In this article, the author notes an instance of hate speech where a Jewish author, Howard Rotberg, was giving a presentation in Waterloo (small town just outside Toronto, Ontario), when he was disrupted by two Muslim men:
He goes on to further note:
He then cites research by Philip Zimbardo, a social psychologist who has conducted research on, as the author puts it, the consequences of “getting away with malfeasance.” In it he notes Zimbardo’s research on people’s perception of the possibility of their getting caught for doing something illegal, and how illegal behaviour increases proportionally to the decrease in this perception (or at least, that’s the gist of it as near as I can tell - read the article).
So here’s the debate. The author of the article’s contention is that these men should have been charged, either with hate speech or with public disruption (mischief?) so as to discourage this sort of behaviour in the future. He contends that allowing them to get away with it will only get them to push the limits even further, with I assume the ominous threat of further anti-Semitic events taking place.
This attitude (of the author’s) scares me somewhat. While I believe the two men’s behaviour to have been deplorable, and rather juvenile, I fear living in a society where freedom of speech can be co-opted by fear of possibilities. It would have been different if they had advocated directly killing or harming Jews, but they did not seem to do that. So I’m wondering what other people think; should they have been charged, since anti-Semitism seems to be on the rise, or was pulling them out of the presentation enough?
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