Jew Bitch Tanya Cohen Returns with New Article: “The First Amendment Should Never Protect Hatred”

March 20th, 2015

David Schulberg

One of the most admirable things about Europe is that most (if not all) of the right-wing rhetoric that you hear in the US is explicitly against the law there. For example, attempting to link Islam with terrorism, saying that gay marriage isn’t really marriage, or saying that trans women aren’t really women would get you charged with discrimination and/or incitement to hatred. Numerous European public figures have been charged with hate crimes for implying that large-scale immigration is connected to higher crime. In fact, a politician in Sweden was prosecuted for hate crimes for posting statistics about immigrant crime on Facebook. Assaults on the human dignity of Muslims are simply not tolerated in Europe, and Europe cracks down hard on any attempts to incite hatred against Muslims. In a notable example, a woman in Austria was convicted of a hate crime for suggesting that the Islamic Prophet Muhammed was a pedophile. Recently, a man in Sweden was charged with incitement to ethnic hatred for wearing a T-shirt saying “Islam is the devil.” Nobody in Europe believes that these laws interfere with their sacred, guaranteed right to freedom of speech. Rather, these laws protect freedom of speech by ensuring that it is used responsibly and for the purposes of good.

In the US, however, no such laws exist. Right-wing hatemongers like Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Bill Maher, and Sarah Palin (to name just a few) are allowed to freely incite hatred and violence, oppose human rights, and undermine progress with impunity. When people like this are allowed to sway public opinion against the common good, it can have disastrous consequences. Just ask the millions of people killed due to wars pushed by right-wingers, even though propaganda for war is illegal under international human rights law (the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights mandates that all countries outlaw propaganda for war).

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The United States has a very limited and very outdated understanding of human rights and political freedoms. In all other countries, it is simply common knowledge that freedom of speech does not permit hatred or other human rights abuses. This is not something that anyone outside of the US would ever question. In the US, however, it’s a concept that seems to be utterly alien to the vast majority of the population. The US appears completely backwards and positively uncivilized to the rest of the world when it refuses to crack down on manifestations of hatred.

While America has always been far behind the rest of the world when it comes to basic human rights – we still have yet to ban firearms, we still have yet to provide free higher education, and we still have yet to implement free universal healthcare, for example – the need to outlaw hate speech is one of the most basic and fundamental human rights obligations. Not only is it codified in multiple international human rights conventions, but even countries like Russia, India, Turkey, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Jordan – countries that most Americans consider to be “third-world” – have laws against hate speech. Why is the so-called “third-world” protecting basic human rights better than America is?

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Before moving to the US to work with human rights organizations here, I grew up in Australia, which is a much more civilized and progressive country than the comparatively backwards United States, with a much deeper respect for basic human rights. Any comment which may offend, insult, humiliate, or intimidate vulnerable minorities is highly illegal in Australia, and the Australian Human Rights Commission goes to great lengths to prosecute anyone who makes comments that offend minorities or oppose human rights. Australia’s human rights courts have ruled many times that it doesn’t matter whether the comments are “true” or “balanced” or not; if the comments may offend minorities or incite hatred, then they are against the law in Australia, as they should be. Australia has also proposed legislation (the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill) which declares people automatically guilty of offending, insulting, humiliating, or intimidating minorities unless they can prove their innocence beyond any reasonable doubt. This legislation has been wholeheartedly endorsed by the Australian Human Rights Commission and by literally every single human rights group and progressive think tank in Australia, from Amnesty International Australia to Per Capita. The Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill was proposed by Australia’s centrists. The Australian left complained that the law didn’t go nearly far enough. But, in the US, not even so-called “progressives” tend to support legal sanctions on hate speech. Do Americans have any idea how ridiculous it seems to people in civilized countries when Americans who call themselves “progressive” actually OPPOSE laws against un-progressive speech? In Australia, you absolutely cannot call yourself a progressive unless you actively work to criminalize all forms of un-progressive speech. Even the most far-right ultra-libertarians in Australia still strongly agree that racial vilification and incitement to hatred (including Holocaust denial) should be against the law.

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Most champions of hate speech are straight, white, Christian males who have never had to experience the devastating consequences of hate speech. These highly privileged members of society will never understand the harm that hate speech causes to vulnerable minorities. Hate speech is not “freedom” to the Muslims who face widespread attacks and abuse as a result of hate speech from outlets like Fox News and Bill Maher. Hate speech is not “freedom” to the women at abortion clinics who are shouted at by right-wing protesters just for attempting to exercise their human right to choose. Hate speech is not “freedom” to the thousands of people who are killed by guns every single year in America thanks to the gun lobby’s propaganda turning public opinion against sensible gun bans. Hate speech is certainly not “freedom” to the LGBT people who are viciously attacked and even murdered as a result of hate speech from the Christian right.

Hateful, hurtful, or offensive speech can never be “free” when one considers the extremely high cost that it has on its victims and on society as a whole. When bigots are allowed the unfettered right to incite hatred and violence against vulnerable minorities, the consequences can often be fatal for the members of those vulnerable minority groups. For example, human rights and LGBT rights activist Peter Tatchell notes that human rights and LGBT rights groups in Jamaica have confirmed a rise in anti-gay attacks after the release of homophobic reggae songs that incite hatred and violence against LGBT people. Likewise, attacks on Muslims always increase when powerful figures like Bill Maher make bigoted statements that incite racial hatred and violence against Muslims (in fact, racist hate speech from Bill Maher recently incited a man in Chapel Hill to shoot three innocent Muslims – in a civilized country, Bill Maher would be held legally accountable for the shooting). There is also a strong connection between rape culture – for example, songs like “Blurred Lines,” which directly incite rape – and actual acts of rape and sexual violence. Hate speech does have very serious consequences in the real world, but straight, white, Christian men could never be able to understand just how severe those consequences can be. Privileged members of society will never know what it’s like to be a victim of hate speech. As a descendant of Holocaust survivors, I know first-hand the extreme danger that flows directly from hate speech. Those championing hate speech, however, clearly do not understand just how dangerous hate speech is. There is a hierarchy of power in society, with straight, white, Christian men firmly at the top. Freedom of speech is counter-productive if the people who benefit from it are the people who already hold far too much power and privilege in our society.

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America’s failure to enact human rights legislation also makes it difficult for other countries to adequately protect human rights, especially online. Stopping the spread of online hate speech has been made a top priority of the UN and the international human rights movement, but it’s very difficult to protect human rights online when the US controls most of the Internet and steadfastly refuses to pass any kind of human rights legislation to stop hate speech. A French Jewish leader recently told the US that it needs to join the civilized world by cracking down on online hatred since hate speech on the Internet puts vulnerable minorities in very real danger (both mental and physical), but, unfortunately, we all know that his urgent pleas to the US will go completely ignored, and online hate speech from the US will continue to place French Jews and other vulnerable minorities around the world in serious danger. Until the US decides to finally cooperate with the international community, the UN and human rights groups will never be able to remove hate speech from the Internet and elsewhere. In addition to passing strong legislation against hate speech, the US needs to report to the UN and it needs to allow the UN to prosecute Americans under the UN courts. When other countries fail to press hate speech charges against their citizens, the UN often steps in and presses charges under the UN courts. In America, however, that would currently be impossible. America also needs to hand over control of the Internet to the United Nations, which will use the international human rights framework to protect human rights online, as it has repeatedly encouraged all nations to do.