He seems in favour of using hate speech laws to prosecute people who push racism and certain particularly egregious variants of historical revisionism, but he is not in favour of applying the same laws to cover cases in which the speech is merely offencive. That is an entirely coherent view.
And, I might add, a view that goes quite a bit farther than I favour myself; I don't think it's prudent to punish people for speech that isn't directly threatening or inciting to violence. Shutting up holocaust deniers sets a precedent that might very well be brought to bear on anarchist agitators as well, and I would not want to see those put behind bars. For a variety of reasons.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
what's the difference between racism and offensive speech?
Incitement to violence, discrimination and/or other crimes.
and who decides? certainly not the Muslims.
Of course religious groups don't get to define what's racism and what's not. Giving that power to the clergy would be point-blank insanity. Imagine giving Herr Ratzinger the power to outlaw unflattering speech. I doubt you'd want to live in the resulting society.
And that really is the crux of it: If you want "the Muslims" (who, contrary to your simplistic suggestion, do not agree on where the line between offencive and discriminatory is, nor on what speech is offencive in the first place) to be given the prerogative to decide what speech is discriminatory (and thus illegal) and what speech is not, then you have to give the same power to Hizb-ut-Tahrir, to the Catholic Church, to the Church of Mormon, to the Southern Baptists, to the Seventh-day Adventists and a whole host of other seriously unpleasant organisations.
Even leaving aside the fact that such a doctrine is self-contradictory (since many of the above-mentioned organisations find the very existence of other organisations on the list discriminatory), I singularly fail to see why it is desirable to put the judgement of what speech is acceptable into the hands of the most doctrinaire reactionaries on the planet.
a lot of clergy have been involved in the anti-discrimination movement, if you allow me to call this so, over the years, not the least of which is Gandhi, MLK, and others
religious groups such as Jews, Mennonites, and others have also participated in Canada and the USA to increase the laws' protection of their members and to raise consciousness about the effects of discrimination on all members of society
I don't see why Muslims should be any different
the Catholic Church has also made many statements and taken many actions to affect political events in many countries, some to the benefit of the people, others not so much so
a lot of clergy have been involved in the anti-discrimination movement,
Which does not change the fact that vesting the power to condemn speech in the hands of the clergy would include vesting such power in people like Ratzinger. If Martin Luther King gets the right to ban offencive speech, then so does Ratzinger and Osama bin Laden.
religious groups such as Jews, Mennonites, and others have also participated in Canada and the USA to increase the laws' protection of their members and to raise consciousness about the effects of discrimination on all members of society I don't see why Muslims should be any different
They aren't. If Jews lobby for laws prohibiting blasphemy against Yahwe, they should be laughed off the stage. If Muslims lobby for laws prohibiting blasphemy against Mohammed, they too should be laughed off the stage. That's entirely consistent.
Your point being? Since when do two wrongs make a right?
And Oussama Bin Laden seems to have plenty of freedom of speech as does the Pope.
Supposing that a group of Jews were to attempt to ban The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, would you show the same degree of sympathy?
And of course madmen have freedom of speech. That is a red herring. The question is whether they should be permitted to police other people's speech.
and as for Holocaust revisionists, I think Holocaust deniers should face bans on their freedom of speech. To say that the Holocaust never happened is clearly hate speech. However, to try to investigate if Hitler gave the direct order to unleash the "Final Solution" can be considered valid historical research.
The reason that I mention that is that, from what I have read, that is one of the points raised in the criminal investigation and conviction of David Irving in Austria. He was also prosecuted for talking about points which are historically unresolved.
On the other hand, he is also known to be a hate-mongerer on other issues related to Jews. Although he should not be imprisoned for this (unless he advocates and incites violence against a minority), his freedom of speech should also be curtailed.
As should Mark Steyn and Ezran Levant's, two of the commenters in the BBC story.
yes, absolutely. I think that that particular book is banned and should be if it isn't. It is hate literature plain and simple.
It is also, however, a historical document. Properly contextualised - that is, annotated and given a foreword that explains its origins, it provides a valuable insight into a part of European history. Banning it may prevent it from being used as propaganda, but it will also airbrush it from our historical consciousness.
and as for Holocaust revisionists, I think Holocaust deniers should face bans on their freedom of speech. To say that the Holocaust never happened is clearly hate speech.
Why?
I can see that a case can be made that Germany and Austria might want to ban Nazi parties and the associated expression and paraphernalia. Certainly, such measures were necessary sixty years ago. And while, personally, I think that the justification wears increasingly thin as the years go by, I am not sufficiently conversant with the state of German de-nazification to conclusively state that such laws are obsolescent.
But that is Germany and Austria. Those countries have a very specific historical reason to take heavy-handed legal measures against anti-semitism. It is not clear that the same is true for other countries, nor is it clear that there are similarly powerful justifications for indulging in the same kind of heavy-handed measures aimed against islamophobia.
So, how do you propose to curtail someone's freedom of speech if you're not willing to imprison him? Impose fines? They'd have to be pretty hefty to shut him up.
every country should be careful of this for the sake of social harmony and protection of its citizens
in France and other countries, there has been the recall of magazines and books which have been deemed offensive. this turns out to be quite costly to the publisher and one or two incidents would be useful deterrents.
Or, shorter version: I don't buy your causal chain. You're engaging in a slippery slope fallacy.
And on the subject of "social harmony and the protection of its citizens," one might just as easily argue that a syndicalist agitator promoting strikes and blockades as means to achieve higher wages is disrupting the "social harmony" and that citizens need to be "protected" from him.
Lastly, I notice that you keep conflating offencive speech with hate speech. Do you think that the two are the same? If so, who determines what is offencive?
so union busters would only be using hate speech if they were trying to bust up a union of Santa's elves. ;-)
