Posted on 01/31/2014 5:53:39 AM PST by PaulCruz2016
New studies show that unbridled hateful speech can cause emotional harm. Is it time for the United States to follow other democracies and impose limits on what Neo-Nazis and other haters say?
Over the past several weeks, free speech has gotten costlier—at least in France and Israel.
In France, Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala, an anti-Semitic stand-up comic infamous for popularizing the quenelle, an inverted Nazi salute, was banned from performing in two cities. M’Bala M’Bala has been repeatedly fined for hate speech, and this was not the first time his act was perceived as a threat to public order.
Meanwhile, Israel’s parliament is soon to pass a bill outlawing the word Nazi for non-educational purposes. Indeed, any slur against another that invokes the Third Reich could land the speaker in jail for six months with a fine of $29,000. The Israelis are concerned about both the rise of anti-Semitism globally, and the trivialization of the Holocaust—even locally.
To Americans, these actions in France and Israel seem positively undemocratic. The First Amendment would never prohibit the quenelle, regardless of its symbolic meaning. And any lover of “Seinfeld” would regard banning the “Soup Nazi” episode as scandalously un-American. After all, in 1977 a federal court upheld the right of neo-Nazis to goose-step right through the town of Skokie, Illinois, which had a disproportionately large number of Holocaust survivors as residents. And more recently, the Supreme Court upheld the right of a church group opposed to gays serving in the military to picket the funeral of a dead marine with signs that read, “God Hates Fags.”
While what is happening in France and Israel is wholly foreign to Americans, perhaps it’s time to consider whether these and other countries may be right. Perhaps America’s fixation on free speech has gone too far.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
I don’t think it should be banned. It is hurtful but if they can ban hurtful speech of one, they can ban the speech of another. Who will decide what hateful speech is? I think it is up to us to counter hateful speech not be protected from it.
“Free speech should not stand in the way of common decency. No right should be so freely and recklessly exercised that it becomes an impediment to civil society, making it so that others are made to feel less free, their private space and peace invaded, their sensitivities cruelly trampled upon”.
Let them first apply that sentiment to the islamic fanatics, and see how it works out. Then we can discuss other applications.
Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press . . .
The Bill of Rights has no ambiguity, and we should not permit the enemies of freedom to pretend that it does.
Probably not, though. Speech is either free, or it is not. And people need to learn to deal with their sensitivities. Libel and slander can inflict not just emotional harm, but financial and social harm. Shouting fire or inciting violence can inflict both of those, plus physical harm. But insults, or "non-sensitivities" shouldn't. There are more reasons than I can list, but the main one is that it is just another little restriction of our liberty. No thanks
And since we know that all Republicans and conservatives are Nazis, let’s legally sanction them if they speak too. We’ll finally be back to having “acceptable” debates in which Lindsey Graham and Arlen Specter represent the “right”. At least until they slow down “progress” and then we can call them Nazis and jail them too. After all, we always need an enemy to persecute to keep progress moving forward.
This is a look into the mind of academe. Not too pretty, is it? The argumentation is not only flawed by premise but, also, flawed by illogic.
Your college age kids are in the best of hands.
I am reading a book about a family in the 1700s that headed west and claimed land in the Rocky Mountains to set up a homestead. It was winter in the Rocky Mountains in the 1700s. The men of the family cut down trees in the forrest in the winter to build houses. Four of their children and one wife has already died.
Then I took a break and went to watch TV with my wife. She was watching one of her BravO chick programs where every male person on the show resembles a male version of a woman; soft, tender, frail,.... just pretty little men. They were talking about going to the salon for a wax job... about how their mocha latte didn’t have enough cream.... about how their shoes didn’t match their scarf.
You are right... people used to have REAL reasons to be distressed.
My apologies for the mistake. Doesn’t change my point, though.
If you are not free to say what you think, you are not free.
I doubt the Nazis paraded after Hitler declared war on the US. There was a huge German-American Bund rally in Madison Square Garden in 1939, while the US was still neutral.
There cannot be ‘Free Speech’ for some if there is not ‘Free Speech’ for all.......................
The First Ammendment was to protect speech that the GOVERNMENT finds offensive. .....
This is all about banning insults to Islam. Of course they claim it’s against “Neo Nazis”, like how many of them are there in this country, like 10?
We give up our rights to Free Speech for no one.
Ammen.................
“”””I’m offended by gay pride parades.”””””
Me too.
But I have a choice to walk away. I have a choice to start my own parade. A “Heterosexual-GodFearing Parade”.
Once I start it, I don’t want the ‘powers that be’ coming in and telling me to shut it down.
It works both ways. They can’t shut mine down, I can’t shut theirs down.
Should you? Freedom isn’t a selective process of who gets it and who doesn’t, that’s communism.
The best way to know we have monsters among us is to allow them free speech so that they self-identify, and do not push their poison out of sight.
Well said.
Of all the dumb questions, this is the dumbest.
Absolutely!!
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