1st & 14th Amendments & Hate Speech

[Lynne Henderson]

The hate speech wasn't ocnfined to nasty individuals.  Unless you think 
their attacks on opponents  were "mainstream political attacks" --like 
hate speech against Jews and Blacks were "mainstream" --then it is 
absurd to say they shouldn't be subject to restraint.   Why is it we 
have such a fetish against regulation of speech when other flourishing 
democracies--germany, the U.K., Australia, Canada, France--manage to  
have laws against Nazi or racist speech, not to mention pornography, 
but robust debate and multiple parties continue to flourish?  *See* 
Mari Matsuda, *telling the Victim's Story. . ..*,87 Mich. L. rev.vc  
The *worst* cultural indicia of our free for all is that once it's 
"free speech" somehow it becomes morally good and right to engage in 
hate speech. . . .an example of market failure straight out of Ken 
Arrow.
Respectfully
Lynne Henderson

On Mar 4, 2007, at 5:44 PM, Paul Finkelman wrote:

> McCarran, Nixon, McCarthy, etc were all oretty nasty people were. But
> are people really arguing that mainstream political attacks, however
> mean spirited, nasty, harmful, stupid, etc, are somehow subject to
> restraint because they constitute "hate speech."  The danger was not
> only the speech but the gov. action that followed and the failure of
> defenders of speech to act.
>
> Paul Finkelman
> President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law
>      and Public Policy
> Albany Law School
> 80 New Scotland Avenue
> Albany, New York   12208-3494
>
> 518-445-3386
> pfink at albanylaw.edu
>>>> Lynne Henderson <hendersl at ix.netcom.com> 03/04/07 8:26 PM >>>
> Oh, it was hate speech all right--hatred of "socialists", "communists",
> "fellow travelers", "liberals", "unionists," "sympathizers" . . . it
> was a political /content classification rather than a race or gender
> classification, which certainly  merits strict scrutiny.  the threats
> were real,the violence real,  the power of government was real, and
> McCarthy is just a symbol.  He wasn't the most dangerous or
> efficacious--Nevada's own MacCarron was far worse because he yielded
> more power, was an anti-Semite, etc. (*see* eg. Michael Ybarra,
> *Washingotn Gone Crazy: . . .the McCarron Years*
> Lynne Henderson
> On Mar 4, 2007, at 4:58 PM, Paul Finkelman wrote:
>
>> all this might be true but it hard to imagine how McCarthy's political
>> attacks on people constitute hate speech, however repulsive he was.
>>
>> Paul Finkelman
>> President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law
>>      and Public Policy
>> Albany Law School
>> 80 New Scotland Avenue
>> Albany, New York   12208-3494
>>
>> 518-445-3386
>> pfink at albanylaw.edu
>>>>> "Steven Jamar" <stevenjamar at gmail.com> 03/04/07 7:18 PM >>>
>> Not all of us are such absolutists.  Hate speech has much in kind with
>> violent threats, threats to security, and other exceptions and
>> limitations to the first amendment.
>>
>> Nor is it all or nothing.  Nor is it a case of impossible line
>> drawing.  Hard lines are drawn all the time.
>>
>> Look what McCarthy did.  What Bush/Cheney/Rummie have done to those
>> who oppose them.  Those are much bigger threats to speech than
>> constrained limits on hate speech.
>>
>> Hate speech does huge social harm.
>>
>> Steve
>>
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> Prof. Steven Jamar
>> Howard University School of Law
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