Canada and "Hate Speech" Codes
Regular readers of this blog no doubt know that we are lawyers. During our time in law school we saw close up the push by the liberal establishment, the American Bar Association, and the professoriate at large for so-called "hate speech" laws. Such laws aim, in theory, to protect persons from assault, verbal or physical, based on their gender, race, nationality, ethnicity, nation of origin, sexual orientation and other identity-based factors.
This push must be, and will be, resisted by all who care deeply about freedom of speech because, at the end of the day, "hate speech" is really a very subjective judgment that very much depends on the eye of the beholder, or, if you will, the ear of the listener. Extreme examples are easy to identify, but most liberal experts in this field neglect to point out that obscene and so-called "fighting words" that invoke extreme emotion are already not protected as speech under current Constitutional jurisprudence. That being the case, the "extra" protection afforded by "hate speech" codes really are illusory. What is really going on here is an attempt to declare beyond debate certain subjects that the Left finds offensive.
More mundane examples, however, are likely not to produce such unanimity of judgment. Is Little Green Footballs and invaluable political forum that focuses on the plans and deeds of Islamic Fascists? Or is it a racist hate-site that the government should shut down? We suspect the answer to that question very much depends on one's political views.
The result of such codes, as we have seen in our universities--the last redoubt of liberal orthodoxy--is an unacceptable government intrusion into deciding what constitutes political speech. Any such judgment is highly likely to be politically charged. A quick glance at the common law jurisdictions who have passed such high-sounding laws serves to illustrate the general point.
The result in the U.K. has been to criminalize extreme right wing groups like the BNP on the basis of their "hate speech" while ignoring calls for the murder of Jews emitting weekly from British mosques. This both allows the fascists of the right to pose as martyrs while encouraging Islamic Fascists in their not-unreasonable belief that the Western fetish on race will protect them from any adverse effects under the self-same law.
Canada also provides an excellent example of the dangers of "hate speech" laws. David Frum reports the following incident:
Last month, the Canadian Jewish Congress publicized a disturbing incident at an Ottawa-area Islamic school:
A student at the school handed in an eight-page Arabic-language essay illustrated with a burning Star of David and a machine gun. In one passage, he wrote: "Without thinking, Ahmed took his M-16 machine gun and threw the bombs and he showered the Jews, this resulted in the killing of the soldiers." The teacher to whom the paper was submitted it returned it with the comment, "God bless you, your efforts are good."
After the incident was publicized, the Ontario Ministry of Education was investigated and two teachers were suspended.
Canadian Islamic groups are now protesting the inequity of the Ministry's actions. They are demanding that the Ministry investigate hate speech at Jewish schools. And as an example of what they are concerned about, the Canadian Islamic Congress issued a press release on Friday calling for the investigation of a Kingston-area Hebrew school. The reason? A nine-year-old student at the school published a letter in the Kingston newspaper, the Whig-Standard, charging that Palestinians wished "to push the Israelis into the sea."
According to the Islamic Congress, the views expressed in the child's letter are views "damaging to healthy relationships among many Canadians in our multicultural and pluralist society."
Maybe you remember that famous jibe of Anatole France's about the law with majestic impartiality forbidding both the rich and poor to sleep under bridges? In the same way, the Canadian Islamic Congress seems to believe that healthy multiculturalism should treat exactly equally an Islamic school that encourages young Muslims to fantasize about murdering Jews - and a Jewish school that teaches its students to object to being murdered.
This story illustrates a number of important points, but for our purposes here, note especially how both competing civic organizations are now pressuring for government action to declare the speech of their enemies illegal.
Therein lies the danger. As Jefferson so aptly wrote centuries ago, the best cure for such speech is more free speech and the clear light of day. To involve the government in such matters can only result in direct government involvement in private political debate. In Canada, if the government objects to what one says, one is simply declared illegal. One must shut up or face the full sanction of the law.
No doubt this would please our liberal friends to no end, having thoroughly lost every public policy debate since around 1979.
We understand that freedom of speech is painful to liberals. We know what you're going through, having had to live through the era when you controlled the public debate and no dissenting voices to liberal orthodoxy were allowed into the hallowed halls of CBS News or the New York Times.
Hate speech codes are nothing more and nothing less than an attempt to criminalize one's political opponents and should be resisted by all who care for liberty, be they right or left.
This push must be, and will be, resisted by all who care deeply about freedom of speech because, at the end of the day, "hate speech" is really a very subjective judgment that very much depends on the eye of the beholder, or, if you will, the ear of the listener. Extreme examples are easy to identify, but most liberal experts in this field neglect to point out that obscene and so-called "fighting words" that invoke extreme emotion are already not protected as speech under current Constitutional jurisprudence. That being the case, the "extra" protection afforded by "hate speech" codes really are illusory. What is really going on here is an attempt to declare beyond debate certain subjects that the Left finds offensive.
More mundane examples, however, are likely not to produce such unanimity of judgment. Is Little Green Footballs and invaluable political forum that focuses on the plans and deeds of Islamic Fascists? Or is it a racist hate-site that the government should shut down? We suspect the answer to that question very much depends on one's political views.
The result of such codes, as we have seen in our universities--the last redoubt of liberal orthodoxy--is an unacceptable government intrusion into deciding what constitutes political speech. Any such judgment is highly likely to be politically charged. A quick glance at the common law jurisdictions who have passed such high-sounding laws serves to illustrate the general point.
The result in the U.K. has been to criminalize extreme right wing groups like the BNP on the basis of their "hate speech" while ignoring calls for the murder of Jews emitting weekly from British mosques. This both allows the fascists of the right to pose as martyrs while encouraging Islamic Fascists in their not-unreasonable belief that the Western fetish on race will protect them from any adverse effects under the self-same law.
Canada also provides an excellent example of the dangers of "hate speech" laws. David Frum reports the following incident:
Last month, the Canadian Jewish Congress publicized a disturbing incident at an Ottawa-area Islamic school:
A student at the school handed in an eight-page Arabic-language essay illustrated with a burning Star of David and a machine gun. In one passage, he wrote: "Without thinking, Ahmed took his M-16 machine gun and threw the bombs and he showered the Jews, this resulted in the killing of the soldiers." The teacher to whom the paper was submitted it returned it with the comment, "God bless you, your efforts are good."
After the incident was publicized, the Ontario Ministry of Education was investigated and two teachers were suspended.
Canadian Islamic groups are now protesting the inequity of the Ministry's actions. They are demanding that the Ministry investigate hate speech at Jewish schools. And as an example of what they are concerned about, the Canadian Islamic Congress issued a press release on Friday calling for the investigation of a Kingston-area Hebrew school. The reason? A nine-year-old student at the school published a letter in the Kingston newspaper, the Whig-Standard, charging that Palestinians wished "to push the Israelis into the sea."
According to the Islamic Congress, the views expressed in the child's letter are views "damaging to healthy relationships among many Canadians in our multicultural and pluralist society."
Maybe you remember that famous jibe of Anatole France's about the law with majestic impartiality forbidding both the rich and poor to sleep under bridges? In the same way, the Canadian Islamic Congress seems to believe that healthy multiculturalism should treat exactly equally an Islamic school that encourages young Muslims to fantasize about murdering Jews - and a Jewish school that teaches its students to object to being murdered.
This story illustrates a number of important points, but for our purposes here, note especially how both competing civic organizations are now pressuring for government action to declare the speech of their enemies illegal.
Therein lies the danger. As Jefferson so aptly wrote centuries ago, the best cure for such speech is more free speech and the clear light of day. To involve the government in such matters can only result in direct government involvement in private political debate. In Canada, if the government objects to what one says, one is simply declared illegal. One must shut up or face the full sanction of the law.
No doubt this would please our liberal friends to no end, having thoroughly lost every public policy debate since around 1979.
We understand that freedom of speech is painful to liberals. We know what you're going through, having had to live through the era when you controlled the public debate and no dissenting voices to liberal orthodoxy were allowed into the hallowed halls of CBS News or the New York Times.
Hate speech codes are nothing more and nothing less than an attempt to criminalize one's political opponents and should be resisted by all who care for liberty, be they right or left.
