Posted on 05/06/2015 9:30:41 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
This guy is a professional journalist. And a Yale grad. And a law-school grad.
But let’s be fair. If you polled the media, how many of them would agree? Don’t stomp Cuomo just because he’s bold enough to say what the rest are thinking.
For once I’m with Glenn Greenwald. The funniest part of this, at least for law nerds, is Cuomo suggesting that a “hate speech” exception might be found in the text of the First Amendment itself rather than a Supreme Court case somewhere. You remember how James Madison went on and on about hate speech in the Federalist Papers, don’t you? Know your history, haters.
There is, of course, no “hate speech” exception to the Free Speech Clause. But I’m going to give Cuomo some credit for anticipating the inevitable liberal attempt to carve one out by using a troubling bit of case law detritus that I’ve grumbled about before. Here’s how he replied when people on Twitter began asking him if he’s a moron.
Ah yes, the “Chaplinsky test,” a.k.a. the “fighting words” doctrine. He’s eating crap from righties and lefties alike as I write this for reading too much into what the Chaplinsky decision allows. That’s the case, handed down by the Supreme Court in 1942, that says the First Amendment doesn’t protect words “which, by their very utterance, inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.” Over time federal courts have narrowed that ruling to make clear that it only applies, in Ken White’s words, to “face-to-face insults that would provoke an immediate violent reaction from a reasonable person.” In other words, says Instapundit, a “personal invitation to brawl.” All true, but it’s painfully easy to move from that standard to a standard in which “hateful” speech qualifies as “fighting words” whether or not it’s uttered face to face, whether or not the violent reaction is immediate, and whether or not a reasonable person from the “majority” might object to it. Pam Geller’s Mohammed cartoon contest is a perfect example. That was a private event, not a face-to-face demonstration in front of a group of Muslims; most Americans would say that cartoons of any figure, no matter how insulting, don’t justify a violent response; and there was no reason to expect that the violent reaction, if it came, would be an immediate attack on the event itself rather than a plot to target Geller or her allies later. It should fail the Chaplinsky test easily. (And Cuomo, in fairness, isn’t saying otherwise.)
But if the point of Chaplinsky is to keep the peace by banning certain words that are likely to inspire a violent reaction, then of course the cartoon contest qualifies as “fighting words.” Even Geller’s critics, like Noah Feldman, acknowledge that there’s a nonzero risk of bombs going off around someone who mocks “the prophet.” In the modern world, where we’re all basically face to face on the Internet, communicating your insult in person seems like a formalistic, archaic requirement. And of course, as any good progressive would tell you, it’s horrible chauvinism by a privileged class to think insulting Mohammed should be permissible simply because America’s non-Muslim majority doesn’t find it offensive. Again: If keeping the peace is the touchstone here then naturally we should ban insults to Mohammed. It’s the very first thing we should ban, in fact, because there’s no form of speech nowadays that’s more likely to lead to violence than that. And that’s why Chaplinsky is such a pernicious, awful decision: It rewards violence by punishing the speaker instead of the guy who wants to punch him in the face. In fact, if you re-read the majority opinion, you’ll see that the case didn’t actually involve an invitation to fight or any sort of direct threat of physical violence. The words that got Chaplinsky thrown in jail, that were unworthy of constitutional protection, were him telling a local cop, “You are a God damned racketeer” and “a damned Fascist and the whole government of Rochester are Fascists or agents of Fascists.” He was guilty, in other words, of being insulting. You don’t think progressives, given a few decades of sustained effort to influence the consensus about the First Amendment among left-wing judges, couldn’t build on that precedent to treat all “hate speech” as fighting words? Remember:
America needs to be a “safe space” for all its citizens. Equality demands no less. And no one can be truly safe where “hate” is free to flourish. Right?
Cuomo is another enemy collaborator.
The Chaplinsky situation included immediate physical proximity and “fighting words” laced with slander. The Geller event was constitutionally protected political and religious speech. As satire it also comes in for specific protection.
That is very important and celebrated in one of the few musical sounds Islamists permit..
. . .
♩♪♫
♫♩♪♫
tah-KEE-yuh
♩♪♫
♫♩♪♫
. . . .
:)
We have a Gordian knot here. The only way to cut it is to regain a consciousness of the divine.
Too many lies, and you end up not even with lies, but with nonsense. “This isn’t right. This isn’t even wrong!”
“Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies”
That's why we call him a tnuc here in FL.
How was that for hate speech?
5.56mm
“Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies”
Anyhow maybe a good thing to pray is that the lie mongers will overplay their hand. Too much nonsense too soon, and people will rebel.
lufetah yrev!
Cuomo is just another Islamoservile who is willingly servile to the enemy, Islamism.
Exactly. The Left comes up with the Constitutionally unfounded idea that ‘hate speech’ can be excluded from First Amendment protections, and then, of course, the Left gets to define ‘hate speech’.
It is a scary proposition. If a Democrat wins in 2016, or if a Republican wins and is unable (or unwilling) to get a conservative Sup Court nominee approved, then once Scalia or Kennedy retire then there will be at least a 5 vote majority to strip destroy Free Speech by making exceptions for so called ‘hate speech.’ And leading the way in defining ‘hate speech’ will be far-left, radical, loathsome, despicable groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Thanks for the earworm, old timer. Now, what was the song title of that hit from the 50s, anyway? I can’t remember. Something ending in “ita.”
The Offendotrons have apparently decided that, in their Victimology Culture, our words and our very existence offends them in every way, and causes them imminent physical injury, and so we must be silenced and likely disposed of... imminently.
Like anything built out of human approximations to truth, it is open to abuse.
Canada is already well into this conundrum.
Liberals know how to game the system. If shouting fire in crowded theaters is wrong, then make your theaters out of tinder.
I need to post this idea on facebook. They are really clueless there.
Besides alcohol is offensive to Islamists and it'd be hate speech if I told you. Sorry.
Bill Maher is in trouble. He’s probably the biggest Christophobe on tv, IMO.
I think Christians depended too much on cultural support for their beliefs. For a long time that cultural support was there. It’s nice in a way, but it also masks the spiritual picture.
A good challenge might be the only way to get drowsy warriors to dust off their spiritual AK47s, so to speak. The good Lord knows that.
-PJ
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