The Problem With Defending Free Speech for Jerks Is That You’re Defending Jerks
I was prepared to agree that the UK police (and their political masters) seem to be going down a wrong path in investigating homophobic remarks; Mark Steyn makes a reasonable point in the Telegraph:
All over the United Kingdom, right now, real crimes are being committed: mobiles are being nicked, front doors are being kicked in, bollards are being lobbed through bus shelters – just to name some of the lighter activities that add so much to the gaiety of the nation. None of these is a “priority crime”, as you’ll know if you’ve ever endured the bureaucratic time-waster of reporting a burglary.
So what is a “priority crime”? Well, the other day, the author Lynette Burrows went on a BBC Five Live show to talk about the government’s new “civil partnerships” and expressed her opinion – politely, no intemperate words – that the adoption of children by homosexuals was “a risk”. The following day, Fulham police contacted her to discuss the “homophobic incident”.
A Scotland Yard spokesperson told the Telegraph’s Sally Pook that it’s “standard policy” for “community safety units” to investigate “homophobic, racist and domestic incidents” because these are all “priority crimes” – even though, in the case of Mrs Burrows, there is (to be boringly legalistic about these things) no crime, as even the zealots of the Yard concede. “It is all about reassuring the community,” said the very p.c. Plod to the Telegraph. “All parties have been spoken to by the police. No allegation of crime has been made. A report has been taken but is now closed.”
Never mind Steyn’s smarmy certainty that bigoted speech is nothing to worry about (I’m sure British homophobes are too polite to go in for gay bashing or denial of civil rights); even asinine and bigoted speech should be protected, and the heavy-handedness of police visits to those who make disapproved remarks is incompatible with civil liberty, even when the remarks are offensive, ignorant, or cruel. If Steyn wanted to hold the moral high ground against the dreaded “PC” crowd that, shockingly, keeps acting up against bigotry and discrimination, all he had to do was make that point. Even I would have agreed, as would most anti-bigotry liberals.
But Steyn isn’t really for liberty – he’s just against the people who are against bigotry. Having claimed an easy win on the moral high ground, Steyn couldn’t control himself:
Oh, to be sure, the vicious homophobe wasn’t dragged off to re-education camp – or more likely, given budgetary constraints, an overcrowded women’s prison to be tossed in a cell with a predatory bull-dyke who could teach her the error of her homophobic ways. . . .
As it is, Lynette Burrows has been investigated by police merely for expressing an opinion. Which is the sort of thing we used to associate with police states. Indeed, it’s the defining act of a police state: the arbitrary criminalisation of dissent from state orthodoxy.
Mrs Burrows writes on “children’s rights and the family”, so I don’t know whether she’s a member of PEN or the other authors’ groups. But it seems unlikely the Hampstead big guns who lined up to defend Salman Rushdie a decade and a half ago will be eager to stage any rallies this time round. But, if the principle is freedom of expression, what’s the difference between his apostasy (as the Ayatollah saw it) and Mrs Burrows’s apostasy (as Scotland Yard sees it)?
“Predatory bull-dyke”? “Police states”? Salman Rushdie?
This is the moral high ground inhabited by Mark Steyn. You just know he was as thrilled at getting the chance to use “bull-dyke” in an article on female prisons as all those conservative editorialists were to use “nigger” in their obituaries of Richard Pryor. It’s hard to take conservative complaints about “political correctness” seriously when they invariably turn out to be nothing more than complaints that conservatives can’t behave like vicious children in public.
As for his gibbering about police states and fatwas, only a conservative would need it pointed out that “the difference[s] between [Salman Rushdie's] apostasy (as the Ayatollah saw it) and Mrs Burrows’s apostasy (as Scotland Yard sees it)” are, among other things, that Lynette Burrows was calling for the abrogation of the human rights of an entire class of people, while Rushdie was merely quoting a legend about the Koran; that Burrows has the legal right to say any stupid thing she wants and be championed by the likes of Mark Steyn, while over 50 people have died in violent protests related to Rushdie’s book, there were worldwide book-burnings, and there have been one murder and several attempted murders of people associated with its publication; that Burrows was subject to exactly one conversation with an unarmed police officer, resulting in no arrests and no charges filed, while Rushdie was sentenced to death at the hands of all Muslims worldwide and was forced to live in hiding for a decade, and still lives under a religious death sentence. But his sufferings are as nothing compared to hers, of course, because she’s anti-homosexual and therefore a moral hero.
It’s clear that attempts to prevent bigoted speech by suppression are misguided and counterproductive. But when the people you wind up defending are as obnoxious as this Burrows, who makes children her weapon of bigotry and discrimination, and your compatriots in defending such trash are fools like Mark Steyn, it’s depressing.
This incident shows that the imposition of penalties for “hate” crimes is dangerous in a free society. What next? Ministers being arrested for saying that homosexual acts are sins?
Fred, hate crimes refer to actions, not words. Not the same thing at all. You’re thinking of hate speech, and I agree that should be protected under the 1st ammendment. Actually terrorizing the victims of hate by beating up, killing , and/or vandelizing the property of members of that group should be punished for what it is. In fact, I think we should start calling them terror crimes, or even better, simply call it terrorism, because that is what it is.
No, hate is a thought, not an action. If my wife is murdered because some lowlife kills her while he robs her, is he to be punished less than if he kills her because he hates her? If you believe that, you are saying that the life of someone who is hated is more valuable than the life of someone not hated.
(I think we’ve had this discussion before. If I remember correctly, your answer to the above question would be that yes, the life of a hated person is more valuable.)
Dawn: “Actually terrorizing the victims of hate by beating up, killing , and/or vandelizing the property of members of that group…”
Fred: At least you are honest enough to admit that you think that bringing terror on a person because he is part of a special preferred group is worse that bringing terror to a person not in a protected group. I suppose I would be less terrified if I was beat up and my property vandalized since I’m not a member of a preferred class. That is comforting to know. Thanks.
Isn’t hate more of an emotion?
“Mark Steyn” and “reasonable” don’t go together. Ever.
Oh wait, the Grinch is on, time to play the Who Drinking game! HaHa!
What is this “special preferred group” there, Fred?
The crimes apply to majorities, too. If a black person kills someone because they are white (for example), that is also a hate crime.
The U.S. Congress defined in 1992 a hate crime as a crime in which “the defendant’s conduct was motivated by hatred, bias, or prejudice, based on the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or gender identity of another individual or group of individuals” (HR 4797).
Should a person get charged less because it was not motivated by race? Hell no! However, a person who kills another because they are white (or brown, or red, or yellow, etc…) should be charged with MORE because it’s a crime against a person in addition to being an exhibition of barbarism that resides a level higher, threatening the principles of society or civilization itself.
Homosexuality does not exist in reality. It is just a phantom of weak mindes, disease of out times.
Sexuality form its definition, derived from its nature, is something diversified. Where is no biological (anatomical and functional) differentation there is no sexuality.
This differentation is clearly made by evolution of procreation.
In this perspecive can be seen, that diffrent sexes are biological counterparts , wchich are complementary to each other.
So, saying strictly and according to the reality, we should name “homosexuality” just PSEUDOSEXUALITY, as it – in mental theory and behavioral practice – ignore (anatomical and functional)differentation.
This act of ignoration is act of disrespect for something.
As act of disrespect of something not just animal but human, is something what undermine the idea, that a man has natural diginty, as it undermine the concept of valuable human being as a whole.
YOU COMPLETLY LOST ACTUAL PERSPECTIVE
Homosexuality does not exist in reality. It is just a phantom of weak mindes, disease of our times.
Sexuality from its definition (derived from nature of sexuality), is something diversified. Where is no biological (anatomical and functional) differentation there is no sexuality at all.
This differentation is clearly made by evolution of procreation.
In this perspecive can be seen, that diffrent sexes are biological counterparts, wchich are complementary to each other.
So, saying strictly and according to the reality, we should name “homosexuality” just PSEUDOSEXUALITY, as it – in mental theory and behavioral practice – ignore (anatomical and functional) differentation.
It is an act of ignoration, practically: an act of disrespect for something (in sexuality of human being).
This act of disrespect of something not just animal but human, is something what undermine the idea that a man has natural
diginty, as it undermine the concept of valuable human being as a whole.
But when the people you wind up defending are as obnoxious as this Burrows, who makes children her weapon of bigotry and discrimination, and your compatriots in defending such trash are fools like Mark Steyn, it’s depressing.
Niklas replies
Its the many and varied and often misgiuded so called childrens and gay rights groups and our governments who use or to use the proper word abuse children to set theit minority agenda on the minority or in the case of the government to rob parents of their rights in order to advance their political control a control similar to that used by fundamentalist clerics and the nazi party.
The real problem is that when the ’sex education’ or rather indoctrination given in our schools or the freedoms given to children ruin our communities the govenment always blames the parents.
I feel tht gay rights has now turned into the pink jackboot and is now not about protecting gay peoples rights but denying the majority of their freedom of speech and kids their right to be kids.
So what is a “priority crime”?
Niklas Replies
Any crime relating to anyone of a different skin colour,sexual orientation, or religion from a hetrosexual,white,christian it seems.
in the event of crimes against anyone other than a minority victim its treated as a low priority as it has no political value or cannot add ‘good guy’ points to the many and varied self appointed minority leaders and groups dubious organisations most of which are marxist anti religious anti family organisations that care not a jot about anyones rights and only about their own political agenda in the first place.
A quick look at human rights abuses and state control in Sweden that liberal beacon the rights groups tend to hold show exactly where the police are wrong and just where such infigements on human rights as that exacted on Lynette Burrows can lead.
What is this “special preferred group” there, Fred?
Niklas Replies
Sorry to answer your question posed to onother poster but here goes.
Minorities arethe special group just how can anyone justify longer sentencesfor a perpetrator of a crime depending on the colour of the victims skin or sexualorientation?
How can this fail to generate hatred and mistrust in the comminity of our legal system?
The law and its penalties should be equal for all not just select groups a crime is a crime.
To legislate in this way makes a mockery of justice for all on an equal basis.
The minorities need to make up their minds wether they want equal rights or prefference simply because they are different in some way.