A bunch of pointy headed morons want us to relax the first amendment because some unbalanced zealots and religious nimrods use it to justify their actions.
Look, if we don’t have the first amendment, America might as well close up shop and go home. I don’t care who takes offense to speech: Christian, Muslim, Atheist, whatever. Go screw yourself before you think you’ve got any standing to touch the first amendment.
Mark Steyn is an idiot, but this show trial with Maclean’s magazine in Canada is the height of stupid, as is the Florida trial versus pornographer Max Hardcore. I’m sorry, but should all be protected speech, be it xenophobic hatemongering or sicko adult films. ALL PROTECTED.
It’s really pretty simple:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
I think all parties can agree that “Max Hardcore” is a pretty damn awesome name.
Oliver,
Do you support hate speech laws?
There are many restrictions on the FA. Take for example, Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire which gave us the Fighting Words doctrine, which is the basis for hate crime law.
I would imagine this would be upheld under the standard of Miller v California. Local standards dictating definitions of obscenity.
Respectfully,
The Squid
Do you support hate speech laws?
No. I don’t support hate crimes law.
“Do you support hate speech laws?
No. I don’t support hate crimes law.”
I didnt want to make an assumption, just because you are liberal.
Respectfully,
The Squid
Oliver, I agree with you completely on this. Sadly, and I really am very sad about this, many people in our leftosphere do support lots of preemptions on the first amendment. Usually it’s considered a good thing, because “hate speech is bad” and/or *forced* diversity programs and speech restrictions are good.
On many liberal blogs over the past year or so, I have asked how is it that so often on the left, we have ceded free speech and other civil rights issues to the right, and usually told that free speech isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.
If you’re interested in following this, check out FIRE, thefire.org, “Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.” They are admittedly a group that seems hard to get a handle on. Formed by several ACLU founders and board members who have taken many free speech cases to the Supreme Court, they have in fact gotten funding from a couple of conservative groups (I forget which at the moment.)
Their domain is predominantly free speech in Universities and restrictions on speech against students and professors.
If you don’t follow them at their website, two of their members, Wendy Kaminer and Harvey Silverglate blog at the freeforall, http://thephoenix.com/TheFreeForAll/. Kaminer is a free speech zealot AND feminist, which means that unlike many modern radical feminists, she does not believe in forced speech restrictions.
Their blog is frustrating, because most of the time I’ll agree with them, and then there will come a very principled post that I just want them to take back. But damn it, it’s principled and well argued, so what can you do?
I find myself having an odd dichotomy here. I don’t support hate crimes laws because I don’t think you should punish someone for what they think. But I don’t feel the same ways about hate speech laws since I do believe some reasonable restrictions on what you can say with impunity are, well, reasonable.
FIRE was cofounded by Alan Kors and Harvey Silverglate. Kors was involved in the defense of a student in this amazingly wrong headed (and typical) sexual harassment case: the Water Buffalo Affair (<— click! really interesting reading)
Kors and Silverglate wrote “The Shadow University, the betrayal of liberty on america’s campuses” It could be frontpagemag stuff, but if you examine these guys’ background, and the other cases they have been involved in, and examine the quality of their arguments, you’ll see it ain’t so.
So wait, are we defending the mad bomber in PA now?
I’m in somewhat the same boat, Sean…I feel like there should be legal consequences for those whose hate speech is designed to incite crime.
We saw what Hutu Power Media helped to create in Rwanda; declaring all hate speech laws complete anathema means that such people would face no culpability in the crimes committed by those who were influenced.
No, if someone makes a threat that is different from unpopular speech. Especially when you’ve got an arsenal.
Yeah, but what defines hate speech and who gets to make the call?
Spider, there are laws on the books already to prosecute people who incite criminal actions, but it has to be pretty clear cut. If I say to a crowd of people, “Go out and kill _____ people!” that’s not protected free speech. But if I were to say, “______ people don’t even deserve to live!”, is that an overt act?
Hate speech laws leave too much open to interpretation and abuse.
Jay -
Which is kind of my point…your latter example is a staple of the propaganda machines found in genocidal apparatuses.
If a radio personality says certain people deserve to die and then one of that personality’s listeners goes out and stomps one of those people to death, are we satisfied knowing that the radio personality suffers no consequences for his words?
Again, I’m not sure. It makes me uneasy to discuss free speech limitations, but this particular facet of the debate gives me pause.
Especially when you’ve got an arsenal.
Well, yeah, there’s that.
I’m in somewhat the same boat, Sean…I feel like there should be legal consequences for those whose hate speech is designed to incite crime.
I try to draw the line at what folks think vs what they do. Which is why hate crimes laws tend to bother me. I realize motivation does often play a large part in determining penalty (hence, first vs second degree murder). But even that distinction has more to do with how intent the person was on committing the act, rather than why. And I don’t think the why should make much of a distinction when there is a specific actual act that can be judged.
Speech, as protected as it should be, is an overt act and I’m okay with some restrictions being put on it or (better still) some consequences being attached to it.
I still think Michael Savage should be in prison.
Yes, but that’s for egregious stupidity and bad radio, NOT for what he says.
I am absolutely no expert on Rwanda, but perhaps the problem there was not enough free speech, not too much free speech.
the government-funded station RTLM broadcast vitriolic attacks against Tutsis and Hutu moderates.
Ordinary citizens were called on by local officials and government-sponsored radio to kill their neighbors
If anything Rwanda seems to indicate more of a need to keep government out of the “speech policing” business.
I still think Michael Savage should be in prison.
Well, rabid dogs are a danger to us all.
“But if I were to say, “______ people don’t even deserve to live!”, is that an overt act?”
Yes. This has been another edition of Simple Answers to Simple Questions.
So I take it that you oppose the oxymoronic “Fairness Doctrine” that left-wingers are trying to impose on talk radio?
TV & the print media are overwhelmingly liberal. Will the Fairness Doctrine be imposed on them too?
By ‘liberal’ you mean they don’t goosestep and “Sieg Heil” Bush? Get a grip, dude. Unless you’re talking about Link TV, you’re talking out of your arse.
Just an FYI, OW. The magazine article case isn’t being adjudicated in the U.S. It’s in Canada, where the laws are slightly different*. From this lone case some of us might get the impression that Canadians are a bunch of totalitarians. But don’t forget that the Underground Railroad led out of the land of ‘free speech,’ not into it. And, last I heard, the Canadians don’t have “free speech zones” (unless Bush or Cheney visit, maybe).
*And just because the case was heard doesn’t mean it will be decided in favor of the plaintiffs.