Posted on 03/19/2015 3:31:00 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
A human rights activist and writer is dismayed that there are no laws that allow the imprisonment of those who state certain offensive positions, such as Bill Maher and Phil Robertson.
If the United States were a "civilized country" like those in Europe, Tanya Cohen wrote for Thought Catalog, then Robertson, a reality show star on A&E's "Duck Dynasty," "would have been taken before a government Human Rights Tribunal or Human Rights Commission and given a fine or prison sentence for the hateful and bigoted comments that he made about LGBT people."
Among the types of speech that should be punished, Cohen mentioned saying that Islamic terrorists are linked to Islam, saying gay marriage is not really marriage, and saying that men who want to be called women are really men.
Besides Robertson, Cohen named Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin.
Comedian Bill Maher, a liberal atheist who has said that Muslims are more violent than Christians, was also listed. Maher incited the recent shooting of three Muslims, she charged. If there were laws against hate speech, Maher "would be held legally accountable for the shooting."
"When people like this are allowed to sway public opinion against the common good, it can have disastrous consequences," she wrote.
Comparing the United States again to other, mostly European nations that have more restrictions on speech, she wrote that "only in the U.S. is 'freedom of speech' so restrictive and repressive."
She then complained that there is no law in the United States that allows the banning of movies, book, video games, groups or political parties.
Nations that have a "more sensible approach to freedom of expression," Cohen argued, would allow "legitimate freedom of expression," but would ban a host of other voices, including "anti-vaxxers," "climate change deniers," "pick-up artists," and "harmful media." The song "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams should also be banned for encouraging rape.
The U.S. is "completely backwards" and "positively uncivilized" in its free speech protections, Cohen believes. Even "third world" countries like Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are better at freedom of speech by banning certain types of speech, she added.
Americans are the only people on the planet who believe that freedom of speech protects offensive speech, Cohen insisted.
"There is absolutely nobody outside of the U.S. who thinks that there shouldn't be ANY laws against hate speech, racial vilification, or incitement to hatred. That idea is just unthinkable in a society where basic human rights exist. The U.S. has a dismal record on human rights, as indicated by the fact that it still doesn't have universal healthcare, still carries out executions, still hasn't banned firearms, and still tortures people, to name just a few things. But having NO laws against incitement to hatred? It's just impossible for people in civilized countries in the year 2015 to even conceive of such a thing," she wrote. (Emphasis in original.)
People outside the U.S. are "left in stunned disbelief and disgust," she continued, when they find out that it is considered "the land of the free" and a democracy, yet does not have a law banning hate speech. This claim, she added, is "not even an exaggeration," because, "hate speech laws have absolutely universal support from every single facet of society," outside of the U.S.
Freedom of speech, Cohen explained, should give people the right to criticize the government "in a civil, polite, and respectful manner," but should not give the "right to offend, to insult, to disrespect, to oppose human rights, to argue against the common good, to voice approval of totalitarian ideologies, to perpetuate toxic systems of privilege and oppression, to promote ideas which have no place in a modern democratic society, to be provocative or incendiary, or to express opinions which are unacceptable to the majority of people."
As a remedy, Cohen suggested passing laws banning hate speech and letting the United Nations prosecute American citizens who violate international hate speech laws.
On her Twitter account, Cohen describes herself as a "human rights activist and writer."
Thought Catalog describes its mission this way: "We want to support freedom of speech, empower writers and readers on their own terms, and make Thought Catalog an online magazine that represents the worldviews and rhetorical styles of as many people as possible."
The Christian Post contacted Thought Catalog and asked if Cohen's article was intended to be satirical but received no response by press time.
Tanya Cohen. Hmmm. Interesting name for a national socialist.
The stupidity in this sentence fragment is frightening.
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Agreed.
There seem to be a lot of Tanya Cohens on our college campuses these days, and even a few in newsrooms.
Leftists love genocide and democide!
They claim “human rights”, but wouldn’t blink an eye at the slaughter of 100 million Christians and Zionist Jews.
College isn’t for everyone.
Cohen...?
She’s “Jewish” right?
Bet she hates Israel also! Bet she sympathizes with “Palestinians”?
I can’t take these clowns seriously anymore.
I’d like to gag her.
Yep..Germany was a civilized nation that rationalize the deaths of millions for the greater good..
low brow thugs kill in tens and twenty..
its this high order rationalization /thinking that can kill in millions ...it takes a sophisticated mind to blot out the obvious ....we are in bleak times... European pseudointellectual are plague
She sounds like she might be related to Obama. He's for mandates and penalties for people who don't agree with him. I'm sure he wants to imprison the Republicans, Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. He is thin-skinned and a know-it-all narcissist. Leftists always want to silence the opposition by throwing them in jail and throwing away the keys. It makes their job easier to transform society into their Marxist model.
If they put them in the same cell, they could make money putting them on pay-per-view.
There you go. Lock her up!
Human rights fascists should be hung from lamp posts.
The lady you showed is with some retail federation. I believe the above is a photo of our gal.
A human rights activist that wants the government to have the power to imprison people for saying things she doesn’t like or agree with.
She insults me with her talk. Can’t we jail her?
I think I have a Human Right to not look at that. LOL
Words cannot express how much I despise Maher. If I was to hear of his passing, I would probably stop what I was doing and have a shot of my ever present MacAllan, 12 year old single malt.
That said, who was the famous man that said something like “I despise what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it”.
This Cohen person needs to go live in Europe!
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