Korean Job Discussion Forums

[The Bobster]

Personally, I think ... yes. But then, I'm American, and the United States is one of the few western countries whose courts have rejected the kind of laws against it that are commonplace in Europe, Canada and elsewhere.

Yesterday's New York Times talks about this.

U.S. Defends Freedom to Offend in Speech

�In much of the developed world, one uses racial epithets at one�s legal peril, one displays Nazi regalia and the other trappings of ethnic hatred at significant legal risk, and one urges discrimination against religious minorities under threat of fine or imprisonment,� Frederick Schauer, a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, wrote in a recent essay called �The Exceptional First Amendment.�

�But in the United States,� Professor Schauer continued, �all such speech remains constitutionally protected.�

One problem I have with laws aboutr hate speech is that it does nothing to eliminate hate. You just can't talk about it. And, it gets harder to talk about a lot of things because people might be nervous of being called on the dock for it. Like it or not, an opinion held by someone that is what many would call bigoted - denigrating whole groups people in broad categories, even promoting a superiority of one group over others - is nevertheless ... an opinion.

And, as such, it is something that can be argued against, defended, qualified with supporting evidence or logically refuted with evidence that confounds or contradicts. But ... only if you are allowed to talk about it.

Another problem is one highlighted a few paragraphs later in the same article.

Earlier this month, the actress Brigitte Bardot, an animal rights activist, was fined $23,000 in France for provoking racial hatred by criticizing a Muslim ceremony involving the slaughter of sheep.

Memory serves, it's not the first time for this lady. A few years ago she was fined something like twice as much for hate speech contained in a book she published. Apparently, she doesn't mind writing checks.

And that's my problem exactly - under the hate speech laws in France you have greater freedom to say what you like ... IF you are willing to pay the fine.

Me, I have no trouble with anyone saying whatever ugly, hateful, and stomach-churning thing they like. As long as I can point to it and say. "That's ugly, it promotes hate and frankly, it makes me nauseous. And here's why I think so." And if you don't agree, you can tell me you don't agree, and tell me why you don't. Maybe I'll change my mind, but even if i don't perhaps someone else will. Things like that can happen when people have conversations.

There are separate laws that protect individuals against slander and libel, and I'm not talking about that. If someone tries to hurt you with gossip or lies that at motivated by malice, it's good that laws exist to protect against that. That does nothing to stifle or hinder the movement and debate of ideas in society.

And I don't really care about incitement to violence, not very much. A guy stands on a stage and says that all Samoans ought to be killed, it doesn't mean someone has a excuse if they pick up a knife and stab one. We're still responsible for our own actions, unless we are wearing a uniform and carrying out orders (and there are limits to that, also.)

A lot of people reading this might be from countries where there are the laws against hate speech such as described in the article above. What do you think about it?

[Zenas]

Amendment I

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.

What is hate speech anyway? Something some one says that those with power don't like?

In the Bardot case, did any Muslims get harmed? If not, where's the corpus dilecti? For hundreds of years the law has been no corpse, no crime, in other words, no injury no crime. Now we have laws prohibiting what people think - laws against opinions. Bardot has the right to express her opinion and that right was violated by the French government.

We'd better stop this kind of male cow dung or the majority will impose upon the minority what we can think.

Already can't think or say what you think about a certain event in history or face imprisonment in several countries. There is no end to this type of tyranny.

[Cornfed]

The thread should be retitled "Should heresy against the state religion be allowed". Largely it is already prohibited, in that anyone speaking out against the mandatory BS is fired from their job, not hired in the first place, or if that doesn't work, targeted in any number of ways.

[mises]

[mises]

Hitchens argues for free speech, and does an excellent job.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bathe87kNFU

Any restriction on the freedom of speech (or in Canada, freedom of thought -- what Ezra and Steyn were thinking when they did something was an issue at their show trials --) will ultimately be a restriction on the prevailing politically incorrect talk of the day.

And if we want to be fair, we will have to start being fair. Virtually the entire koran is, by any reasonable measure, aggressive hate speech, just like large chunks of the OT and portions of the NT. If this Christian pastor (from my link in the post above) committed hate-speech, then virtually every imam in Canada does so every single Friday. I'm not holding my breath for equality under the law in the utopia of tolerant Canada.

[Zenas]

Not to mention the Talmud.

[djsmnc]

It should be a crime to challenge free speech in public. Punishable by surgical removal of the eardrums.

[bacasper]

In the US we already have hate speech laws in their extension to hate "crimes" legislation. It is absurd that if one were to hack apart you and your family with a machete, he should get enhanced punishment because he happened to be yelling, "You're a bunch of dirty, stinking [insert racial, gender, etc. epithet here]" while hacking you apart.

I agree that speech should be free to offend and free to defend with almost no restrictions. The remedy for "bad" speech is not restriction but more, "good" speech.

Hate crimes should also be abolished and people instead punished only for the acts they commit.

[mises]

I've never read it. Will take your word for it.

The key word in the Alberta conviction against the pastor was "disparage", which exactly means to 'express a negative opinion of'. Will it become illegal to express a negative opinion? Will it be against the law to have a negative opinion of the theological foundations of islam? How far will we take this. I would like to stay that this started with blood-chilling anti-muslim marches that were criminalized for public safety and eventually trickled down to cartoons mocking their silly religion. But it started with the cartoons.

If they are making criminals out of men (not just Ezra, but an East Coast paper is being investigated too, also about islam) who published cartoons of a fake god, what in the hell won't they do?

Either way, Mark Steyn must be laughing to the bank. He will likely not be allowed to publish in Canadian mags/rags again but his book is selling very well due to all the free publicity. In addition, the idea that islam and obedient/sensitive muslims are fundamentally incompatible with liberal democracy is being validated in the public by the case after case after case in the west of muslims crying to the government cause somebody hurt their feelings and demanding they be shut up.

[Ya-ta Boy]

I pretty much agree with Bobster. My particular spin is that hate speech be discouraged but not banned or formally punished.

[flakfizer]

[Big_Bird]

I'm with flaksi, Bobsi and Yatsi.

[bacasper]

[agentX]

Ban FOX News and the rest of the hatemongers will fall in line, all without violating the spirit or law of the Constitution.

[flakfizer]