Subject: [OPINION] RIGHTS TO PROTECTION
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X-Comment: The Transnational Radical Party List
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IMPOSE LIMITS ON HATESPEECH
Morals should never be imposed by anyone on someone else, as long
as what someone else does, does not adversely affect anyone else.
If someone's sexual proclivities are different than yours, that
should be their business. If something in print would be
offensive to me I don't have to buy it or read it. And on cable
TV, if a channel offers sex or politics that is offensive to me I
don't have to pay for it or look at it.
BUT, speech that promotes racism, gay bashing, anti-Semitism, or
opinions expressed as fact that may directly or indirectly lead
to violence, that puts a different spin on the efficacy of
imposing some sort of limitations. Sure, my intellect tells me to
support free speech, but that is because my worldview can't
help but be influenced by a bourgeois worldview. That is the
perception of the masses and much of the left in this country
at this moment.
To further elaborate: Its always been my view that with debate
ideas will be exchanged and reason will ultimately emerge
victorious. We were taught to think that. But, that isn't always
true however. The falacy to that thinking is that everyone is not
as good a spokesman for a particular position as someone else may
be. Emotionalism generally wins out. Logic appeals to an
intelligencia and free thinkers, but not to those already
predisposed to certain ideas because of strongly intrenched
prejudices and learned bias. This is why demogogues can win
elections, and by popular appeal can be swept into positions of
authority, etc., where they may present a real threat to the rest
of us, as happened to Hitler and almost happened with David Duke.
There are many grey areas and nothing so true that it doesn't
have its abstract side and some semblance of truth. There are
good and bad arguments for every position, and some stereotypes
that do fit cases and there are generalized rationalizations that
blanket an entire issue with false, monolithic, intransigent
justifications, that are full of only half truths and pseudo
solutions, that may appear on the surface to be fact but are
closer to fiction.
Mere discussion between uninformed or partially informed
individuals are mostly superficial because they do not provide
fair assessment and though analogies are made that sound good,
they are merely clever sophistry or polemics made to pander to a
popular view. Just like politicians who pander to a vox populi
that for the most part are unread, ignorant and inundated with
false images on television and a somewhat controlled press.
Debate often isn't really debate. It is often a bunch of wise
guys trying to out insult each other, as often happens on these
nets, or like trained animals, trying to out perform each other
with clever cliches and popular fad positions. The truth becomes
victim.
With regard to language that merely offends one's sensitivity,
you could say there is no compulsion to listen to it. If it
offends you, turn it off, but there is another side to that
argument. It does seems to me that SPEECH IS LESS IMPORTANT THAN
THE HARM IT IS LIKELY TO CAUSE IF IT PROMOTES RACISM AND
VIOLENCE, so should -*HATE SPEECH*- be prohibited? Herbert
Marcuse and several others on the left of the political spectrum
have advocated that speech should be limited.
So you would ask, who is to decide what is offensive and what is
going to cause the most harm; the harm caused by limiting speech
or the harm caused by allowing unbridled speech? And others will
paraphrase Voltaire, by declaring that they may not agree with
what is said, they may even hate what is said, but they will
defend to the death (figurately speaking, that is) the right to
say it, because that insures my right to say whatever it is they
want to say also. These same champions of `free speech' will
heckle those who speak what they don't want to hear, thus
censoring them anyway---because afterall, isn't heckling also a
form of `free speech?'
If I were to defend your right to say dispictable things the
price may prove to be too great.
There is also this dichotomy that certain types of speech are
already regulated, ergo: libel, deceptive advertising, consumer
fraud, child pornography and words that would appear to harrass
on a sexual basis in the workplace. Should these types of speech
be regulated? And if so, why not "hatespeech" also? If we can
define deceptive advertising, libel, consumer fraud, etc. etc.,
why not a test for hatespeech also?
If a lie is told that would be construed to be deceptive
advertising, for example if someone sells real estate sight
unseen and claims it is high and dry and it turns out to be low
and wet, redress should and always is available through due
process. Why have laws to regulate deceptive advertising when
this is already a crime and recourse already exists? Do they
infringe on our First Amendment rights? The courts have decided
that they do not infringe. The courts could decide the same for
hatespeech.
The type of speech that harms in this way, whether it be
pecuninary, or harm to someone's reputation, the remedy exists.
The ultimate test is always if the speech is true or false. The
test for speech that constitutes sexual harrassment is
whether it occured or not and the court decides if it was in
fact sexual harrasment.
Nadine Strossen who was the president of the ACLU has said, the
only remedy for "bad speech" is more speech. She says we need a
free marketplace of ideas, open even to the most odious and
offensive ideas and expressions, because truth ultimately will
triumph in an unrestricted marketplace."
Is to defend the First Amendment, to defend it absolutely? Will
society suffer a greater harm when a bigot is allowed to speak,
to spew his venom, to belittle, villify, humiliate and dehumanize
his targets of bias, even though he spouts untruths, lies that
some may believe to be true? Is this a burden too great, too
disporportionate for some to defend free speech?
The Left is overly concerned about the government prosecuting left wing
speech if limits are imposed. The government doesn't need legal
limitations as an excuse to impose limits on the left because as Rod Davis
points out in an article in the PROGRESSIVE, "Constitutional `free speech'
in the daily, concrete world consists of what the Government decides it to
be. It is a fantasy to insist that in protecting our enemies we protect
ourselves." The government can and has equated political activism with
organized crime and will again in spite of Constitutional protections.
Speech is a different and a separate issue. As Rod points out, defending
the Klan's "right to appear publicly defends nothing more than the Klan,"
just as defending a pornographer's right to degrade and exploit women
defends nothing more than a pornographer.
It is prudent to expect that even rational debate will not be
enough to change the hearts and minds of irrational bigots. So
these bigots while they will also utilize the First Amendment to
win converts will not themselves be impressed by rational
argument. But, that is not the intent of the "free" speech, it is
the ability to present views, sometimes unpopular though
untrampled by laws that would prohibit saying these things. For
my liberties to be upheld, it is said that that must be the price
I pay, that the liberty of those bigots also be upheld.
Champions of absolute free speech will say there is no other
reasonable choice. Otherwise, someone would be allowed to decide
for me and the First Amendment guarantees my right to decide for
myself. Therefore when the real harm suffered by the targets of
hate speech is measured against the presumed harm to the First
Amendment caused by an imposition of curbs on hate speech, the
First Amendment always wins. So is that what it all comes down
to, measuring harm speech may cause to people against the harm
disallowing that speech may cause to a parchment of paper?
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: "Everyone has
the right to freedom of opinion and expression. This right
includes the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to
seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media
and regardless of frontiers."
"Today freedom of expression can never be a luxury, because all
sorts of ideas are needed, to be tested, to be discarded, even to
be hated, for it is in the very process of choosing among them
that we may take a step forward instead of stumboing another step
backward toward destruction." (Per Wastberg)
The Constitution, as a whole, was called a charter of liberty by
those who wrote it but the rights defined and guaranteed in the
First Amendment probably comes closer to defining what it is to
be an American than any other document or clause. The difference
between us and them, is the right we have to think and to speak
what we please.
When courts decide interpret what speech is permisable it sets
limits on our freedom, our tastes, our attitudes, our habits and
that power granted to government authority, to the FCC in the
case of radio and to the courts as final arbitrators is awsome
and something they were never trained for. It becomes a value
judgement, theirs in deciding what we can say on the radio. These
custodians or guardians of our liberty are influenced by their
own experiences, religion, etc.
The only test in my opinion that holds any validity with regard
to speech or anything else to be prohibited under law is whether
or not that thing or speech causes harm to someone else. As an
example, if two people which to have sexual intercourse in public
should they be allowed so long as they are not blocking traffic
and so long as neither party is being raped. Anotherwords, "harm
to others." Should be the ultimate test? How many would
hypocritically champion the right to speech, even that which
would constitute hate and incite to violence, but would not allow
other forms of `free expression' such as yelling fire in a
crowded theatre or to copulate in the middle of Central Park,
like dogs and in front of children? I think most would opt for
some kind of limitation and if on one type of expression, why
not on the other?
That of course raises another question as to what might be
considered harmful to others. Is one's sensitivity to profanity
be taken into consideration? I think not. I think that would be
asking too much. And governments should not be in the business of
deciding morals or ethics. It would far too presumptuous for the
guardians of government to make moral judgements for me.
My point is that hatespeech is a different type of speech, the
kind that does cause harm, that promotes violence, that has the
potential for causing genocide.
Censorship is our legacy of "Puritanism," and is in itself a
morbid fear of sex and sexuality. And, just because someone's
speech is vulgar or coarse, shocking or lewd is NOT in my opinion
justification for forbiding it. BUT, racism, anti-Semitism, gay
bashing, and sexism go beyond being merely rhetorical speech,
because it desensitize and promotes a favorable climate for
hatecrime, it incites to violence, it does cause harm, and has
even led to genocide. Therefore, there is absolutely NO
JUSTIFICATION FOR ALLOWING IT.
-Hank-
[PNEWS invites opposing viewpoints. They can be entered on the discussion
conference at on PeaceNet or on the discussion liston Internet.]
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