sacredness. While it is scarce, it is valuable. The symbols would become more powerful and they would be used more sparingly, but when they will - they will spread more fear than before. The government tries to convince us that once they impose fines and punishments, organizations will be undermined. That is a very superficial way of looking at things. If banning things generally would be easy, we would have no black market for drugs. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Punishments could potentially make the extremist groups feel important and they will be more united in the end. Those people who join extremist organizations not because of ideological reasons but because of the need to look cool and belong to a group are not very likely to care that much about a change of a symbol. The truth is that most probably they don't care which symbol it is, they just care that there is one or that there is something that unites a group. Banning Nazi / soviet symbols cannot possibly solve this, because there will always be something that can be used as a substitution.
Society is ready to live with Nazi and Soviet symbols

The government today has a burden of proof to show that the public display of communist / Nazi symbols are disadvantageous for the Baltic societies. They tried to show that the display invokes negative feelings, that people are hurt and thus we should limit the display to avoid all the negative consequences. However, we believe that the societies in question are ready to meet such symbols in their every day life. A great example on our side is the Grutas park [[http://www.grutoparkas.lt/index-en.htm]], where a lot of communist sculptures, and other symbolic meaning carrying things are displayed. This park is one of the best known tourism attractions in Lithuania, and is not only visited by tourists, but by Lithuanians themselves, too. People are not afraid to meet their past, and we do not see why the government should try to limit their exposure in this case. Furthermore, we believe that the government should encourage thinking about the past, to ensure that the lessons of history are not lost after a few decades. This ensures that the society is strengthened from inside, with its past being the main connecting link. This leads us to the conclusion that the mere use of Nazi / communist symbols does not strengthen organizations. As the societies are no longer afraid of the symbols themselves, the organizations do not cause fear, and thus do not gain additional power, as the government tries to imply. We believe that the reason why some organisations choose swastikas is because they are weak politically and this is the way how to attract attention (i.e. be exposed in media). They are not that much for the ideology itself, they just find it a good brand which they can use. Hence, it is just a means of promotion, and we find society in Baltic states apathetic to it. Getting media exposure do not lead organisations into politically stronger positions.
Model & Definition

Latvians have already beaten Lithuanians in basketball. It is now time to repeate this in another sport. Ervinas, you are going to love this. We offer banning the use of Nazi and Soviet symbols in Baltic States. We believe that this set-up of the debate is still fair, since we are debating against Lithuanians. We define these symbols as anything that is strongly associated with the ideology of these regimes by a reasonable Baltic person. We know that this definition is a bit vague, but we urge the opposition to focus on the real core of this debate. We know the real things we are talking about here - swastikas and hammers and sickles. Few things that are worth a mention: --> We are not banning the educational use of these symbols. They can still appear in school textbooks and museums. Let's debate about the use of these symbols in the daily lives of Baltic citizens - in the streets, on the walls, on the shirts of youngsters. --> If necessary, we are ready to set up a comission that would decide when this ban will apply.
Right for self-expression

We believe that one of the most fundamental rights for every individual is right to express himself. Only in such way he can feel happy and satisfied. Society is not only the place where individuals live, individuals themselves are the society. If an individual wears a t-shirt with a swastika, he may not associate himself with the crimes which Germany did. Instead, he might be associating himself with the idea of love to your nation, giving public employment to all unemployed and plenty of other non-evil policies which were enhanced by Hitler. If an individual was asked why he is wearing it, he might explain that he is in favour of several ideas expressed by Nazis. When symbol that expresses ideas is visible, it reminds those ideas. Only when ideas are heard and not suppressed, public debates can happen. And if it possible to choose ideas from more options available, it does not lead to worse outcome. People can decide what is worth attention and what is just simple propaganda. An open and free discussion is a sign of a democratic society. Such discussion will determine which of the ideas spread by Nazi/soviets were actually noble and kind, and which ones were repugnant and to be ashamed of. When a symbol is banned, such prohibition implies that the ideas associated with it might seem taboo. Hence, society would limit itself and the best solutions would not always be reached. Nazis were proud of their nation and had a view that their culture is to be preserved and nourished. Although the means were ill, the idea might be appealing and debatable, but by banning symbols you deprive society of an open discussion - the idea that national culture should be nourished is not so accessible any more. On the other hand some people may find times in the Soviet Union much better. They had a job, but in the free market conditions they were not able to sustain it. Even though it is debatable what is better for economy, we believe it is fair that people can use the symbol to express that in the Soviet Union they lived in better conditions and the policy when everyone had a job is better from social perspective. If they are heard (and using symbols help to do that) this may cause government to maybe rethink policies they are imposing.
Why is it sometimes legitimate to limit freedom of speech

OK, it is clear that freedom of speech is at the heart of this debate. When and why can we limit freedom of speech? There is no reason to believe that freedom of speech is absolute. We mostly want to secure this freedom because of the nice societal outcomes that we get as a result of it. For instance, we believe that allowing many different people to discuss the merits and drawbacks of a certain policy proposal can help reaching a consensus that would be the most beneficial for the society as a whole. There obviously can be other advantages of holding freedom of speech dear. But that's only one part of the picture. In some distinct cases freedom of speech can be privilege we can't afford. To use a cliché, we do not allow screaming "Fire" in a room full of people, because we are afraid of the panic that might follow. Here, the situation is simple - we do not think that the abstract gains from freedom of speech are big enough to justify having the practical harm of people getting harmed. So here's our burden of proof in this debate - we have to show that the practical harms of allowing the use of the Nazi and Soviet symbols far outweigh the abstract, intangible benefits. We are going to succeed. Read on.
Practical harm #2 - Hate speech

Since the times when people gathered into groups and were developing into societies some were weaker, slower or even uglier than others, thus creating harassment and discrimination towards certain groups of people. Since then hate speech was intended to offend certain groups of people such as ethnic origin, skin color, nationality, religious or sexual beliefs. As it is a direct offense it harms these people emotionally, makes incentive to do it physically and in meantime makes hostility towards these groups. As these people are discriminated on daily occasion they get emotionally impacted. They experience a lot of pressure from society i.e. when changing sex; therefore they tend to have more mental breakdowns. Even by comparing suicidal rate between homosexual and heterosexual people it would be 3 times more likely that homosexual person would do it[1], even knowing that many of them is hiding their homosexuality. By implying this plan we would not only decrease the suicide attempts but also let these people not feel fear to be different. Not only they are impacted mentally but because of the hostility towards them, they are isolated from the rest of society. For example, the bars for homosexuals, as they feel fear to show their sexual orientation to society and even their family members, they prefer to stay in their own communes. Even if we believe that it is good to share opinion in the group that represents the same ideas, in this case we isolate them instead of integrating them which is a very fundament of democracy and liberalism. By promoting hatred towards these groups, we promote to isolate them even more. Instead we should promote integration as it is a lot less harmful way how to make communication between these groups. If we look at the case of the Baltic States, hate speech is also present. We do ban verbal hate speech because it offends people; similarly we ban any material that promotes these ideas such as Mein Kampf. As previously explained, we believe symbols are no different thus promoting hate towards certain minority groups. Because of the immigration of Russian people during Soviet times, nowadays by promoting such symbols as hammer and sickle, we would not only increase the hostility of these nations but also increase xenophobia, racism etc. 1. ^ http://www.outproud.org/article_suicide.html