To take the most well-known example, in Germany, it’s illegal to advance white supremacist beliefs, at least to a certain extent. From what I’ve seen, most non-American seem to think this is a good and worthwhile thing, and not very afraid of the slippery slope that seems to inform the decidedly more negative American point of view of such laws.
Why is this? Who’s more “right,” in your opinion (I ask in part because I want to see if my assumption/experience about the divide is accurate)?
It’s important to keep in mind that laws generally (and specifically) reflect the societies which they are meant to serve. What works in Germany may not work in the US, etc. Not sure we could conduct an effective compare/contrast analysis without taking that into account.
On a certain level, I appreciate knowing that a white supremist can loudly and proudly announce the fact that he/she is an asshole to the rest of the world without much fear of punishment by the gov’t. Makes it easier for the rest of us to know who we’re dealing with.
I think the German (and some other European countries’) restrictions on speech are unnecessary. I understand why the exist – especially in Germany – but I don’t think they actually do much good. Societal condemnation, without legal consequences, is the best response to hate speech, in my view. Legal punishment can lead to feelings of victimhood and martyrdom, which can (in some ways) help the haters. Neo-Nazis in Germany can legitimately claim that the government is out to get them!
From its founding, the United States has had a strong current of distrust of the government/rulers, and a fear of what they’ll do if they have too much power. Both the First Amendment (which includes the right to free speech, as well as freedom of religion and of the press) and the Second Amendment (which includes the right to bear arms) are intended at least partly as checks on governmental power, since one of the ways government traditionally oppresses people and prevents them from fighting back is by limiting these freedoms.
Well firstly I applaud the OP for describing it as American vs non-american conceptions of free speech.
Too often the situation is described as America having free speech and other countries not having free speech. When in fact of course, no country gives people the right to say whatever they want in any situation, and when you list all the kinds of restricted speech, the difference is really not so great.
Personally, I’m on the European side of this; I don’t think there’s a meaningful distinction between inciting violence and inciting hatred, and I’m fine with neither being protected speech. I think there is a line to be drawn between discriminatory ideas (not inherently wrong) and hate-speech, but if there is any difficulty drawing that line, I’m fine with just drawing the line around all discrimination speech.
I also don’t think news agencies and politicians should have any right to lie; if you deliberately mislead, then there’s nothing wrong with repercussions beyond just public outrage.
So, you’d be OK with censoring someone who incites hatred towards his political opponents-- as often happens on this MB almost daily?
And how would something like the BBQ Pit work under such conditions?
I largely agree with your analysis, but not with the philosophical conclusions to which it has led. Like the previous poster, I tend to be more on the European side of those issues. It is indeed this mythical and pervasive idea that government can’t be trusted that leads to absolutist ideas about unrestrained free speech, the idea being apparently that if you start putting any kind of restrictions on speech then where will it end? Well, that strawman has been pretty much settled in jurisdictions that have laws governing hate speech: it ends at carefully circumscribed laws that prohibit specific kinds of hateful speech against races or religions or other recognized groups that are already protected by anti-discrimination laws if such speech is likely to incite violence or otherwise jeopardize public safety. It turns out that the fabled “slippery slope” doesn’t exist, and you can have hate speech laws without otherwise impairing any other kind of speech. The equivalent of the First Amendment is strong and healthy in all those places. Conversely, by taking an absolutist view, you not only have hateful idiots like the late Fred Phelps causing real societal harm, but you have ridiculous concepts like the Citizens United decision essentially handing over the political process to the moneyed plutocracy.
As for the Second Amendment, history – and indeed the text of the Amendment itself – seems to support the view that it had more to do with protecting a young nation in colonial times than with overthrowing a tyrannical government. Either way, both those concepts are ridiculously obsolete today, except in the beliefs of a lunatic fringe who think they can overthrow the federal government if the fancy strikes them. The only thing the Second Amendment is doing today is sustaining a legacy of gun proliferation and gun fatalities unprecedented in the industrialized world.
And what if a well-financed, well-run campaign of hate against some group starts to get believed and gathers momentum, so that instead of being condemned it starts getting broad support?
It would work just fine. It’s already accessible in all those countries that have hate speech laws on the books, and I don’t see anyone clamoring to shut it down. See above re: the myth of the slippery slope.
All the restrictions on speech need to have some element of judgement and common sense. For example, it might be difficult to draw a hard line on whether speech incites others to commit crimes. Or was intended to cause a panic. Or is obscene (in an inappropriate place).
But no problem; we can lay down general rules and make a judgement on specific cases. Likewise with whether speech incites hatred (in the hate speech sense of hatred).
How does it work now, given that you can post to it from countries with hate speech laws? And how would it work if I posted US state secrets to the BBQ pit?
In case there’s any confusion, I’m making two separate points with those two rhetorical questions.
The first is that hate speech laws can indeed use common sense. They don’t need to follow some absolute law that all hate speech is equal, and equally dangerous and must all be prohibited.
The second is that, even in the bbq pit, there are plenty of things you could say that could get you prosecuted.
That’s where Civil Rights protections come in. They can preach hate, they just can’t act on it. They can’t legally fire people due to race, they can’t refuse service and create new Sundown Towns, they can’t discriminate based on housing, etc.
Of course, all of these sorts of discrimination has occurred in the US at some point, which is why robust free speech protection needs to be paired with robust Civil Rights protections.
“Your right to move any way you want ends at the point of my nose”. European restrictions on speech generally stem from the idea that people’s noses should get protected before they get punched, rather than after. Are they perfect? Evidently not, but still, the idea is that it’s better to be able to tell someone to “cut it out” at the “calling each other names” stage than once someone has ended up in a river (as it happened this same weekend in Madrid).
Others involve situations which in our view may easily lead to abuses: for example, the four Europeans in my last American job (4 in a team of about 200 people) were stunned when a company VP sent an email to everybody who worked in the Philadephia locations telling us who to vote for. In France, the UK, Germany or Spain that would have gotten the dude put on medical leave while doctors evaluated whether the problem was a breakdown or cerebral death, and the political scandal would have been enormous; our American colleagues found it normal.
Looks like you inadvertently messed up the attribution: the above sentence is from iiandyiiii’s post, not mine (though I don’t disagree with it).
Banning white supremacist speech seems almost Nazism-ish itself, in terms of authoritarianism.
I believe every country limits speech based on their own history. If we use the modern interpretation that protected “speech” includes actions (like donating money or dancing topless) then the US proactively limits speech. The various civil rights acts, for example, bar someone from firing an employee based on race, a law that is appropriate given the history of US race relations. Do European nations generally have this rule?
Doesn’t it? The problem with banning speech is in determining who gets to do the banning. We might just as easily go the other way and ban black people from talking about slavery or equality. We all know that kind of talk just stirs up trouble so why allow it?
Besides, I like knowing who hates me. I’d like the haters to be open and free to speak rather than skulking in the shadows, festering and planning.
I am not at all troubled by the fact that other countries have different standards when it comes to free speech. I’ve always said that Europe has just as much free speech as America does when the subject comes up. Given their history, I think its terrific that they don’t allow Nazi’s to try and propagate their lies. And given our history, it makes sense that we would err on the side of caution any regulations on our speech
I find that to be a rather circular: Hate speech is defined as something that incites hatred in the hate speech sense of hatred. Maybe, as an American, I’m simply unfamiliar with how this works in Europe. Inciting to hate is not the same as inciting to commit a crime since it’s not a crime to hate someone, so how does it worK?
My confusion also stems from your original statement: “I don’t think there’s a meaningful distinction between inciting violence and inciting hatred”, which equates inciting to hate with inciting to violence, but now you are saying there is a distinction between the two actions.
I don’t buy that. Look at what happened in Germany, where the Nazis got huge segments of the general public stirred up in violent anti-Semitic frenzy. Or look at the plight of blacks in the US south long after civil rights were supposedly instituted. Those kinds of protections don’t mean squat if public sentiment is against a particular group, and even the nominal rights themselves can disappear if the public is so inclined. Meanwhile, even if those who preach hate can’t legally act on it, when you fan the flames of hate somebody certainly will act on it, legal or not.
Sorry about that, I manually pasted that quote in as an afterthought and somehow messed it up.
While I understand why the law exists in Germany, I think it’s counterproductive. I think it raises (by a miniscule, but existing, amount) the risk that Neo-Nazis could regain political power – banning their speech lends them legitimacy in terms of victimhood that can be attractive to some – and if they regained power, they’d certainly try to change the law.
Banning anti-black speech in the US south (or anywhere, probably) would be unenforceable – and even more so, the further back we go. When a huge percentage of a region’s population regularly says hateful things, banning such hateful things would be pointless – what would they do, make every other person a hate-speech cop?
I think public sentiment is less likely to shift against a particular group when the dumbass things the haters say is legal, and can be loudly and publicly attacked and mocked. When it can’t be said publicly, it goes underground, and forces the haters to get smarter. In the US, most of the racists who speak publicly are so damn stupid.
I think this is even more likely when the hate-speech is illegal… it gives it legitimacy for some. Some people just want to rebel against something – when hate-speech is banned by the government, it can be attractive to some disillusioned young folks to become part of the “oppressed” group.
If we want to take “hate” to its literal extreme, pretty much every political statement incites a certain hatred of someone.
Even “Candidate A’s pro-life policies will restrict abortion access” incites hatred; it makes pro-choicers mad at Candidate A.