Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Free speech, hate speech, and the KKK

By now you know about the right-wing whackaloon Jim Adkisson who shot up Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville because he wanted to kill liberals because he blamed liberals for turning his wife away from him, for making it hard to find a job, shit, probably for his own stupidity for that matter. Now, some folks note that he had a lot of right wing hate literature in his home published by folks like Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter and such that in general terms call for exterminating liberals. Some folks wonder, why are these people allowed to publish such things? Others say, however, that it would be censorship to punish them for advocating violence against liberals.

The problem with the view of "it would be censorship", however, is that if you espouse killing other people in a published work, it is not censorship to charge you with hate speech and take the publication off the shelf (as Canada would do), any more than it would be censorship to charge you with libel for telling false and injurious lies about another person. It is known quite well in civilized nations that your right to free speech stops when you injure another person with your speech, the so-called "shouting fire in a crowded theatre" notion. In short, your right to throw your fist stops at the tip of my nose, and your right to free speech ends at the point where it causes injury to me.

Unfortunately, during the KKK lynching era the U.S. Supreme Court was dominated by conservatives who wished to allow the KKK to continue publishing their hate speech because it was convenient to have a class of people to use as a scapegoat for all the problems of the majority (sort of the same deal as with Hitler), so the U.S. Supreme Court ruled during that time that it wasn't enough to advocate violence against a specific group of people (such as blacks or liberals), you had to advocate violence against a specific *individual* person to trigger the implied "harm to others" clause. In my opinion that is bad jurisprudence and in no way justified by the 1st Amendment -- other civilized nations usually have an equivalent to the 1st Amendment but no other civilized nation allows publishing works calling for violence against specific groups of people because that violates the right of people to be free of having harm committed against them. But the U.S. has always been a nation where violence against specified sub-groups has not only been tolerated but, at times (such as during the KKK lynching era) even condoned. And the right-wing whackaloons currently on the U.S. Supreme Court are quite contented with that situation, so I don't expect it to change anytime soon.

American civilization. It would be a good idea. Sigh.

- Badtux the Civilized Penguin

15 comments:

  1. Isn't it odd that when Moslems talk about killing and maiming and so forth, we don't call it freedom of speech, we call it terrorism. Even people who drove the cars of folks who say such things are terrorists.

    ReplyDelete
  2. How long before some nutbag at Faux News, National Spittoon, Weakly Standard, or Clown Hall call Jim Adkisson a real American?

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think that these monkeys just like to kill each other.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm a free-speech absolutist of sorts, and this case reminds me of the 1980s, when people were blaming Ozzy Osbourne and Judas Priest for teen suicides. Of course, the teens in question came from fucked-up homes.

    And I got into lots of arguments with annoying anti-porn feminists who were more concerned with porn than I thought they needed to be. Basically, these ladies thought porn led to violence against women. I argued that the definition of porn varies and besides, violence against women existed before porn.

    One could argue that Adkisson was a mentally ill loser and that lots of people pore through the remainder-bin-quality rantings of Coulter and O'Reilly without becoming homicidal.

    My point? This talk about hate speech is a slippery slope and sooner or later, some whackadoodle's going to come back and accuse, say, Franken or Daily Kos of the crime committed by an obvious psychopath. It could happen.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Truffle, that's a big pile of reeking bull excrement. Is Canada a repressive hellhole? Is Germany a repressive hellhole? Is Norway a repressive hellhole? Not no, but hell no. I repeat: Pretty much every civilized country on the planet outlaws hate speech, and none of those countries are repressive hellholes like you seem to imply.

    Hate speech has a clear and concise definition: It is speech that advocates harm to a specific individual or group. That's all. Hate speech is not "criticism". Hate speech is not "I don't like gays". Hate speech is, "I think gays ought to all be exterminated" or "let's go beat up some gays" -- speech that advocates harm to a specific individual or group. And I repeat, unless you insist that Canada or Germany is a repressive hellhole of tyranny, the notion that this is a "slippery slope" leading to dictatorship is utter bull exrement.

    So where did the notion that outlawing hate speech is censorship come from? Well, you guessed it -- from the KKK. EVERY SINGLE ARGUMENT that you just repeated from conventional orthodoxy originated with the KKK to justify their "right" to say "let's kill the niggers". I know that you did not know this. I know that this is conventional orthodoxy now. But that's where that reeking bull excrement came from, whether you knew it or not.

    Note that hate speech laws as implemented by the EU would *not* outlaw the KKK saying "we hate niggers". It *would* outlaw the KKK saying "niggers ought to be exterminated" -- and *would* outlaw Ann Coulter and her ilk saying that "liberals ought to be rounded up and shot as traitors." And if you think hate speech is harmless, go ask the Tutsi of Rwanda. The ones still alive after Radio Hutu spent weeks saying, "kill the Tutsi, kill the vermin" and the Hutu took them up on it...

    - Badtux the "Your right to hate stops at advocating violence" Penguin

    ReplyDelete
  6. Badtux, by any chance do you listen to Thom Hartmann on Air America Radio? Because he makes the same points about the Hutu Interhamwe's hate radio, and he's an intelligent man. Nice to see smart people speaking from the same page.

    ReplyDelete
  7. OK, Badtux, let me ask you: Do you think the song "Cop Killer" would constitute hate speech? For those of you who don't know the lyrics, they're here.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Truffle, regarding your question, yes - I would consider the lyrics to be hate speech. I'm not sure I would drag the writer to court, but if some idiot shot a policeman while listening to this garbage, I'd have no problem with his relatives suing the writer for his last shirt.

    And Badtux, Canada is currently prosecuting Mark Steyn for being an asshole. I don't much like his stuff, and it's been proven he's got his facts wrong, but he did not call for the murder of Muslims, and he's still facing the music. Another Canadian publisher, forgot the name, got in hot water with the authorities for publishing the Danish "Muhammad cartoons". That slippery slope is certainly there.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Badtux, while I frequently agree with you, you got this one dead wrong.

    I can think of a dozen reasons without straining. But let me seize the most obvious. At the top of today's blog, you yourself wrote

    "Obama is an uppity nigger."

    Open-shut case of hate speech. You're going to jail, sparky.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Okay, I've been doing some thinking on this.

    Re: Cop Killer: Yes, I think that would be regarded as hate speech that advocates killing members of a group of people (cops, in this case) in civilized countries.

    Re: Canada prosecuting a couple of folks for insulting Muslims/Jews: A court of law will decide whether their conduct constituted a violation of the hate speech law. Note that Canada has a Charter of Rights and Freedoms that has the equivalent of the 1st Amendment in it, so the court will look at the fundamental right to freedom of expression, and then decide whether this speech is protected by freedom of expression or instead has been used to libel an entire group of people by saying untrue things about them. In that case the court will assess damages as in any libel case. Freedom of speech does not include freedom to libel others even in the United States, though libel lawsuits are harder to win here than in most countries. The court will also decide whether the speech rose to the level that it encouraged or promoted violence against a group of people, and if so will assess similar damages as in a libel lawsuit. In neither case does this constitute "tyranny". In a democracy governed by rule of law, the courts are not an instrument of repression, they are an instrument for enforcing the will of the people. That's the difference between a democracy and a dictatorial hellhole.

    Re: Canada is a repressive hellhole. Uhm, if that's your contention, all I can do is shake my head. It's like trying to argue with someone who says the sky is purple. Uhm, okaaayyy, I'll just slowly step away, okay?

    Re: the notion that I could be jailed in Canada for summarizing Dana Millbank's argument as "Obama is an uppity nigger": Uhm, okaaayyy, I'll just slowly step away, okay? (Hint: In Canada, since there is no equivalent of the Westmoreland decision making it hard for public figures to sue for libel, I might get sued by Dana Millbank for libel and be required to withdraw that statement, but the only way I would go to jail would be if I defied the court and refused to comply with the court ruling).

    In short, my general point -- that a hate speech law does NOT result in tyranny -- remains. Unless you seriously propose that Canada is a repressive tyranny, in which case I treat you like the guys who say the government is beaming thought control rays into their brain, i.e., step away slowly...

    - Badtux the Law Penguin

    ReplyDelete
  11. The jail reference was hyperbole. Which is still legal, I think. Probably even in Canada.

    I don't care about Dana's article, it isn't relevant. The point is that you called Obama an uppity nigger. It isn't relevant that you were being sarcastic. It doesn't matter that you were summarizing an opinion that is not your own opinion. If Ann Coulter can't say it, neither can you, period.

    ReplyDelete
  12. As a Canadian, I can tell you that the problem with Canada's Human Rights Commission is the wording of the law, which says in part "that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt." So if you communicate publicly anything that I think may expose me to hatred, then you are guilty. Believe me, you don't want that in the USA. Even EGALE doesn't support the law.

    This has become a cause celebre in Canada, and if anyone is really interested, and has hours to spare, then there is a lot of information out there, just type in CHRC to your favourite search engine

    ReplyDelete
  13. I commend this article to you, written by the Washington correspondent of a Canadian news magazine.

    http://www.macleans.ca/world/global/article.jsp?content=20080723_27859_27859

    The author is the wife of Charlie Savage, The NY Times correspondent who wrote the book "Takeover"

    ReplyDelete
  14. Thanks for the notes, Mike, I've been reading a bit and finding it more amazing than I thought. Turns out my jail reference was less hyperbolic than I thought. According to Wikipedia, you can be jailed for making hateful statements in some countries, for example Iceland, where

    ------------
    "Anyone who in a ridiculing, slanderous, insulting, threatening or any other manner publicly assaults a person or a group of people on the basis of their nationality, skin colour, race, religion or sexual orientation, shall be fined or jailed for up to 2 years." (The word "assault" in this context does not refer to physical violence, only to expressions of hatred.)
    ------------

    The Obama comment is clearly a dangerous thing to say in a place where such a law is in effect.

    I know a little about Canada's law, because I'm an avid collector of religious tracts, specializing in the output of that complete nutcase Jack Chick. His hatred of the Catholic church brought him quite a bit of trouble in Canada, and some of his tracts and comics are banned there under the hate speech laws. I have copies of them and I can assure you he never advocates violence against anyone. Actually he's something of a pacifist. He does hate Catholicism, evolution, homosexuality, Mormonism, etc, but is always careful to point out he does not hate Catholics, evolutionists, homosexuals, or Mormons. Instead, he seeks only to speak with them and convert them.

    The slippery slope is very evident here. How does religious speech fit into the picture? Will the bible be outlawed based on the many OT references to destruction of races (Joshua 6:21 "They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys" etc etc etc)? Can speech be outlawed simply because it is historically inaccurate? I do not believe it is possible to resolve these problems adequately.

    ReplyDelete
  15. You can be jailed in Canada too.

    In a recent case, a member of some obscure fundamentalist religion made some rather forceful references to homosexuality. He did not incite violence however. There was a complaint to Alberta's HRC and he was found "guilty".

    1)The person who made the complaint is not gay.

    2) EGALE did not support the complaint, and said so in their e-zine

    3) The cleric was found guilty, told to pay a fine, apologize to the hetero complainant, and was told that he could not publicly express his views about gays in the future, although they are a tenant of his religion. If he does not comply, he would be in contempt, and could go to jail.

    ReplyDelete

Ground rules: Comments that consist solely of insults, fact-free talking points, are off-topic, or simply spam the same argument over and over will be deleted. The penguin is the only one allowed to be an ass here. All viewpoints, however, are welcomed, even if I disagree vehemently with you.

WARNING: You are entitled to create your own arguments, but you are NOT entitled to create your own facts. If you spew scientific denialism, or insist that the sky is purple, or otherwise insist that your made-up universe of pink unicorns and cotton candy trees is "real", well -- expect the banhammer.

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.