Hindus and Baptists

[Vance R Koven]

On Fri, 22 Oct 1999, Steven D. Jamar wrote:

> Hmm.  Just because Russia and China don't respect the right to free speech
> and the right to religious freedom hardly constitutes an argument that the
> U.S. should not regulate hate speech.

My point was only that "hate speech" regulation looks good on paper, but
"hate speech" is only what those with political power (including judges)
say it is. Given that the "hate" component requires measuring both the
intent of the speaker and the sensitivities of the listener, that's too
much ad hominem, "spot zoning" regulation for something as precious as
freedom of speech. Incitement and "fighting words" as narrowly defined in
a previous post are hard enough to control as concepts; hate speech is a
much looser concept by far. Personally, I'm extremely suspicious of
countries with, shall we say, a limited history of free speech tolerance,
telling the US when to regulate speech.

Example: Joel Sogol's sensibilities on the subject of Baptists praying for
his conversion are rather thin and brittle; Jeff Jacoby, who has written
about this in the Boston Globe (don't know if he's carried elsewhere) just
shrugs his shoulders and says "thanks, Baptists, for caring enough to want
to pray over it, even though I think it's unnecessary" [my paraphrase].
How much consensus on a point is needed before something becomes "hate
speech," or do we use the "eggshell skull" theory that speech is hate
speech even if only the most brittle sensitivities are harmed by it?

Vance

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