Hate speech

02Feb08

I hate Noam Chomsky. If I had the time to “monger” hate against him I would. (not really- this is rhetorical.  I just massively disagree with him)

My professor’s loved him, and I lived in a pro-Chomsky bubble in college. I’ve read most of what he’s written and this is why I think hating him is an informed decision.

However, I would never ask that anything he has said - even though I think it is pro-enemy propaganda and generally bad for society - be banned or that he be punished for saying these things.

The reason is, to quote Chomsky from Manufacturing Consent, that:

Goebbels was in favour of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re in favour of free speech, then you’re in favour of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise.

I got in a back and forth with a few people over Free Speech a couple weeks ago. From that I realized just how shallow the belief in free speech is, in particular when it’s being practised by your ideological opponents. This was confirmed again when I saw the letters in today’s National Post demanding police action against Salman Hossain. Hossain, a Mississauga university student, wrote comments on message boards expressing his hatred for Jews and wishing for the murder of Canadian troops. A Liberal Senator - Colin Kenny - has joined the calls for police action against this boy’s speech:

If he does not survive the court test and is convicted, that’s a message to folks that talking like that isn’t very smart.

But was has Hossain ‘done’? Nothing actually. You can read some of his comments on line, and for the most part, they’re abhorent, but they’re not out and out incitement. Until the point that he starts trying to organize people to go and do something, he’s not a criminal - he’s just a douche.

Hossain isn’t the only odious person whose free speech is currently causing controversy. Look at the Heath Ledger death. A radical Christian group has planned to - or maybe already has protested at his funeral. Their spokesperson said that they are protesting because:

You cannot live in defiance of God. He (Ledger) got on that big screen with a big, fat message: God is a liar and it’s OK to be gay.

They`re terrible. But it`s their right to be so isn`t it? They’re not shoving the corpse around, if anything they’re likely to be pushed around by the funeral-goers.

How about closer to home. No, not the Steyn case or the Levant case but the Ahenakew case and the Tremaine-Stormfront case. Both are surprisingly similar. Both men said vile things about Jews and both are now facing trial for this. Neither said we should go out today and bash Jews, they just expressed the opinion that Jews are bad and to blame for everything.

Here’s what Ahenakew said, and what he was originally convicted for:

The Jews damn near owned all of Germany prior to the war. That’s how Hitler came in. And he was going to make damn sure that the Jews didn’t take over Germany or Europe. That’s why he fried six million of those guys, you know. Jews would have owned the goddamned world … Look at here in Canada, Asper. Izzy Asper. He controls the media. Well, what the hell does that tell you?

Yes, he’s wrong, but what action is Ahenakew doing other than making himself look like an ass?

Take a look at this post here on my blog. I wrote about an Iranian student in St. John’s who sexually assaulted a woman in an elevator. Look at the comments - they range from insults to Canadians, to women, to borderline death threats - but none of them step over the line into incitement. In fact, I’m almost happy to have the comments there. I could spend an hour writing a post to explain how people like that are scum, and maybe I would convince you and maybe I wouldn’t - but if we have the right to read what they say first hand, I suspect that you’ll come to my conclusion much faster than if I just explained it to you.

This is my preferred argument for free speech. You know the saying: ‘It’s better to be quiet and have people think you are stupid than to open your mouth and prove them right’ ? I want to have a country that continues to let these people open their mouths and announce to the world what they really are.

Lorne Gunter in the Post has a better defence:

My number-one point about free speech is: We don’t want state functionaries determining which political opinions are and are not legitimate to express. In order to prevent your opinions and mine from being deemed illegitimate some day, we must today permit Salman Hossain to indulge in his malevolent rantings.

You can read the rest of Gunter`s column here.

You can exercise your free speech, hateful or otherwise in the comments below.


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4 Responses to “Hate speech”  

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  1. 1 Tom on February 2, 2008 said:

    So in you books it was just free speech when he says “When do I get to shoot a few Jews down for attempting to blow up dozens of mosques in America right after 9-11 … why f—-ing target the Americans when the Jews are better?”

    It seems to me he crossed the line .

    I’m curious as to what the University is going to do to him. We’ve seen high schools and universities suspend students for making ‘mean’ comments about classmates and teachers. Here we have a student advocating the murder of Canadian soldiers and asking “When do I get to shoot a few Jews down”. Must make for a comfortable atmosphere on campus for the Jewish students!

    I wonder how much coverage this would get if I was to use my access to the University to promote this statement
    “When do I get to shoot a few Muslims down for attempting to blow up dozens of churchs in America right after 9-11 … why f—-ing target the Al Queda when the Muslims are better?”

    whether it be online or through speech on campus

  2. 2 Robert Jago on February 4, 2008 said:

    Hi Tom,

    You made a couple points. The first was that he crossed the line. I think he’s very close to the line, but even in that comment he didn’t say that he would do something, or that he actively wanted to find someone else and get them to do something.

    Does that mean I agree with him? No. I think we should hold him up to ridicule and we should all do our best to refute his claims.

    As for creating a poisoned atmosphere - the campus speech codes that protect students from that are often used agaisnt Jews and against the advocates for the Jewish state. [http://reutrcohen.blogspot.com/2007/09/my-interview-with-shire-network-news.html]
    That’s the problem in my view - that we can create well meaning laws or rules to protect people from having hate directed against them, but in so doing we put too much power into the hands of administrators who can then decide which views they personally favour, and which views they personally find offensive.

    As for the thing you suggested you would say … if you used ‘university access’ to say that (and honestly I’m not sure what that means) I would assume the university would expel you. And if you or Hossain did use some sort of privilleged university access, then I think the university would be within its rights. It is after all a private institution with the right to control its own membership.

    I suspect that clarrified nothing though.

  3. 3 darrell epp on February 4, 2008 said:

    Wouldn’t you say that Hossain’s speech constituted just as much, if not far more, threat to the public safety than Ernst Zundel, who was harrassed for years and finally deported? check out my US election coverage at top of http://www.darrellepp.com

  4. 4 ella on February 10, 2008 said:

    Robert, I have to disagree with you. Hossain wrote “I hope the German brothers were gonna blow up US-German bases in their country. We should do that here in Canada as well. Kill as many western soldiers as well so that they think twice before entering foreign countries on behalf of their Jew masters,” He posted his views and videos under Jihad4life21. You might think that he, himself, will not blow something up or that his post are not “incitement” for others to murder Canadians, but do you really want to wait until he will do something?
    You think one should treat jihadists like criminals - wait until they do something than do trial and put them to prison. Unfortunately terrorists/ jihadists are different from “normal” criminals.. Terrorists in Spain did not explicitly say that they will go and kill people, they overtly said - why don’t we and our brothers do something. People who were thinking like you do now got the proof of their view when they blow up trains.
    Now, this guy called for “killing Canadian troops in Canada” - and I have a question for you. Imagine that there were some conservative bloggers in Spain who already got killed and there was a plot to kill conservative bloggers in Germany.. What would your reaction be if somebody repeatedly asked on the internet and on YouTube for killing of Canadian bloggers. Said “I hope that we follow our German brothers example and kill all conservative bloggers in Canada”. Would you still argue that he has a right to call for your death?

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