Comments on: Free Speech and Westboro Baptist Church

By: SunlessNick

SunlessNick — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 00:23:39 +0000

There’s also a special paragraph about the Holocaust, saying that anyone who denies it, trivializes it, or endorses it is guilty of ‘Volksverhetzung’. So in Germany Galliano would have committed a crime.

Endorsing extermination can’t reasonably be considered anything but a call for violence, and denying it is a lie (there is no way to honestly hold the opinion that it didn’t happen, short of outright delusion).

In a corollary to rodriguez’s hypothesis above, before the Nazis took power, there was nothing to prevent vocal opposition to them, and it did happen. So perhaps we (in the sense of western Europeans) don’t have as much faith in the ability of more speech to defeat hate speech.

By: rodriguez

rodriguez — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 02:45:17 +0000

extra tidbit – someone discussing this on the news today mentioned that US free speech practices/policies vs. other countries means that hate speech groups register URLs with hateful content in the US.

Those pages would not be protected or permitted elsewhere. So the stuff gets distributed further by putting it all online.

By: wondering

wondering — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 00:51:30 +0000

Of course, I use the term “uprising” very loosely, and probably inappropriately in that statement. Especially given recent world events.

By: wondering

wondering — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 00:49:18 +0000

Actually, you can now get Fox News but through a special cable subscription. For example, I have three tiers of cable with over a 100 channels but Fox News is not part of the package, you need to order a special package, so you’d have to specifically want to get Fox News. This is a recent change; the current right-wing Canadian government was sympathetic to complaints that you could get Al-Jazeera on cable here but not Fox News. This is a recent change – but bear also in mind that the same government wanted to repeal our anti-lying in the media law and would have if it weren’t for the popular uprising against it. However, that law did ultimately block the creation of a like-minded Canadian news channel (popularly labelled Fox News North).

You can read about it here: http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Frobert-f-kennedy-jr%2Ffox-news-will-not-be-moving-into-canada-after-all_b_829473.html&h=48b60

Just please ignore all the superlatives the reporter used. They’re embarrassing and just not true.

By: BeckySharper

BeckySharper — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 23:46:55 +0000

@wondering: In which case, I assume Fox News is blacked out in Canada.

By: wondering

wondering — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 23:37:06 +0000

@Becky Sharper: In Canada, hate speech specifically involves inciting violence, so unless your “immoral, feminist, Jewish, immigrant-loving, pro-gay garbage” included a call to arms to eliminate all right-wing homophobes, it would not constitute hate speech.

Another interesting point: I only recently discovered that in the US it is perfectly legal for media to deliberately spread misinformation under the guise of free speech. I can’t even express how shocked I was to hear that. In Canada, that is against the law. This is another limitation on free speech that I am grateful for. Opinion is, of course, still perfectly legal, but you can’t present something as a fact when it is obviously a lie.

By: Endora

Endora — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 23:19:43 +0000

@Rodriguez: I’m not sure how the French hate laws work, but I’d imagine it’s quite different from in Germany. Becky’s right about Germany – you have free speech except in the case of what they call ‘Volksverhetzung’, which is incitement of the people to violence, basically.

From Wikipedia: ‘It is a common misconception that Volksverhetzung includes any spreading of nazism, racist, or other discriminatory ideas. For any hate speech to be punishable as Volksverhetzung, the law requires that said speech be “qualified for disturbing public peace” either by inciting “hatred against parts of the populace” or calling for “acts of violence or despotism against them”, or by attacking “the human dignity of others by reviling, maliciously making contemptible or slandering parts of the populace”.’

By: Verity Khat

Verity Khat — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 22:36:56 +0000

Also, AmBam, my condolences to your family, and I’m glad the Patriot Guard was there to make sure you were not harassed. (And to relieve the stuffy-is-the-only-form-of-honor atmosphere!)

By: Verity Khat

Verity Khat — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 22:33:45 +0000

I may not like what someone has to say (especially the WBC), but I’m a lot more afraid of someone having the power to decide what is or is not acceptable speech. (That way lies totalitarianism…)

So I’m with Av0gadro: Speak, ye idiots! Loudly and in public, so that those of us who argue for humanity can point to you as an example of how NOT to act.

By: Drahill

Drahill — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 21:05:16 +0000

True, true. another major concern is the ability of those accused of hate speech to use their arrests to cultivate a “martyr” or persecuted image. I’m thinking particularly of Geert Wilders, whose basically built an entire career off of “I speak the truth because I am constantly arrested for hate speech” type of people. Somebody like that probably loves more restrictive laws because they basically created the means for him to advance his career.