Letting Evil Kill Itself


The Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville last August is dangerously causing some to reconsider the idea of free speech.

On Friday, August 11th, there was a rally conducted by white supremacists to protest the city of Charlottesville taking down a statue of Robert E. Lee. This rally was conducted legally. Permits and location were granted by officials of the city. It even involved a successful lawsuit by the rally organizers to disallow the city to move it from its original location. The next day demonstrations continued, this time challenged by counter-protesters who were speaking out against the white supremacists. 

 Over that weekend, the protests increased in size on both sides and violence mounted. Police forces were struggling to contain it all. This all culminated with a white supremacist driving his car through a crowd of counter-protesters, killing 1 and injuring 19.

The aftermath of the Charlottesville situation is very concerning. A move has begun to limit or rework the definition of free speech. At the moment hate speech is not criminal because words alone cannot convict one of a crime. Rather, the justice system relies on actions to be criminal not speech. Some, in horror at the white supremacists at Charlottesville, challenged this rule, arguing that there should be a limit on what is and is not free speech. This is a very dangerous proposal for two major reasons.

 First, allowing the government to decide the legality of a statement is a power that is easily abused. This can be observed in both communist regimes and in what is considered the free world. Right now there is a man in England facing jail time for an insensitive joke he made about Nazis. Essentially, he announced in a Youtube video that his dog was a Nazi and he taught it the Nazi salute. The only reason he did this was for the shock value on the Internet and to frustrate his Jewish girlfriend. The authorities discovered the video and have convicted of a hate crime. This man had no desire to harm anyone, nor did he actually do anything to hurt another person. Despite this, he now has a criminal record for an insensitive joke about Nazis. While few people support Nazis or what they stand for, a joke is not the same as advocacy for Nazism, something the British criminal justice system clearly disagreed with. This is an example of what can happen when a government abuses the term hate crime, and slip-ups like this can cause people to take real nazis gatherings or actions less seriously.

The second danger of redefining free speech is that suppressing ideas only give them more attention. Censorship has been shown throughout history to be ineffective. If true white nationalists and neo-nazis are censored and shut down, that will only give them strength. Hiding an idea or not allowing it to be stated only lends it legitimacy. Rather, allowing a flawed way of thinking to be seen in public light exposes its shortcomings. Let the racists kill their theology by their own doing.


Comments

  1. Julie Quinn TACMarch 23, 2018 at 1:57 PM

    What a thought-provoking post! I think you're on to something when you say that hate speech is not criminal, but I also think that depends on who the hate speech is aimed at. Said as a general statement, it stands on it's own as an identifier of an individual ideology. But aimed at a group of people, and considering the context in which it was said (think by someone waving a lit tiki torch), in an area known for heightened racial tension, then there's a blending of issues that seem to go beyond just the 1st Amendment.

    But I also agree with you that censoring ideas that one fines not palatable can give life to what might otherwise just be dumb, insensitive, or ignorant hate speech. What the judiciary needs to do is find a balance that respects the original intention of the 1st amendment while understanding that as societies change, so do interpretations of that text.

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