Using “human rights” commissions, and a rhetorical move toward protecting any and all from feeling offended, the global attack on free speech by would-be autocrats continues apace:
At its core, this struggle is not about the “excesses” of free speech but the nature of modern authoritarianism, which has found ways to update traditional forms of repression and apply them in a variety of foreign and international arenas. If democrats are to mount a truly successful defense against the adversaries of free speech, it will require a recognition that all political factions have a stake in the outcome. Historically, liberals and the democratic left have been on the front lines of free speech campaigns, from the imprisonment of American Socialist Party leader Eugene V. Debs for speaking out against World War I and the drive for labor union recognition, to the McCarthyite persecutions of the 1950s. More recently, freedom of expression struggles have often been led by conservatives, while liberals, and even some civil liberties organizations, sit on the sidelines, as they did in the Danish cartoon debate.
Whatever the stakes for established democracies in the campaign to limit free expression, however, they are dwarfed by the risks for those who already live under the thumb of the campaign’s proponents. Even as they berate democracies for publishing “hate literature,” these regimes are engaged in the systematic muzzling of independent voices on their own territory. And as they use human rights bodies to demand international censorship, they engage in ruthless human rights abuses at home, silencing editors, bloggers, women’s rights advocates, and champions of religious freedom. It is essential that the free world defeat the enemies of free expression on its own turf if it is to have any chance of checking the spread of repression on the authoritarians’ own terrain.
Controlling the outcome of the speech act is controlling its meaning — which is why it is so vital that we insist meaning remain with the person who authored the speech act, not with those who decide that, for whatever their purposes, it is they who can assert authority over that meaning simply by being on the receiving end.
How we get there matters.
This message has been brought to you by the league of reasonable people, acting in the best interests of individual freedom.
It is essential that the free world defeat the enemies
Forgive me, but it always does my heart good to see the proper use of the subjunctive. So many these days would have said “defeats.”
the league of reasonable people
Given the number of control freaks, authoritarians, hysterics, and fanatics who insist that they’re only being reasonable, I think I prefer “the league of totally-outside-the-realm-of-reason people.”
Whenever we get into one of these intentionalism discussions, I think of this:
If A says X, and B comes along to “interpret” it, and tell us that what A really meant was Y…
Why can’t we then say that what B really meant to say was Z?
IOW, how is B’s interpretation not subject to itself being further interpreted? At some point, they have to say “this is what I mean when I say that”, at which point they’re intentionalists.
The alternative is that it’s turtles all the way down.
Indeed. The biggest subjunctive abuse I see is the “If I was you, I’d…” type, which conjugates the subjunctive as if it were (heh) indicative past tense.
“McCarthyite persecutions”? That rusty old saw again?
IOW, how is B’s interpretation not subject to itself being further interpreted?
It would be, but he’s yelling so loudly and so hysterically that you can’t get a word in edgewise.
Also, you’re a racist and therefore should just shut up.
It’s useful to them because as long as you’re talking about a supposed process of persecution, they’re not forced to admit that there were, in fact, Communists as agents of a foreign power in the United States Government, not to mention other institutions.
Wow! From defending a socialist all the way to defending Marxist-Leninists! That’s certainly a wide range of speech they defend!
(Oh, and didn’t the ACLU come to the aid of the Nazis? You know, the National Socialists? Such a broad range of expression these folks support!)
While we’re on the subject of Debs. It was Wilson’s progressives that tossed his ass in prison for sedition. The Left, democratic or otherwise, has always been on both sides of the free speech front.
No, they’ve always been on a single side: speech in opposition to them must be stamped out.
The only way they support free speech is if it’s the type which cannot challenge their power.
Bringing on the funny. This is for shits and giggles right? Nobody could take this as a serious statement, could they?
Hugo takes top honors in the category “current reruns of the socialist past” though. Barry’s running a distant fifth, at best, though Hugo is more likely to fail the sooner. Intensity and speed of execution generate near equivalent levels of opposition and pushback, if not from Hugo’s own people from others nearby or more distant as Hugo’s plans run afoul of their interests. Obama’s dalliances with the totalItarian gear works grinding are far subtler and patient, credited by him as more akin to dreams, though dreams he may have reason to hope to see instituted before he passes of old age thirty to forty years from now. Gently Barry, wouldn’t want to alarm the peasants.
Wait, so Wilson was on the side of free speech when he had Debs jailed? And the McCarthy “persecutions” were a free speech issue? I must have missed our trip down the rabbit hole.
This is their filthy secret.
I’d like to see a smirking Leftie, someone out there, take this on. Address it. Tell us why the only place in America where you can’t say your peace without legal recrimination is a campus; tell us how speech codes and human rights tribunals support and enhance freedoms.
Someone—Greenwald, Media Matters, Sullivan, Kos, all of them, any of them–need to address this. Tell us how their side, key constiuents really, are on the side of freedom and democracy.
Maybe “journalism professionals” could take it on themselves to force the left to address it.
(Who am I kidding? The “journalists” are too busy cheering cheerleading for the effort to crack down on “amateurs”.)
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Rob Crawford.
The right not to be offended is quickly becoming the norm. Thank God for my large sarcastic Irish family ( I hope the mention of God offends somebody). It is amazing how many people just go along with it.
Wasn’t this blog once calling for the outright murder of WikiLeaks people or was that just a dream?
BTW Roddy Boyd, Greenwald opposes hate speech laws:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/03/22/canada
I’m not going to deny that there are authoritarian tendencies within the European left with regard to PC-enforcing hate speech laws and such, but the American right-wing is just the same with “sedition” or “subversion” in place of “hate speech.”
I’m not going to deny that there are authoritarian tendencies within the European left with regard to PC-enforcing hate speech laws and such, but the American right-wing is just the same with “sedition” or “subversion” in place of “hate speech.”
Back it up, genius.
Fortunately, the United States Congress passed, and President Obama signed into law, HR 2765, the bulkily-named Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage Act, or SPEECH Act, which bars American courts from enforcing the judgements of foreign courts in defamation cases, unless those courts follow the procedures and freedoms we enjoy under the First Amendment, or that such a judgement would have been rendered in the United States under our own legal procedures. If further places the burden of the respondent’s legal fees on the plaintiff unless the plaintiff seeking enforcement of judgement actually wins in our domestic courts.
Even the British Roy Greenslade noted, in The Guardian, how ridiculous the British libel laws are. And the passage of this act means that no, I can’t be hauled before a British court or Canuck Human Rights Commission if I write something deliberately racist.
The European left? You can’t find plenty of that on the American left, AJB?
AJB, you’re a twat. There is no governmental or social force punishing anyone for “sedition” or “subversion” — look at the cast of morons the Democrats send to Congress. In contrast, peoples lives have been ruined after accusations of “hate speech” that amounted to using a word someone wasn’t familiar with.
(Not that you’ll ever show up to back up your drive-by shitting. You’re too much of a coward.)