The New York Times takes a blind leap into the popular pool with its editorial entitled, “Free Speech vs. Hate Speech.” The phrase, “hate speech,” has been all the rage in academia, uttered by every sophomore editorial writer who feels compelled to wear his heart on his pen. But the Times?
There is no question that images ridiculing religion, however offensive they may be to believers, qualify as protected free speech in the United States and most Western democracies. There is also no question that however offensive the images, they do not justify murder, and that it is incumbent on leaders of all religious faiths to make this clear to their followers.
But it is equally clear that the Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest in Garland, Tex., was not really about free speech. It was an exercise in bigotry and hatred posing as a blow for freedom.
Free speech but is how it always seems to start. Is it “equally clear” that the Garland contest was not “really about free speech”? Is it clear because it was “an exercise in bigotry and hatred posing as a blow for freedom,” because somebody at the Times thought it was WRONG?
And therein lies the heart of the fallacy, the lie of hate speech. Perhaps it reflected bigotry and hatred. So what? Doesn’t the Times hate racism? So railing against it is hate speech to those who disagree, yet the Times isn’t about to stop hating racism because it reflects its bigotry and hatred.
But the Times can justify the apparent hypocrisy because its beliefs are good and right, while others are evil and wrong. See how that works? When they hate, it’s the good type. When someone else hates, it’s the bad type. The Times’ hatred is free speech. Other’s hatred is hate speech. Burn the witch!
That distinction is critical because the conflicts that have erupted over depictions of the Prophet Muhammad, most notably the massacre of staff members at the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in January by two Muslim brothers, have generated a furious and often confused debate about free speech versus hate speech.
Yet, rather than explain that the “confused debate about free speech versus hate speech” is a false dichotomy, the Times chooses to further inflame the situation and reduce the confusion to its most ignorant level.
Some of those who draw cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad may earnestly believe that they are striking a blow for freedom of expression, though it is hard to see how that goal is advanced by inflicting deliberate anguish on millions of devout Muslims who have nothing to do with terrorism. As for the Garland event, to pretend that it was motivated by anything other than hate is simply hogwash.
Whether anybody in the editorial offices of a newspaper gets to decide who is sufficiently “earnest” to deserve the right to speak goes beyond scary, but even if “the Garland event” was motivated by hate, so what? Free speech includes the words of those who hate. Who hate racism. Who hate the Nazis. Who hate terrorists. Who hate radical Islam. Who hate King George. Hate is at the core of what free speech protects.
The better looking son of Mario Cuomo and brother of the governor of New York, Chris Cuomo, took to the twitters to inform his million plus followers.
Cuomo, who went to Fordham Law School before becoming the Chief Legal and Justice correspondent for ABC, not only used his platform to make sure his followers were informed that hate speech isn’t protected by the First Amendment, but was snotty enough to finish with “read it.” Because he’s a lawyer, you know.
As he was ripped a new one from all quarters, Cuomo tried to dig his way out of the hole by relying on Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, the “fighting words” case (Chaplinsky told the Rochester City Marshal, Bowering, that he was “a damned fascist“), which itself has been largely undermined since and which, by no stretch of a legally knowledgeable understanding, has anything to do with hate speech.
Cuomo continued to wiggle his way out of the stupid he propounded, but it changed nothing. You see, a million people may have seen what they believed to be a credible person, a lawyer, tell them that the Constitution excludes hate speech. Some will cheer and rejoice. Some will link to such a twit on reddit to prove their point that hate speech is not protected. Some will chant Chaplinsky, because Cuomo said it proved his point.
There is no such thing as hate speech. What one person sees as hate speech is what another sees as truth, as a view that must be spread for the welfare of society. As with all the other deeply held beliefs that comfort us at night, we are certain that our views are right and everyone who disagrees with us is wrong. That’s hate speech too, the words with which we disagree. Just as our speech is hate speech to those who disagree with us.
But all that is fine, as long as it remains within the confines of people’s need to believe that they are in the right and its the rest of the world that’s batshit crazy or evil. You’re allowed to be as wrong as you wanna be. This is America, and no one can make you think.
What you cannot do is manufacture a fantasy where your speech is free speech and speech you don’t like isn’t. Nowhere in the First Amendment is it limited to speech that you find acceptable. Nowhere does it exclude speech that makes you unhappy, annoyed or outraged. There is no free speech vs. hate speech, as the New York Times would suggest. And there is no hate speech at all, except in the gooey morass of some unduly self-righteous mind.
Discover more from Simple Justice
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I am waiting for the Times to write :
Some of those who mock Jesus may earnestly believe that they are striking a blow for freedom of expression, though it is hard to see how that goal is advanced by inflicting deliberate anguish on millions of devout Christians who have nothing to do with terrorism.
Well, they sorta loved Book of Mormon.
SHG,
Thanks for this post. You make a critical point.
I am amazed at how many people, including lawyers, are quick to demand that our courts silence “hate” speech. Guess what? They have no legal ground upon which to stand even where the speech would be considered gross and offensive by 99% of Americans. See, e.g, Phelps-Roper v. Bruning, No. 4:10CV3131 (D. Neb. 2010) (granting TRO against Nebraska and in favor a member of the Westboro Baptist Church who wanted to burn an American flag at or near the State Capitol and at a funeral to express opposition to homosexuality but was threatened with arrest); Olmer v. City of Lincoln, 23 F.Supp.2d 1091 (D. Neb. 1998) (granting injunction to members of Rescue the Heartland to allow them to continue to display large and graphic posters of aborted fetuses on the sidewalk in front of a large Presbyterian church even though some children attending the church were frightened by the posters). (These cases are available through Google Scholar.)
You are absolutely correct when you write that “there is no hate speech at all, except in the gooey morass of some unduly self-righteous mind.” The Times editorial people and the rest of us would do ourselves a favor by remembering your words.
All the best.
RGK
The existence of this thing called hate speech has been sufficiently repeated and propounded as to make it appear real. And if so, then it will come before courts to be enforced.
And eventually, a fuzzy wuzzy judge will do exactly that, and he’ll be a hero of the self-righteous.
I get cold chills when I see major news outlets arguing in favor of banning speech because, ‘That speech is just wrong!’
At what point did the Fourth Estate become an advocate for the path to tyranny?
I suspect it was sometime prior to the election of 1800.
At what point were they not? Every authoritarian movement had their own journalists and the more powerful/popular authoritarians were, the more readership their journalists had.
“fine, as along as it remains” should be “fine, as long as it remains”
If hate speech is successfully outlawed, pathogenic ideas will fester behind the repressive bandages until the ideas metastasize into something stronger. Much better to expose the ideas to the disinfecting sunlight of public discourse. Watching pathogenic ideas wilt in the face of reason and logic on social media clearly demonstrates this truism.
I like where your head’s at, but you’re overlooking one complication: a lot of feelings will get hurt if we allow hate speech. Freedom means never getting your feelings hurt, and hurt feelings are an embodiment of injustice. There is a reason that offense (as in a criminal offense) and offensive (that speech I don’t like) are pretty much the same words.
In short, the psychotraumatic cost of repelling ugly ideas with reason is simply too high.
I see you are still struggling with the topic of the post. Keep trying. I believe in you, and feel confident that one of these days, you will get there. And typo corrected. Thanks.
I have come to understand that anguish cannot be inflicted upon another. Rather, anguish is self-inflicted.
If for a moment you find yourself there, shake yourself. Cheers
Haven’t you heard? No harm is self-inflicted anymore.
There are two kinds of leftists: true believers, and those who use it as a power grab.
The author of this blog is the former; he truly believes in the professed lefty ideology, which, since the 1920s in this country, has included a platform of near-universal free speech (“near” only because of the “fire in a crowded theater” and “inciting a riot” exceptions).
The Times, however, is the latter. They are all for free speech when it means that lefty-friendly speech can’t be silenced, but quickly reverse course whenever speech opposing lefties comes into hearing range. The hypocrisy of the Times logic— trying to term speech they don’t like “hate speech”, and then claiming hate speech is not free speech—belies any claim by them that they are pro-free speech. What they are is pro-their side, and anti-the other side, by any means necessary.
I wonder if this blog author is anti-hate crime legislation, since that springs from the same source of the power-grab-lefties.
If it makes you feel any better, yesterday I was libertarian and tomorrow I’ll be a righty. Dumbass.
LegallySpeaking would be what the Urban Dictionary refers to as a labelist.
But you just called him a dumbass — if you don’t like people because of their misuse of labels, does that make you a labelist, too? Or am I a labelist for incorrectly categorizing your conclusion? This map/territory thing is difficult.
Who said I didn’t like him? Don’t put words in my mouth, you words-in-mouthist.
Ah, the old “some of my best friends are dumbasses” ploy.
Pingback: Greta’s Big But | Simple Justice