TheSanityAnnex
03-19-2015, 01:59 PM
http://thoughtcatalog.com/tanya-cohen/2015/03/the-first-amendment-should-never-protect-hatred/
The First Amendment Should Never Protect Hatred
Tanya Cohen
One of the most admirable things about Europe is that most (if not all) of the right-wing rhetoric that you hear in the US is explicitly against the law there. For example, attempting to link Islam with terrorism, saying that gay marriage isn’t really marriage, or saying that trans women aren’t really women would get you charged with discrimination and/or incitement to hatred. Numerous European public figures have been charged with hate crimes for implying that large-scale immigration is connected to higher crime. In fact, a politician in Sweden was prosecuted for hate crimes for posting statistics about immigrant crime on Facebook. Assaults on the human dignity of Muslims are simply not tolerated in Europe, and Europe cracks down hard on any attempts to incite hatred against Muslims. In a notable example, a woman in Austria was convicted of a hate crime for suggesting that the Islamic Prophet Muhammed was a pedophile. Recently, a man in Sweden was charged with incitement to ethnic hatred for wearing a T-shirt saying “Islam is the devil.” Nobody in Europe believes that these laws interfere with their sacred, guaranteed right to freedom of speech. Rather, these laws protect freedom of speech by ensuring that it is used responsibly and for the purposes of good.
In the US, however, no such laws exist. Right-wing hatemongers like Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Bill Maher, and Sarah Palin (to name just a few) are allowed to freely incite hatred and violence, oppose human rights, and undermine progress with impunity. When people like this are allowed to sway public opinion against the common good, it can have disastrous consequences. Just ask the millions of people killed due to wars pushed by right-wingers, even though propaganda for war is illegal under international human rights law (the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights mandates that all countries outlaw propaganda for war).
In the United States, hate speech is often spewed forth by people with a great deal of influence, thus making it even more dangerous. Freedom of speech always comes with responsibility, and people in powerful positions need to have extra responsibilities. Consider the case of Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson. In a civilized country with basic human rights, Phil Robertson would have been taken before a government Human Rights Tribunal or Human Rights Commission and given a fine or prison sentence for the hateful and bigoted comments that he made about LGBT people. In the US, however, he was given no legal punishment, even though his comments easily had the potential to incite acts of violence against LGBT people, who already face widespread violence in the deeply homophobic American society – and his comments probably DID incite acts of violence against LGBT people.
Most countries have freedom of speech, but only in the US is “freedom of speech” so restrictive and repressive. Not only is the US the only country without any laws against hateful or offensive speech, but it’s also the only country where the government cannot ban any movies, books, or video games, no matter how dangerous, demeaning to human dignity, or harmful to society they may be. The US government is also the only government that cannot ban any groups or political parties, even when those groups or political parties pose a serious threat to democracy. This is completely incompatible with international human rights standards, which clearly state that freedom of speech does not protect speech which is harmful to society, to morality, or to human rights. Countries like the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, France, and Australia – to name just a few examples – take a much more sensible approach to freedom of expression. They allow legitimate freedom of expression while banning bigots, hatemongers, conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers, pro-pedophile groups, terrorist sympathizers, harmful media, Holocaust deniers, pick-up artists, climate change deniers, and other forms of expression which damage society and social cohesion.
The United States has a very limited and very outdated understanding of human rights and political freedoms. In all other countries, it is simply common knowledge that freedom of speech does not permit hatred or other human rights abuses. This is not something that anyone outside of the US would ever question. In the US, however, it’s a concept that seems to be utterly alien to the vast majority of the population. The US appears completely backwards and positively uncivilized to the rest of the world when it refuses to crack down on manifestations of hatred.
While America has always been far behind the rest of the world when it comes to basic human rights – we still have yet to ban firearms, we still have yet to provide free higher education, and we still have yet to implement free universal healthcare, for example – the need to outlaw hate speech is one of the most basic and fundamental human rights obligations. Not only is it codified in multiple international human rights conventions, but even countries like Russia, India, Turkey, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Jordan – countries that most Americans consider to be “third-world” – have laws against hate speech. Why is the so-called “third-world” protecting basic human rights better than America is?
In Europe and Australia and the rest of the civilized world, the ultra-libertarian, free speech absolutist position is that not all offensive speech should be illegal, but that incitement to hatred should always be illegal. There is absolutely nobody outside of the US who thinks that there shouldn’t be ANY laws against hate speech, racial vilification, or incitement to hatred. That idea is just unthinkable in a society where basic human rights exist. The US has a dismal record on human rights, as indicated by the fact that it still doesn’t have universal healthcare, still carries out executions, still hasn’t banned firearms, and still tortures people, to name just a few things. But having NO laws against incitement to hatred? It’s just impossible for people in civilized countries in the year 2015 to even conceive of such a thing. In fact, most people in civilized countries simply assume that the US outlaws hate speech, and they are left in stunned disbelief and disgust when they are told that it doesn’t. Inevitably, they will ask: how can the US possibly call itself a free country and a democracy when it’s the only country in the world without any kind of laws against hate speech? Protecting vulnerable minorities from hate speech is one of the cornerstones of any democratic society, and it’s one of the most basic and fundamental human rights obligations. Do Americans have no idea how ironic it is for them to call their country “the land of the free” when it doesn’t have any kind of law against hate speech?
Before moving to the US to work with human rights organizations here, I grew up in Australia, which is a much more civilized and progressive country than the comparatively backwards United States, with a much deeper respect for basic human rights. Any comment which may offend, insult, humiliate, or intimidate vulnerable minorities is highly…illegal in Australia, and the Australian Human Rights Commission goes to great lengths to prosecute anyone who makes comments that offend minorities or oppose human rights. Australia’s human rights courts have ruled many times that it doesn’t matter whether the comments are “true” or “balanced” or not; if the comments may offend minorities or incite hatred, then they are against the law in Australia, as they should be. Australia has also proposed legislation (the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill) which declares people automatically guilty of offending, insulting, humiliating, or intimidating minorities unless they can prove their innocence beyond any reasonable doubt. This legislation has been wholeheartedly endorsed by the Australian Human Rights Commission and by literally every single human rights group and progressive think tank in Australia, from Amnesty International Australia to Per Capita. The Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill was proposed by Australia’s centrists. The Australian left complained that the law didn’t go nearly far enough. But, in the US, not even so-called “progressives” tend to support legal sanctions on hate speech. Do Americans have any idea how ridiculous it seems to people in civilized countries when Americans who call themselves “progressive” actually OPPOSE laws against un-progressive speech? In Australia, you absolutely cannot call yourself a progressive unless you actively work to criminalize all forms of un-progressive speech. Even the most far-right ultra-libertarians in Australia still strongly agree that racial vilification and incitement to hatred (including Holocaust denial) should be against the law.
America’s northern neighbor Canada has a much deeper respect for fundamental human rights than America does. In Canada, hate speech and advocating genocide are very serious criminal offenses that can land you up to fourteen years in prison. The Supreme Court of Canada has also found that truthful statements can be classified as illegal hate speech, and that not all truthful statements must be free from restriction. Each Canadian state has its own Human Rights Tribunal to investigate and prosecute people for hate speech and other human rights violations. Nobody in Canada believes that laws against hate speech and advocating genocide infringe on freedom of speech, and, like Americans, Canadians are guaranteed the right to freedom of expression through the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Americans have a deep and fundamental misunderstanding of what freedom of speech is. Freedom of speech does NOT mean that you have the freedom to say anything. As any human rights lawyer could explain, freedom of speech is all about striking the right balance between rights. Rights have to be restricted or removed when they interfere with other rights. You don’t have the right to spout racist hate speech because that interferes with other people’s right to be free from racial discrimination. Freedom of speech exists so that people can criticize their government, provided that they do so in a civil, polite, and respectful manner. Freedom of speech does NOT give you the right to offend, to insult, to disrespect, to oppose human rights, to argue against the common good, to voice approval of totalitarian ideologies, to perpetuate toxic systems of privilege and oppression, to promote ideas which have no place in a modern democratic society, to be provocative or incendiary, or to express opinions which are unacceptable to the majority of people.
Most champions of hate speech are straight, white, Christian males who have never had to experience the devastating consequences of hate speech. These highly privileged members of society will never understand the harm that hate speech causes to vulnerable minorities. Hate speech is not “freedom” to the Muslims who face widespread attacks and abuse as a result of hate speech from outlets like Fox News and Bill Maher. Hate speech is not “freedom” to the women at abortion clinics who are shouted at by right-wing protesters just for attempting to exercise their human right to choose. Hate speech is not “freedom” to the thousands of people who are killed by guns every single year in America thanks to the gun lobby’s propaganda turning public opinion against sensible gun bans. Hate speech is certainly not “freedom” to the LGBT people who are viciously attacked and even murdered as a result of hate speech from the Christian right.
Hateful, hurtful, or offensive speech can never be “free” when one considers the extremely high cost that it has on its victims and on society as a whole. When bigots are allowed the unfettered right to incite hatred and violence against vulnerable minorities, the consequences can often be fatal for the members of those vulnerable minority groups. For example, human rights and LGBT rights activist Peter Tatchell notes that human rights and LGBT rights groups in Jamaica have confirmed a rise in anti-gay attacks after the release of homophobic reggae songs that incite hatred and violence against LGBT people. Likewise, attacks on Muslims always increase when powerful figures like Bill Maher make bigoted statements that incite racial hatred and violence against Muslims (in fact, racist hate speech from Bill Maher recently incited a man in Chapel Hill to shoot three innocent Muslims – in a civilized country, Bill Maher would be held legally accountable for the shooting). There is also a strong connection between rape culture – for example, songs like “Blurred Lines,” which directly incite rape – and actual acts of rape and sexual violence. Hate speech does have very serious consequences in the real world, but straight, white, Christian men could never be able to understand just how severe those consequences can be. Privileged members of society will never know what it’s like to be a victim of hate speech. As a descendant of Holocaust survivors, I know first-hand the extreme danger that flows directly from hate speech. Those championing hate speech, however, clearly do not understand just how dangerous hate speech is. There is a hierarchy of power in society, with straight, white, Christian men firmly at the top. Freedom of speech is counter-productive if the people who benefit from it are the people who already hold far too much power and privilege in our society.
No country prosecutes hate speech strictly enough to truly protect human rights. For example, when Denmark failed to ban the infamous Muhammed cartoons, human rights groups around the world voiced their outrage, with Amnesty International releasing a statement (https://archive.today/cPHt8) saying that the cartoons should be prosecuted since they qualify as religious hatred under international human rights law (Article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights). Germany, in particular, has repeated failed to protect human rights. Most recently, Germany has been heavily criticized by the international human rights community for its failure to ban the hate group PEGIDA. When Germany failed to ban the fascist party NPD, human rights groups around the world voiced their outrage, and Russia even focused on it in a report about Western Europe’s human rights failures. But these countries at least HAVE hate speech laws and they often do enforce those laws. In the US, hate speech laws do not even exist. This is absolutely unfathomable in a country that claims to be a free democracy.
America’s failure to enact human rights legislation also makes it difficult for other countries to adequately protect human rights, especially online. Stopping the spread of online hate speech has been made a top priority of the UN and the international human rights movement, but it’s very difficult to protect human rights online when the US controls most of the Internet and steadfastly refuses to pass any kind of human rights legislation to stop hate speech. A French Jewish leader recently told the US (http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/French-Jewish-leader-calls-on-Americans-to-crack-down-on-hate-speech-392786) that it needs to join the civilized world by cracking down on online hatred since hate speech on the Internet puts vulnerable minorities in very real danger (both mental and physical), but, unfortunately, we all know that his urgent pleas to the US will go completely ignored, and online hate speech from the US will continue to place French Jews and other vulnerable minorities around the world in serious danger. Until the US decides to finally cooperate with the international community, the UN and human rights groups will never be able to remove hate speech from the Internet and elsewhere. In addition to passing strong legislation against hate speech, the US needs to report to the UN and it needs to allow the UN to prosecute Americans under the UN courts. When other countries fail to press hate speech charges against their citizens, the UN often steps in and presses charges under the UN courts. In America, however, that would currently be impossible. America also needs to hand over control of the Internet to the United Nations, which will use the international human rights framework to protect human rights online, as it has repeatedly encouraged all nations to do.
America has always been very uncivilized, unenlightened, unfree, and backwards when compared to Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The rest of the world continues to forge ahead in human rights – Belgium recently passed human rights legislation outlawing all forms of sexist speech, and numerous countries are passing human rights laws requiring anyone accused of hate speech to prove their innocence or be declared automatically guilty – while the US still lacks even the most basic legal framework for protecting fundamental human rights. But it doesn’t have to remain that way. Things CAN change. While the United States needs to strongly support freedom of speech and firmly oppose all forms of censorship, it also needs to sincerely protect vulnerable minorities from all manifestations of hate speech. There is absolutely NO excuse whatsoever for an advanced democracy in the year 2015 to not have any kind of laws against hate speech. America will never be up to international human rights standards until it makes protecting the basic human dignity of all of its citizens a top priority. Freedom of speech should never be a shelter for hatred, for malice, for abuse, for insults, for offense, for vilification, or for the dissemination of ideas that oppose human rights. Freedom of speech has to be balanced against the feelings of others. What America needs are human rights-based laws that strike the proper balance between freedom of speech and freedom from hatred. The current stance taken by America – that freedom of speech means the freedom to engage in all manner of hatred and discrimination – is hideously outdated and totally contrary to international human rights law.
The human right to freedom of speech has always been subject to the human right to freedom from hatred and discrimination. The right to freedom of speech and the right to be protected from hate speech are both firmly enshrined in international human rights law, and you cannot have one without having the other. Under international human rights standards, all countries are required to ensure the utmost freedom of speech while also vigorously prosecuting all manifestations of hate speech. When freedom of speech interferes with someone else’s freedom to not be offended, insulted, disrespected, vilified, or subjected to hatred, it needs to be restricted. Freedom of speech is something that always has to be balanced against the basic human rights of others. Your freedom ends where the freedom of others begins, and nobody has the right to take rights away from other people. This is human rights 101, and anyone with even an entry-level knowledge of human rights could explain this. Bigotry has absolutely no place in a modern democracy, and it’s time for the United States to finally fulfill its obligations under international human rights law and pass strong human rights legislation outlawing hate speech while setting up Human Rights Tribunals in each state to investigate and prosecute people who engage in hate speech and other human rights abuses.
Outside of the US, even the most dedicated ultra-libertarians and free speech activists acknowledge that hate speech must always be outlawed, and that hate speech is not free speech. If anyone in Australia ever proposed that all laws against hate speech/vilification should be completely abolished, they would lose their job, they would lose all of their friends, and they would have to hire bodyguards. That’s not even an exaggeration. Outside of the US, hate speech laws have absolutely universal support from every single facet of society. Saying that there shouldn’t be any laws against hate speech would be like saying that there shouldn’t be any laws against child abuse. It’s just completely unthinkable in a civilized society where people have basic human rights and freedoms. It’s not something that anyone would ever even consider.
In civilized countries like Canada and Australia, we recognize that we are legally obligated to outlaw hate speech under international human rights conventions. Even if the public wanted hate speech laws to be repealed (which the public never would), the laws could not be repealed because all countries are required to outlaw hate speech under legally-binding international human rights conventions. In the US, this seems to be an utterly alien concept to the vast majority of the public. Is the US even aware that, by failing to pass and enforce laws against hate speech, it is explicitly violating international human rights law? Very rarely do I see any Americans acknowledge this. In civilized countries, it’s just common sense that international human rights conventions have to be obeyed to the fullest. It’s not even up for debate. Only in the US does the public and the government completely disregard these legally-binding international human rights laws.
The First Amendment Should Never Protect Hatred
Tanya Cohen
One of the most admirable things about Europe is that most (if not all) of the right-wing rhetoric that you hear in the US is explicitly against the law there. For example, attempting to link Islam with terrorism, saying that gay marriage isn’t really marriage, or saying that trans women aren’t really women would get you charged with discrimination and/or incitement to hatred. Numerous European public figures have been charged with hate crimes for implying that large-scale immigration is connected to higher crime. In fact, a politician in Sweden was prosecuted for hate crimes for posting statistics about immigrant crime on Facebook. Assaults on the human dignity of Muslims are simply not tolerated in Europe, and Europe cracks down hard on any attempts to incite hatred against Muslims. In a notable example, a woman in Austria was convicted of a hate crime for suggesting that the Islamic Prophet Muhammed was a pedophile. Recently, a man in Sweden was charged with incitement to ethnic hatred for wearing a T-shirt saying “Islam is the devil.” Nobody in Europe believes that these laws interfere with their sacred, guaranteed right to freedom of speech. Rather, these laws protect freedom of speech by ensuring that it is used responsibly and for the purposes of good.
In the US, however, no such laws exist. Right-wing hatemongers like Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Bill Maher, and Sarah Palin (to name just a few) are allowed to freely incite hatred and violence, oppose human rights, and undermine progress with impunity. When people like this are allowed to sway public opinion against the common good, it can have disastrous consequences. Just ask the millions of people killed due to wars pushed by right-wingers, even though propaganda for war is illegal under international human rights law (the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights mandates that all countries outlaw propaganda for war).
In the United States, hate speech is often spewed forth by people with a great deal of influence, thus making it even more dangerous. Freedom of speech always comes with responsibility, and people in powerful positions need to have extra responsibilities. Consider the case of Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson. In a civilized country with basic human rights, Phil Robertson would have been taken before a government Human Rights Tribunal or Human Rights Commission and given a fine or prison sentence for the hateful and bigoted comments that he made about LGBT people. In the US, however, he was given no legal punishment, even though his comments easily had the potential to incite acts of violence against LGBT people, who already face widespread violence in the deeply homophobic American society – and his comments probably DID incite acts of violence against LGBT people.
Most countries have freedom of speech, but only in the US is “freedom of speech” so restrictive and repressive. Not only is the US the only country without any laws against hateful or offensive speech, but it’s also the only country where the government cannot ban any movies, books, or video games, no matter how dangerous, demeaning to human dignity, or harmful to society they may be. The US government is also the only government that cannot ban any groups or political parties, even when those groups or political parties pose a serious threat to democracy. This is completely incompatible with international human rights standards, which clearly state that freedom of speech does not protect speech which is harmful to society, to morality, or to human rights. Countries like the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, France, and Australia – to name just a few examples – take a much more sensible approach to freedom of expression. They allow legitimate freedom of expression while banning bigots, hatemongers, conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers, pro-pedophile groups, terrorist sympathizers, harmful media, Holocaust deniers, pick-up artists, climate change deniers, and other forms of expression which damage society and social cohesion.
The United States has a very limited and very outdated understanding of human rights and political freedoms. In all other countries, it is simply common knowledge that freedom of speech does not permit hatred or other human rights abuses. This is not something that anyone outside of the US would ever question. In the US, however, it’s a concept that seems to be utterly alien to the vast majority of the population. The US appears completely backwards and positively uncivilized to the rest of the world when it refuses to crack down on manifestations of hatred.
While America has always been far behind the rest of the world when it comes to basic human rights – we still have yet to ban firearms, we still have yet to provide free higher education, and we still have yet to implement free universal healthcare, for example – the need to outlaw hate speech is one of the most basic and fundamental human rights obligations. Not only is it codified in multiple international human rights conventions, but even countries like Russia, India, Turkey, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Jordan – countries that most Americans consider to be “third-world” – have laws against hate speech. Why is the so-called “third-world” protecting basic human rights better than America is?
In Europe and Australia and the rest of the civilized world, the ultra-libertarian, free speech absolutist position is that not all offensive speech should be illegal, but that incitement to hatred should always be illegal. There is absolutely nobody outside of the US who thinks that there shouldn’t be ANY laws against hate speech, racial vilification, or incitement to hatred. That idea is just unthinkable in a society where basic human rights exist. The US has a dismal record on human rights, as indicated by the fact that it still doesn’t have universal healthcare, still carries out executions, still hasn’t banned firearms, and still tortures people, to name just a few things. But having NO laws against incitement to hatred? It’s just impossible for people in civilized countries in the year 2015 to even conceive of such a thing. In fact, most people in civilized countries simply assume that the US outlaws hate speech, and they are left in stunned disbelief and disgust when they are told that it doesn’t. Inevitably, they will ask: how can the US possibly call itself a free country and a democracy when it’s the only country in the world without any kind of laws against hate speech? Protecting vulnerable minorities from hate speech is one of the cornerstones of any democratic society, and it’s one of the most basic and fundamental human rights obligations. Do Americans have no idea how ironic it is for them to call their country “the land of the free” when it doesn’t have any kind of law against hate speech?
Before moving to the US to work with human rights organizations here, I grew up in Australia, which is a much more civilized and progressive country than the comparatively backwards United States, with a much deeper respect for basic human rights. Any comment which may offend, insult, humiliate, or intimidate vulnerable minorities is highly…illegal in Australia, and the Australian Human Rights Commission goes to great lengths to prosecute anyone who makes comments that offend minorities or oppose human rights. Australia’s human rights courts have ruled many times that it doesn’t matter whether the comments are “true” or “balanced” or not; if the comments may offend minorities or incite hatred, then they are against the law in Australia, as they should be. Australia has also proposed legislation (the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill) which declares people automatically guilty of offending, insulting, humiliating, or intimidating minorities unless they can prove their innocence beyond any reasonable doubt. This legislation has been wholeheartedly endorsed by the Australian Human Rights Commission and by literally every single human rights group and progressive think tank in Australia, from Amnesty International Australia to Per Capita. The Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill was proposed by Australia’s centrists. The Australian left complained that the law didn’t go nearly far enough. But, in the US, not even so-called “progressives” tend to support legal sanctions on hate speech. Do Americans have any idea how ridiculous it seems to people in civilized countries when Americans who call themselves “progressive” actually OPPOSE laws against un-progressive speech? In Australia, you absolutely cannot call yourself a progressive unless you actively work to criminalize all forms of un-progressive speech. Even the most far-right ultra-libertarians in Australia still strongly agree that racial vilification and incitement to hatred (including Holocaust denial) should be against the law.
America’s northern neighbor Canada has a much deeper respect for fundamental human rights than America does. In Canada, hate speech and advocating genocide are very serious criminal offenses that can land you up to fourteen years in prison. The Supreme Court of Canada has also found that truthful statements can be classified as illegal hate speech, and that not all truthful statements must be free from restriction. Each Canadian state has its own Human Rights Tribunal to investigate and prosecute people for hate speech and other human rights violations. Nobody in Canada believes that laws against hate speech and advocating genocide infringe on freedom of speech, and, like Americans, Canadians are guaranteed the right to freedom of expression through the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Americans have a deep and fundamental misunderstanding of what freedom of speech is. Freedom of speech does NOT mean that you have the freedom to say anything. As any human rights lawyer could explain, freedom of speech is all about striking the right balance between rights. Rights have to be restricted or removed when they interfere with other rights. You don’t have the right to spout racist hate speech because that interferes with other people’s right to be free from racial discrimination. Freedom of speech exists so that people can criticize their government, provided that they do so in a civil, polite, and respectful manner. Freedom of speech does NOT give you the right to offend, to insult, to disrespect, to oppose human rights, to argue against the common good, to voice approval of totalitarian ideologies, to perpetuate toxic systems of privilege and oppression, to promote ideas which have no place in a modern democratic society, to be provocative or incendiary, or to express opinions which are unacceptable to the majority of people.
Most champions of hate speech are straight, white, Christian males who have never had to experience the devastating consequences of hate speech. These highly privileged members of society will never understand the harm that hate speech causes to vulnerable minorities. Hate speech is not “freedom” to the Muslims who face widespread attacks and abuse as a result of hate speech from outlets like Fox News and Bill Maher. Hate speech is not “freedom” to the women at abortion clinics who are shouted at by right-wing protesters just for attempting to exercise their human right to choose. Hate speech is not “freedom” to the thousands of people who are killed by guns every single year in America thanks to the gun lobby’s propaganda turning public opinion against sensible gun bans. Hate speech is certainly not “freedom” to the LGBT people who are viciously attacked and even murdered as a result of hate speech from the Christian right.
Hateful, hurtful, or offensive speech can never be “free” when one considers the extremely high cost that it has on its victims and on society as a whole. When bigots are allowed the unfettered right to incite hatred and violence against vulnerable minorities, the consequences can often be fatal for the members of those vulnerable minority groups. For example, human rights and LGBT rights activist Peter Tatchell notes that human rights and LGBT rights groups in Jamaica have confirmed a rise in anti-gay attacks after the release of homophobic reggae songs that incite hatred and violence against LGBT people. Likewise, attacks on Muslims always increase when powerful figures like Bill Maher make bigoted statements that incite racial hatred and violence against Muslims (in fact, racist hate speech from Bill Maher recently incited a man in Chapel Hill to shoot three innocent Muslims – in a civilized country, Bill Maher would be held legally accountable for the shooting). There is also a strong connection between rape culture – for example, songs like “Blurred Lines,” which directly incite rape – and actual acts of rape and sexual violence. Hate speech does have very serious consequences in the real world, but straight, white, Christian men could never be able to understand just how severe those consequences can be. Privileged members of society will never know what it’s like to be a victim of hate speech. As a descendant of Holocaust survivors, I know first-hand the extreme danger that flows directly from hate speech. Those championing hate speech, however, clearly do not understand just how dangerous hate speech is. There is a hierarchy of power in society, with straight, white, Christian men firmly at the top. Freedom of speech is counter-productive if the people who benefit from it are the people who already hold far too much power and privilege in our society.
No country prosecutes hate speech strictly enough to truly protect human rights. For example, when Denmark failed to ban the infamous Muhammed cartoons, human rights groups around the world voiced their outrage, with Amnesty International releasing a statement (https://archive.today/cPHt8) saying that the cartoons should be prosecuted since they qualify as religious hatred under international human rights law (Article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights). Germany, in particular, has repeated failed to protect human rights. Most recently, Germany has been heavily criticized by the international human rights community for its failure to ban the hate group PEGIDA. When Germany failed to ban the fascist party NPD, human rights groups around the world voiced their outrage, and Russia even focused on it in a report about Western Europe’s human rights failures. But these countries at least HAVE hate speech laws and they often do enforce those laws. In the US, hate speech laws do not even exist. This is absolutely unfathomable in a country that claims to be a free democracy.
America’s failure to enact human rights legislation also makes it difficult for other countries to adequately protect human rights, especially online. Stopping the spread of online hate speech has been made a top priority of the UN and the international human rights movement, but it’s very difficult to protect human rights online when the US controls most of the Internet and steadfastly refuses to pass any kind of human rights legislation to stop hate speech. A French Jewish leader recently told the US (http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/French-Jewish-leader-calls-on-Americans-to-crack-down-on-hate-speech-392786) that it needs to join the civilized world by cracking down on online hatred since hate speech on the Internet puts vulnerable minorities in very real danger (both mental and physical), but, unfortunately, we all know that his urgent pleas to the US will go completely ignored, and online hate speech from the US will continue to place French Jews and other vulnerable minorities around the world in serious danger. Until the US decides to finally cooperate with the international community, the UN and human rights groups will never be able to remove hate speech from the Internet and elsewhere. In addition to passing strong legislation against hate speech, the US needs to report to the UN and it needs to allow the UN to prosecute Americans under the UN courts. When other countries fail to press hate speech charges against their citizens, the UN often steps in and presses charges under the UN courts. In America, however, that would currently be impossible. America also needs to hand over control of the Internet to the United Nations, which will use the international human rights framework to protect human rights online, as it has repeatedly encouraged all nations to do.
America has always been very uncivilized, unenlightened, unfree, and backwards when compared to Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The rest of the world continues to forge ahead in human rights – Belgium recently passed human rights legislation outlawing all forms of sexist speech, and numerous countries are passing human rights laws requiring anyone accused of hate speech to prove their innocence or be declared automatically guilty – while the US still lacks even the most basic legal framework for protecting fundamental human rights. But it doesn’t have to remain that way. Things CAN change. While the United States needs to strongly support freedom of speech and firmly oppose all forms of censorship, it also needs to sincerely protect vulnerable minorities from all manifestations of hate speech. There is absolutely NO excuse whatsoever for an advanced democracy in the year 2015 to not have any kind of laws against hate speech. America will never be up to international human rights standards until it makes protecting the basic human dignity of all of its citizens a top priority. Freedom of speech should never be a shelter for hatred, for malice, for abuse, for insults, for offense, for vilification, or for the dissemination of ideas that oppose human rights. Freedom of speech has to be balanced against the feelings of others. What America needs are human rights-based laws that strike the proper balance between freedom of speech and freedom from hatred. The current stance taken by America – that freedom of speech means the freedom to engage in all manner of hatred and discrimination – is hideously outdated and totally contrary to international human rights law.
The human right to freedom of speech has always been subject to the human right to freedom from hatred and discrimination. The right to freedom of speech and the right to be protected from hate speech are both firmly enshrined in international human rights law, and you cannot have one without having the other. Under international human rights standards, all countries are required to ensure the utmost freedom of speech while also vigorously prosecuting all manifestations of hate speech. When freedom of speech interferes with someone else’s freedom to not be offended, insulted, disrespected, vilified, or subjected to hatred, it needs to be restricted. Freedom of speech is something that always has to be balanced against the basic human rights of others. Your freedom ends where the freedom of others begins, and nobody has the right to take rights away from other people. This is human rights 101, and anyone with even an entry-level knowledge of human rights could explain this. Bigotry has absolutely no place in a modern democracy, and it’s time for the United States to finally fulfill its obligations under international human rights law and pass strong human rights legislation outlawing hate speech while setting up Human Rights Tribunals in each state to investigate and prosecute people who engage in hate speech and other human rights abuses.
Outside of the US, even the most dedicated ultra-libertarians and free speech activists acknowledge that hate speech must always be outlawed, and that hate speech is not free speech. If anyone in Australia ever proposed that all laws against hate speech/vilification should be completely abolished, they would lose their job, they would lose all of their friends, and they would have to hire bodyguards. That’s not even an exaggeration. Outside of the US, hate speech laws have absolutely universal support from every single facet of society. Saying that there shouldn’t be any laws against hate speech would be like saying that there shouldn’t be any laws against child abuse. It’s just completely unthinkable in a civilized society where people have basic human rights and freedoms. It’s not something that anyone would ever even consider.
In civilized countries like Canada and Australia, we recognize that we are legally obligated to outlaw hate speech under international human rights conventions. Even if the public wanted hate speech laws to be repealed (which the public never would), the laws could not be repealed because all countries are required to outlaw hate speech under legally-binding international human rights conventions. In the US, this seems to be an utterly alien concept to the vast majority of the public. Is the US even aware that, by failing to pass and enforce laws against hate speech, it is explicitly violating international human rights law? Very rarely do I see any Americans acknowledge this. In civilized countries, it’s just common sense that international human rights conventions have to be obeyed to the fullest. It’s not even up for debate. Only in the US does the public and the government completely disregard these legally-binding international human rights laws.