1) While outlawing free speech among Americans is unlikely, the position of the Obama Administration is quite sufficient to bind the mouths of U.S. officials and government employees. Already the use of the term “War on Terror” is banned. With this policy, no official document will be able to cite “religious hatred” as the reason why terrorists seek to attack America, or why we should try to defend ourselves from militant Islam.

2) The Obama Administration’s position allows it to advocate, or participate in other countries connivance at, restrictions upon free speech abroad – including allowing discretionary foreign aid that may be directed to such ends.

I should point out that the U.N. effort is part of King Abdullah’s Interfaith Dialogue as laid out at the Islamic Preparatory Conference on Religious Dialogue last year: link. The Dialogue project seems to be shaping up as an effort to replace Western-style rights with Islamic-style “tolerance” – the sort of tolerance that can revoked in an instant, with only the victim to blame.

In all seriousness, I agree with Mark Field– while I accept (if not necessarily respect) that other countries will have different legal regimes than ours when it comes to speech rights, I do not believe we should ever encourage anything that is inconsistent with the First Amendment.
It is not only the lodestar of our constitutional jurisprudence, it is the guiding light of our democratic values. Other countries do not have to share it, but we set a poor example when we do not endorse it.

Yes, you’ve gotta tar and feather that librul for his hatred of free speech. He’s just ginnin’ to use that hate speech legislation to trample on my rights. Look at him spittin’ on the First Amendment, throwin’ his lot in with the UN and them furriners… oh, wait… hmmm… ya mean he said we shouldn’t support that abomination? Well, he’s still a punk.

Oh, wait. I see the problem. As Ryan Waxx so pithily put it:

“That’s an idea that has serious traction on the far left, so it would be appreciated if you not treat people who express concerns over the idea as histrionic.”

And what did I think was histrionic (admittedly, I was making with the funny, but still):

Dems only want Freedom of Speach for their speach. All others can just shut up or be shut up!

Yeah… geez…. can’t imagine why I thought that was over the top. Between the colloquial “Dems” (that’s friendly, cuz it’s a nickname!), the cute “Hello Kitty”-like misspelling of speech, or the bewildering paranoid delusions, histrionic is perhaps not the phrase I would use. Perhaps $4 short of a latte, in honor of my arugula-eating preferences?

We can’t stop here- we’re in bat country.

Knock off the OT posts, CJ. This isn’t a post about the stimulus.

If your point is that the same post could apply to a vast number of topics people want to talk about here, I don’t disagree with you.

(h) Beliefs and practices which foster or aid violations of human rights (such as the killing of “apostates” or the denial to women of equal protection of the law) can never enjoy the protection of the resolution or of the right to freedom of religion, even if those beliefs and practices are part of a religion. We expect the UN to interpret its resolution in accordance with this statement. If it will not, we will use our veto power to prevent its enforcement in such cases.

I don’t think either of you are understanding exactly what “hate speech” means to the left. It is defined as anything that they don’t like, or that disagrees with their worldview. That’s how Garafalo and Carter get to “straight up racism” as the motivation behind the Tea Parties.

Sure, for now, they’ll be content to define “hate speech” as saying that Islam is not a religion of peace, or that “Van Jones is a commie”, but watch for the rachet to slowly spread the goalposts over the next 2–3 years, until it’s wider than the field.

This gets at an ancillary problem with the concept of hate speech–hate of what? Not all hate is equal; not all targets are equally eligible.

Hate speech seems to be a concept of the social left. It has two facets. One is that it provides a way to say that something is antisocial, wrong, bad, and/or immoral without having to explain why this is so. The second is that it gives you moral standing (at least in your own eyes) because you are defining yourself in terms of what you are against.

The concept is woolly enough that it can be applied to whatever anyone wants to apply it to, which means that it will spread and engulf concepts and statements that were considered innocent only months earlier. Who would be doing the expanding? Can anyone push out the boundary between hate and everything else? I do not know.

The idea that the Constitution could be interpreted to permit this very political concept to limit free speech is sickening, but I quote again what I quoted at 4.01 p.m. yesterday:

“I think it’s completely wrong that someone who promotes racism and intolerance should be given a platform at this university,” said Temple student Josh Rosenthal. “It’s hate speech disguised as free speech.”

Doc Merlin says:

Ryan Waxx: And the proposed text is perfectly compatible with the first amendment, if that amendment gains a new exception in that “hate speech” is not protected speech.That’s an idea that has serious traction on the far left, so it would be appreciated if you not treat people who express concerns over the idea as histrionic.

In my mind ‘hate speech’ is protected speech, but almost all of my leftist friends in academia say it is not.

I don’t think either of you are understanding exactly what “hate speech” means to the left. It is defined as anything that they don’t like, or that disagrees with their worldview. That’s how Garafalo and Carter get to “straight up racism” as the motivation behind the Tea Parties.

Sure, for now, they’ll be content to define “hate speech” as saying that Islam is not a religion of peace, or that “Van Jones is a commie”, but watch for the rachet to slowly spread the goalposts over the next 2-3 years, until it’s wider than the field.

Do you or do you not support American support for the resolution?

I already said above that I don’t. I think the Administration needs to withdraw it.

Do you actually believe the “red” states are just going to go along quietly with a slow dismantling of the Bill of Rights? Is there no point of resistance to growing federal power and the erosion of individual liberty?

The red states are not going to lecture us on the bill of rights, at least not credibly. Spend 50 years working to expand individual liberty and maybe we’ll talk.

Mark Field: I’d be happy to have the redstaters support the BoR — it’d be a welcome change from the last 8 years. And I don’t think they’ll be going anywhere. They can’t afford to lose the welfare payments they get from the blue states.

Pure misdirection. Do you or do you not support American support for the resolution? Do you support enforcement of the resolution here in the United States, no matter the consequences for free political speech?

As to all those liberal academics who embrace campus speech codes, they do so secure in the knowledge that university administrators are now and will always be ideological allies. Are they as confident that limits on speech, applied beyond the university gates, will always serve liberal interests? Do they not fear that, some day, ideological opponents will come to control the machinery of the federal governement, and that liberal speech will be targeted? They must ask themselves the question, what would Nixon have done given the power to limit political speech?

Ryan Waxx: And the proposed text is perfectly compatible with the first amendment, if that amendment gains a new exception in that “hate speech” is not protected speech.That’s an idea that has serious traction on the far left, so it would be appreciated if you not treat people who express concerns over the idea as histrionic.

In my mind ‘hate speech’ is protected speech, but almost all of my leftist friends in academia say it is not.

Do you actually believe the “red” states are just going to go along quietly with a slow dismantling of the Bill of Rights?

I’d be happy to have the redstaters support the BoR — it’d be a welcome change from the last 8 years. And I don’t think they’ll be going anywhere. They can’t afford to lose the welfare payments they get from the blue states.

This is not to say that I like restrictiosn on speech. But other countries do not have our standards of civic life.

Assume that everything I have said here is correct. Have I not just set out precisely why international norms of free/forbidden speech should not apply in our country and why those who would read the First Amendment in light of those assumed norms are wrong?

CJColucci: Step One: Gin up imaginary peril
Step Two: Get the rubes into a lather about imaginary peril
Step Three: Nothing happens
Step Four: Take credit for foiling imaginary peril
Step Five: Rinse and repeat

Knock off the OT posts, CJ. This isn’t a post about the stimulus.

We have had racial violence in this country — people also had the right to protest it. In various cases, such as in the age of lynching, they did not do that enough. Unlike in the days of slavery, there were no laws that said they could not oppose such behavior.

We are also not simply talking free expression here and surely not the “Bill of Rights” in general. The resolution in fact actually promotes free expression in various respects.

We are talking about a certain type of hate speech. I doubt it is that we allow some of what is banned in various countries that prevented us from some of the violence in question. We are not talking dissent here of most kinds either. Or, protecting equal rights and people from violence. All more much more essential than the hate speech in question here.

said Temple student Josh Rosenthal. “It’s hate speech disguised as free speech.”

Twaddle. “Free speech” protects controversial speech, or it’s useless – bland, trite, conventional and entirely unobjectionable speech hardly needs protecting.

The evidence? Among other things, he said: “Where Islam sets roots, freedom dies,” and “our Western culture is far better than the Islamic culture and we should defend it.” Calling the U.S.-Egypt resolution a “disgrace,” he stated: “If the spread of Islam continues unabated in the Western world, “you might at the end of the day lose your Constitution. Wake up, defend your freedom.” He made other statements as well.

But not everyone to whom he spoke was deceived.

Many in the audience were ready to denounce him. “I think it’s completely wrong that someone who promotes racism and intolerance should be given a platform at this university,” said Temple student Josh Rosenthal. “It’s hate speech disguised as free speech.”

The move to make a hate exception to the 1A in this respect is much less apparent. The idea that hate speech should be banned generally also is not as shocking in the context of large chunks of the world. When we have massacres like in Rwanda, terrorism fueled by hate to the extent of the Middle East and other areas, holocausts like in Germany, etc. we can determine with more assurance that such laws still are not for us.

Joe, I think you have it backward. It isn’t a case of, “Well, when we have atrocities in the U.S. we may want to reconsider our preservation of the First Amendment.” It’s much more plausible to me that we haven’t had atrocities in the U.S. because we have and enforce the First Amendment. Or do you think that the atrocities of Darfur, Rwanda, and the Holocaust would be allowed here under the Bill of Rights?

adam:
Do you actually believe the “red” states are just going to go along quietly with a slow dismantling of the Bill of Rights?

Depends on which parts, no? The Warren Court’s decisions that Amendments IV through VIII actually meant something were extremely unpopular with conservatives. See the howls of “judicial activism” that accompanied in cases such as Mapp v. Ohio, Gideon v. Wainwright, and Miranda v. Arizona. Same goes for the decisions protecting unenumerated rights (which are expressly provided for in the Bill of Rights), or the cases holding that freedom of speech includes unpatriotic speech and sexual speech.

Granted, the RKBA is extremely unpopular with liberals and there are plenty of liberals who would like to roll back freedom of hate speech, but let’s not pretend that conservatives have been America’s #1 defender of the Bill of Rights. Far from it.

Mark Field: Nevada might leave the Union? Scary threat. And the best way to show your patriotism.

Do you actually believe the “red” states are just going to go along quietly with a slow dismantling of the Bill of Rights? Is there no point of resistance to growing federal power and the erosion of individual liberty? Is “don’t tread on me” a colorful but ultimately meaningless license plate motto?

The first 75 years of American history is, indeed, the story of a union on the brink of collapse. Texas Gov. Perry launched a successionist trial balloon. Wasn’t popular at the time, but no one called him crazy. Most people don’t hope for dissolution, but at some point they will resist.

That would be clever, except that I’ve known a lot of progressives who want to use “hate speech” laws to outlaw dissent.