A free speech advocate (I think Ira Glasser, but I’m not sure) once said, “I want to know who the Nazis in the room are,” so he could know to be wary of them. He was right - not only does censorship create martyrs, it makes it more difficult to spot the people with malicious views. I’d rather the defenders of Hamas be allowed to make themselves known, so I know not to respect them.
We may enjoy our freedom of speech knowing that there are institutions in place to protect us when a line is crossed into illegal activity. Historically, however, minorities have not always received that same institutional protection, which can be an argument for additional protections for minorities such as hate-crime laws.
Hate can and should be prosecuted when it becomes actions, or as aggravating factor to actions. The incitation to violence can be prosecuted. Hate speech is an extremely vague concept in every legislation that exists, because the concept shifts. And the concept of hate speech is already used, broadly, more and more frequently, to attempt censoring dissenting opinions about any subject that a group of people feels strongly about, all over the world.
Besides, where minorities do not receive the same institutional protection as majorities, they will not be protected by hate speech laws either, because hate speech laws are an institutional protection.
Let the haters speak freely. It is the place of those around them to rebut hateful words and ideas. Only so does society maintain its health -- also in revealing clearly, like it does in this particular moment in time, how sick it has become.
I pretty much agree with everything you say, but the US (whose core legal structure includes the First Amendment) differs from other countries with weaker legal/traditional protections for free speech.
All well and good, except that Jews are not, in fact, being protected. They're being ignored, they're being told to not hold their own demonstrations, they're being told to stay out of sight.
Also, I don't think a celebration of murder, rape and other atrocities is simply "one side of a conflict".
Hi, Ulysses, I'm not offended by your indignation on such an important issue, but just as one example, I would remind you of the massacre at the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut, in which the IDF was deeply complicit. Israel has just as much right to exist as any other state, but not at the expense of denying the human and civil rights of millions of people within their borders. It needn't be this way, if Israel committed itself to being a truly democratic, secular state that does not grant special status to any ethnic or religious group, and brutalize those outside that group.
As a donor, albeit a small one, to FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), I applaud the author's principled defense of free speech in the context of the current round of violence in Israel/Palestine, but I believe he is missing a crucial component of contemporary pressure for censorship, as well as displaying an extremely one-sided, if somewhat conventional, attitude toward the horrific level of death and destruction being meted out by the state of Israel against a large captive population in the Gaza Strip.
The millions of inhabitants in the Gaza Strip have all been prisoners there under Israeli occupation - or siege, or whatever one chooses to call it - for almost twenty years, which is longer than most of them have been alive. Their ancestors were forced out of their homes in Palestine when the State of Israel was founded in 1948, and they now live as both refugees and prisoners, subject to the daily deprivation, violence and humiliation of occupation, punctuated by outbursts of outright Israeli military attacks like the current one. While the violence initiated by Hamas partisans on October 7 of this year may be shocking and repugnant, it is no more so than what their own people have been used to for decades. It is now clear that the Israelis intend to drive the Palestinians out of Palestine altogether, if they are allowed to do that, but other countries in the region, as well as the residents of the Gaza Strip themselves, might not be disposed to allow that to happen. Even Israel's most steadfast and powerful benefactor, the Unites States government, may start to have second thoughts, if the stakes get too high in terms of rising public criticism and potential damage to vital American strategic interests.
Herein lies the weakness of Mr. Mchangama's defense of free speech: it is often, if not usually, the most powerful vested interests - the US government and their enablers in the mainstream media - who are the most prolific purveyors of lies, distortions, and half-truths, and the current Administration's (seemingly) unquestioning loyalty to the State of Israel is precisely why it is so vitally important for the full range of alternative opinions and information to be available to the public, so that the official narrative does not go unchallenged. It is not just so that we can identify those with differing views as anti-semites, Nazis, or whatever, but so both we and they will at least have the chance to question our own certainties, to weigh different possible interpretations, and not live in the kind of Orwellian information bubble where only the official viewpoint, however often it changes, is ever heard.
I am wondering in which world you live, because it is not the one where I live.
"While the violence initiated by Hamas partisans on October 7 of this year may be shocking and repugnant, it is no more so than what their own people have been used to for decades."
Thank you for showing that you justify the deliberate massacre of civilians, an act in which the state of Israel has never engaged. The remarkable choice of the word "partisans" for a troop of bloodthirsty terrorists is particularly exquisite. I am sure that, as your many friends say, this is completely acceptable and inevitable when fighting against oppression. In other words, the very existence of Israel is responsible for any evil visited upon Israel, and probably also of every act of terrorism perpetrated in the world by non-white-coded people is the responsibility of the imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy (not a joke of my invention this one, just google it).
I applaud free speech and would never wish you deprived of the ability to show your truly shocking and repugnant lack of moral compass, ideological bêtise, and ignorance of history. It makes people know who you are.
I think your partisanship (at least, that's how it reads to me) is tripping up your argument. I agree that the author focuses too much for my taste on "knowing who the bad guys are because we let them speak" and not enough on "those in power are the most likely to suppress speech, and thus, protection of free speech is inherently designed to protect those who are not already in power, and those same protections are likely to piss off the powerful the most."
If the powerful are not complaining about free speech rights, then the free speech rights are probably not doing their job.
A free speech advocate (I think Ira Glasser, but I’m not sure) once said, “I want to know who the Nazis in the room are,” so he could know to be wary of them. He was right - not only does censorship create martyrs, it makes it more difficult to spot the people with malicious views. I’d rather the defenders of Hamas be allowed to make themselves known, so I know not to respect them.
We may enjoy our freedom of speech knowing that there are institutions in place to protect us when a line is crossed into illegal activity. Historically, however, minorities have not always received that same institutional protection, which can be an argument for additional protections for minorities such as hate-crime laws.
Hate can and should be prosecuted when it becomes actions, or as aggravating factor to actions. The incitation to violence can be prosecuted. Hate speech is an extremely vague concept in every legislation that exists, because the concept shifts. And the concept of hate speech is already used, broadly, more and more frequently, to attempt censoring dissenting opinions about any subject that a group of people feels strongly about, all over the world.
Besides, where minorities do not receive the same institutional protection as majorities, they will not be protected by hate speech laws either, because hate speech laws are an institutional protection.
Let the haters speak freely. It is the place of those around them to rebut hateful words and ideas. Only so does society maintain its health -- also in revealing clearly, like it does in this particular moment in time, how sick it has become.
I pretty much agree with everything you say, but the US (whose core legal structure includes the First Amendment) differs from other countries with weaker legal/traditional protections for free speech.
All well and good, except that Jews are not, in fact, being protected. They're being ignored, they're being told to not hold their own demonstrations, they're being told to stay out of sight.
Also, I don't think a celebration of murder, rape and other atrocities is simply "one side of a conflict".
Hi, Ulysses, I'm not offended by your indignation on such an important issue, but just as one example, I would remind you of the massacre at the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut, in which the IDF was deeply complicit. Israel has just as much right to exist as any other state, but not at the expense of denying the human and civil rights of millions of people within their borders. It needn't be this way, if Israel committed itself to being a truly democratic, secular state that does not grant special status to any ethnic or religious group, and brutalize those outside that group.
As a donor, albeit a small one, to FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), I applaud the author's principled defense of free speech in the context of the current round of violence in Israel/Palestine, but I believe he is missing a crucial component of contemporary pressure for censorship, as well as displaying an extremely one-sided, if somewhat conventional, attitude toward the horrific level of death and destruction being meted out by the state of Israel against a large captive population in the Gaza Strip.
The millions of inhabitants in the Gaza Strip have all been prisoners there under Israeli occupation - or siege, or whatever one chooses to call it - for almost twenty years, which is longer than most of them have been alive. Their ancestors were forced out of their homes in Palestine when the State of Israel was founded in 1948, and they now live as both refugees and prisoners, subject to the daily deprivation, violence and humiliation of occupation, punctuated by outbursts of outright Israeli military attacks like the current one. While the violence initiated by Hamas partisans on October 7 of this year may be shocking and repugnant, it is no more so than what their own people have been used to for decades. It is now clear that the Israelis intend to drive the Palestinians out of Palestine altogether, if they are allowed to do that, but other countries in the region, as well as the residents of the Gaza Strip themselves, might not be disposed to allow that to happen. Even Israel's most steadfast and powerful benefactor, the Unites States government, may start to have second thoughts, if the stakes get too high in terms of rising public criticism and potential damage to vital American strategic interests.
Herein lies the weakness of Mr. Mchangama's defense of free speech: it is often, if not usually, the most powerful vested interests - the US government and their enablers in the mainstream media - who are the most prolific purveyors of lies, distortions, and half-truths, and the current Administration's (seemingly) unquestioning loyalty to the State of Israel is precisely why it is so vitally important for the full range of alternative opinions and information to be available to the public, so that the official narrative does not go unchallenged. It is not just so that we can identify those with differing views as anti-semites, Nazis, or whatever, but so both we and they will at least have the chance to question our own certainties, to weigh different possible interpretations, and not live in the kind of Orwellian information bubble where only the official viewpoint, however often it changes, is ever heard.
I am wondering in which world you live, because it is not the one where I live.
"While the violence initiated by Hamas partisans on October 7 of this year may be shocking and repugnant, it is no more so than what their own people have been used to for decades."
Thank you for showing that you justify the deliberate massacre of civilians, an act in which the state of Israel has never engaged. The remarkable choice of the word "partisans" for a troop of bloodthirsty terrorists is particularly exquisite. I am sure that, as your many friends say, this is completely acceptable and inevitable when fighting against oppression. In other words, the very existence of Israel is responsible for any evil visited upon Israel, and probably also of every act of terrorism perpetrated in the world by non-white-coded people is the responsibility of the imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy (not a joke of my invention this one, just google it).
I applaud free speech and would never wish you deprived of the ability to show your truly shocking and repugnant lack of moral compass, ideological bêtise, and ignorance of history. It makes people know who you are.
I think your partisanship (at least, that's how it reads to me) is tripping up your argument. I agree that the author focuses too much for my taste on "knowing who the bad guys are because we let them speak" and not enough on "those in power are the most likely to suppress speech, and thus, protection of free speech is inherently designed to protect those who are not already in power, and those same protections are likely to piss off the powerful the most."
If the powerful are not complaining about free speech rights, then the free speech rights are probably not doing their job.