- Unless we resist now, a thought crimes bureaucracy like
those regulating Australia, Canada and Europe will soon rule America. In
these nations, federal hate laws have destroyed citizens' rights to free
speech. The Anti-Defamation League may reintroduce a federal hate law-the
Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act-in Congress as early as
this week. Punishment of politically incorrect bias is the ultimate goal
of this legislation. Democrats support hate laws and their control of Congress
means almost certain passage-unless enough Americans protest and back ADL
down from even submitting this bill.
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- A national hate law would shatter Americans' First Amendment
rights, which are now sadly unique among Western democracies. We would
lose our precious freedom to express politically incorrect ideas, moral
judgments, or whatever personal convictions the reigning thought police
deem "hateful."
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- Think this can't happen in America? Think again. Hostile
work environment law and campus speech bans already severely curtail free
expression in American workplaces and universities. A US federal hate law
would follow the examples of Europe, Canada, and Australia where Christian
pastors have been indicted simply for quoting politically incorrect Scripture
in their sermons. Iceland's Orwellian hate law, for example, promises two
years' jail if you verbally "insult" a person on the basis of
their nationality, skin color, race, religion, or sexual orientation.
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- If a federal hate law were passed, free expression across
the political spectrum would be threatened. What would happen to blasphemous
art like Piss Christ or South Park, to Ann Coulter or Al Franken, to Christians
protesting sodomy or homosexuals attacking the Bible? Every American, from
left-leaning feminists to red state Republicans, should protest "anti-hate"
legislation. If Rosie O'Donnell were an Icelander, she could have been
prosecuted for verbal "assault" for her recent statement that
radical Christianity is as dangerous as radical Islam. Political activists
in nations with hate laws have already been indicted for criticizing Islam,
Zionism, and homosexuality. Hate laws threaten your freedom to speak your
mind, no matter what's on it.
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- Here are some of the most powerful, bipartisan reasons
to fight this legislation.
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- 1. Speech bans are a political weapon used by those in
power to silence their opponents and politically unpopular minorities.
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- Hate laws empower the government to enforce the orthodoxy
of whoever happens to be in charge. The government can define which biases
or "hatreds" are unacceptable and which are okay. For instance,
hate laws in our PC age allow women to derogate men but would silence men
from legitimate (though possibly hurtful) speech like a discussion of biological
gender differences.
-
- In 2004 Swedish feminist Joanna Rytel wrote a hate-filled
screed published in a major daily. Her article describes white men as arrogant,
sex-obsessed and exploitative, explaining that Rytel just wants to "puke"
on them. Stockholm authorities refused to indict Rytel under their hate
law, saying it was passed to protect ethnic minorities, not white Swedes.
This is one example of speech bans' uneven enforcement; they are used to
punish certain kinds of hate and allow others.
-
- Because almost every exercise of free speech offends
someone, government officials would end up enforcing speech bans on the
basis of their own bias. Speech bans simply can't be evenhanded unless
everyone is shut up altogether.
-
- In the real world, speech can and does wound. That's
a cost of life. We naturally resent painful realities like economic competition,
unfair comments, and hard work. But in each case, the cures we've tried
were far worse than the sickness. Speech bans might censor some hurtful
speech but would empower government to silence minorities and strip the
intellectual marketplace of legitimate and needed expression-the kind that
creates positive, social change precisely because it is minority and challenges
the sins of the group.
-
- 2. Hate speech bans don't work.
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- Genuine racism and false hatreds exist in this world.
Bans on hate speech, however, won't solve the problem. If you only break
off a tick's body, its head will burrow deep beneath the skin. The only
effective response to bad ideas is the truth. We should combat falsehoods
with more and freer discussion, not less.
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- 3. Hate laws aren't necessary.
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- ADL claims an epidemic of hate sweeps America that can
only be fought with stiffened penalties for bias-driven crimes. Yet the
FBI's 2005 Uniform Crime Report shows alleged hate crimes form a tiny 1/15
of 1 percent of all crime in America. Law enforcers' time would be far
better spent fighting the 99.85 percent of crime that's happening every
minute across our nation rather than getting entangled in discerning and
testifying against the perceived motivations of a tiny minority of criminals.
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- Hate laws would require vast government bureaucracies,
complicate law enforcement, and distract police and prosecutors from dealing
with actual physical crimes. Government and law enforcement should focus
on criminal acts, not words or motivations, in a nation where someone is
murdered every 22 minutes, raped every 5, robbed every 49 seconds and burgled
every 10 seconds. Discerning and prosecuting criminal motivations would
only be a good plan if law enforcers had God's omniscience and time to
waste. Ours have neither.
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- 4. Hate speech bans are unconstitutional.
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- Because the First Amendment underwrites our most precious
civil liberty, the US Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled against speech
bans. In 1972 the Court declared, "[A]bove all else, the First Amendment
means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its
message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its contents." (Police
Department of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92)
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- Some forms of speech are restricted; these include threats
and "fighting words" that incite "an immediate breach of
peace." But these restrictions are (and must remain) extremely narrow
and content-neutral-the government is not allowed to censor speech based
on the viewpoint it expresses but only on whether it constitutes an immediate
threat. Hate laws, however, would punish the viewpoints expressed in speech,
in violation of the Constitution.
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- International use of ADL-designed hate laws shows that
the first kinds of speech to be sanctioned are extreme right, white nationalist
speech and Holocaust reductionism. The average person is slow to defend
such speech. But hate laws quickly broaden to punish forms of expression
the average citizen would never dream of stifling. Sweden's 2002 modified
hate law, for example, explicitly exposes Christian sermons to prosecution!
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- All forms of controversial political and religious speech
are potentially vulnerable to prosecution under hate laws. This contradicts
Supreme Court Justice Holmes Jr. who said in 1929, "[I]f there is
any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment
[loyal defense] than any other, it is the principle of free thought-not
free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought we
hate."
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- 5. Speech bans will be used against the very minorities
they were meant to protect.
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- Speech bans silence some to protect the feelings of others.
But when the government has power to silence expression that power can
be wielded against the very people who once enjoyed its protection. Liberals,
the champions of unrestrained speech in the 1960s, now vote as a bloc in
Congress to support speech restrictions. Yet already in countries such
as Canada, England and Australia, leftist critics of Islam have become
the victims of hate laws, indicted for religious "hate speech."
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- Leftist artists Rowan Atkinson and Salman Rushdie realize
hate laws don't just threaten white nationalists like David Duke but liberals
as well- they recently fought for revision of Britain's hate law because
it could be used to outlaw art that blasphemes or criticizes religion.
Atkinson and Rushdie are just a few of hate laws' leftist critics who know
that persons of all political persuasions have a stake in defeating this
legislation.
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- 6. Speech bans chill legitimate and valuable speech.
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- Under the threat of possible indictment, many people
will refrain from discussing controversial but important ideas. Speech
bans are often broad and vague, leaving citizens unsure what might get
them hauled into court.
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- This is what has happened in American workplaces, where
hostile work environment law has left many employees unsure what they can
say. Many Americans avoid all controversial speech and voluntarily refrain
from exercising First Amendment rights at work. Hate laws would extend
this dangerous minefield to the national political scene.
-
- Legal philosopher Edmond Cahn points out that speech
bans would leave our bookshelves empty. "[T]he officials could begin
by prosecuting anyone who distributes the Christian gospels, because they
contain many defamatory statements not only about Jews but also about ChristiansThen
the officials could ban Greek literature for calling the rest of the world
"barbarians." Roman authors could be suppressed because when
they were not defaming the Gallic and Teutonic tribes, they were disparaging
the ItaliansThen there is Shakespeare, who openly affronts the French,
the Welsh, the Danes" (Beyond the Burning Cross, E. Cleary, Random
House, 1994)
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- 7. Speech bans greatly reduce the possibility of healthy,
democratic change.
-
- Criminalizing speech that expresses "hate"
or "bias" would require us to outlaw history's most valuable
speech, especially the political and religious speech that threatens social
stasis and ignites progress.
-
- Aggressive speech is often the only tool available to
political, social, or religious minorities whose access to government lobbying
and mass media is limited. Those agitating for social change often need
to use inflammatory and even "hateful" language to startle the
public into hearing their message. Socrates compared himself to a horsefly
biting the lazy flanks of his republic. We should certainly know enough
by now to prefer the annoyance of stinging speech (even when we don't see
its value) to a tyrannical majority that plods, unchallenged, toward slavery.
-
- Americans are so used to our mudslinging, no-holds-barred
political discourse that we find it hard to envision the way freedom of
speech could disappear. But the freedom we enjoy is extremely rare in history,
and quickly lost. Free expression for intellectuals is the first thing
to go when tyrants rise to power; the history of oppressive regimes makes
it clear that freedom of political speech is a delicate exception and the
overarching tendency is for majorities or elites to get power and silence
all opposition.
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- 8. The government's interest in reducing violent crime
does not outweigh our interest in preserving civil liberty.
-
- Hate law advocates including the ADL argue that hateful
speech incites violence, and appeal to the government's interest in reducing
violent crime. But it would be unfair to ban, for instance, white racist
speech or Christian sermons against homosexuality without also banning
the plethora of other speech that might incite crime. Gangsta rap and videogames
would be open to censure; we would also have to ban pornography, especially
sadomasochistic porn, which certainly inspires violence against women.
-
- Yet bans against these kinds of speech have been repeatedly
declared unconstitutional. The government has an interest in lowering violent
crime of all stripes but has always found the value of the First Amendment
to be greater. It's unjust to argue that a few kinds of speech must be
banned because they possibly incite violence (e.g., criticism of Jewish
actions or homosexuality) yet permit huge categories of speech (violent
sexual entertainment) that do the same. This would happen, however, under
hate laws' unequal and partial enforcement. The ADL is not truly driven
by the desire to reduce violent crime but rather to enforce a social and
political orthodoxy.
-
- Instead of passing a hate law that would shatter the
First Amendment and impossibly complicate law enforcement, people concerned
with hate-driven crimes should focus on improving our existing justice
system and making sure hard crimes don't go unpunished.
-
- 9. Speech bans are offensively paternalistic.
-
- They presume we can't think for ourselves, reject racist
or hateful ideas for ourselves, or deal with the hurt caused by others'
free expression. Are we such children that we need the government to cover
our ears? Speech bans especially condescend toward the minorities they
portray as helpless victims whose feelings must be sheltered from ideas
they can't combat in a free intellectual market.
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- 10. Speech bans permit government to do something an
individual could not morally do.
-
- Frederic Bastiat's classic treatise on The Law says government
exists only to prevent injustice by defending our basic rights to person,
liberty, and property. Government does not exist to guarantee our economic
outcomes, redistribute our wealth, or protect our psyches. Speech bans
would empower government to silence individuals by force. This is immoral
whether it's one person silencing another person or the government silencing
a fringe group of dissenters. Human fallibility requires at least enough
humility to allow others to question, challenge, and dissent from our ideas.
John Stuart Mill explains, "If all mankind minus one, were of one
opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would
be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the
power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
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- 11. Speech bans deny self-determination and individual
freedom by criminalizing self-expression.
-
- By censoring speech, hate laws censor thought and restrict
our access to ideas. This is the essence of mind control. They deny the
personal growth that comes from sharing ideas-including hateful, prejudiced,
or false ideas-and having them challenged in a free intellectual marketplace.
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-
-
- Hate law speech bans have been repeatedly declared unconstitutional
and would rend the very foundation of our freedom and democracy. Far from
combating hate, The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act is
actually the most hateful and enslaving legislation to ever reach Congress;
it would invade states' rights in law enforcement, enabling a hate crimes
bureaucracy to police our thoughts and expression. Government could censor
by force all speech that dissents from the reigning orthodoxy. Every American
must speak up now in defense of the freedom for which our forefathers gave
their very lives.
-
- Act now! Contact your elected officials (both Democrats
and Republicans) and demand they vote against any and all "anti-hate"
legislation. Visit <http://www.truthtellers.org/>www.truthtellers.org
for a powerful and easy-to-mail brochure that will astonish any political
or religious leader or broadcaster who reads it. Our website presents a
plan of action that has defeated the federal hate bill before and will
work again. Together, we can make sure a hate crimes gestapo never takes
over America.
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- Make your voice heard today or it will be silenced tomorrow.
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- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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- Harmony Grant is a staff writer for the National Prayer
Network, a Christian/conservative watchdog group.
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- For a quick education on the dangers of hate laws and
the ADL conspiracy to take away freedom, go to <http://video.google.com/>video.google.com and
watch Ted Pike's 80-minute video, "Hate Laws: Making Criminals of
Christians." For a DVD or VHS copy to show your neighbors, in church,
or in your conservative study group, order for $24.90 postpaid at <http://www.truthtellers.org/>www.truthtellers.org
or by calling 503-631-3808.
-
-
- To read the hate bill for yourself, with commentary in
red by Rev. Pike, see <http://truthtellers.org/alerts/s1145commentary.html>Local
Law Enforcement Enhancement Act of 2005 [S. 1145].
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- TALK SHOW HOSTS: Interview NPN director Rev. Ted Pike
on the danger of the federal hate law. Call 503-631-3808.
-
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- NATIONAL PRAYER NETWORK, P.O. Box 828, Clackamas, OR
97015
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