Using speech to incite violence is clearly not protected, yet it has been in the case of calling From the river to the Sea, and Free Palestine, and Globalize the intifada. But when the people in power are not on our side, or your side, it is way too easy for them to ban speech they disagree with—as they did during Covid, as they do in Arab countries, as they are doing in Britain and Germany now. We must fight the lies with truth. Shutting down speech, labeling and banning speech we don’t like as “hate speech”—even if it is hateful, is wrong. The ADL labeling Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA a “right wing extremist group” is slanderous and harms Jews—as we are all lumped under the ADL umbrella. The ADL has been smearing people who point out some basic tenets of Islam as Islamophobes, or people who question transing children as Transphobes, not to mention extorting people, or trying to extort people like Kyrie Irving. This backfires and harms us.
That's right. And you can bet that if the government is allowed to define hate speech much of the things conservatives believe will be so labelled while the Israel bashers will continue to operate unimpeded.
It's not just the West, it's any functioning democracy. In India, for example, Islamist and leftist calls to eradicate Hinduism and Brahmins, and separatist calls to divide India up into bits, denigration of the Indian government and army as genocidal and fascist, are commonplace.
Absolutely right.......Free speech is undoubtedly wonderful/Democratic, but unfortunately we're exposed to lots of HATE speech " from the river to the sea ", " by all means necessary " " globalized the intifada ", " genocide ", etc. And like you brilliantly stated, will definitely will incite HATE against Israel and Jews......and now, we can the results, antisemitism all over the world !!!!!.....
What we have seen is rhetoric that has led to assaults on Jews and their institutions.The DOJ’s lawsuit that was commenced today is a very important response that Biden refused to authorize
Reading this, I see the blending of first amendment concepts ranging from pure speech to expressive conduct to pure conduct to notions of subsequent punishment vs. prior restraint.
For example, Joshua gets the Lockean ideal that even lies have a role. We don’t suppress lies because they help define truth. It’s the concept of the marketplace of ideas. Entrance to the marketplace does not depend on truth. Rather truth is discerned within the marketplace.
We subsequently punish speech that causes or imminently threatens public order. We don’t, however, suppress it from reaching the marketplace. That’s what makes freedom of expression messy.
Saying “from the river to the sea” is therefore allowed much like Skokie had to permit Nazis to march into a very Jewish community.
In my view Joshua is closer to nailing the problem when he mentions something else. It’ not the fact that the objectionable, indeed odious “speech” is permitted. Rather it’s the topsy turvy modern moral relativism which is causing the marketplace itself to fail. When good becomes evil and evil becomes good, the marketplace is rendered dysfunctional. When the marketplace can no longer ferret out truth it’s not free speech that fails, but rather its practitioners: us.
I offer two more points.
Terrorism is conduct not speech. Support for it or appeasement of it, is a moral failure. It’s a malignancy that has spread through western elite circles.
As to what would happen if the same invective was heaped on other minorities ? That is the result of another moral failure: Antisemitism. The willingness to accept every blood libel, to ignore incontrovertible facts, to redefine downward things like genocide or starvation to indict only the Jewish state is the paradigm of antisemitism.
I have to take issue with this. You are conflating several different things. First, you are conflating the ethics of allowing hate speech or vile terrorists to compete on private (Or in the case of the BBC) public outlets with normal leaders and the government actually banning speech and shutting it down or arresting those who do so. The former is wrong and the media that permits must be attacked and shamed. But the government musn't be permitted to shut it down. Because I don't trust the government to do so. ALl you have to do is look at Britain or France where people are arrested for tweeting negative statements about Islam. I can assure you that if you give the government the power to define what is "hateful" it will be something you want to be said. It always is.
Additionally you attack civil libertarians as a straw horse. There are no "free speech absolutists." Even Libertarian ideologues support libel and slander laws. Furthermore, the mass hate riots and demonstrations are not legal. They almost certainly do not have permits and in many cases they encroach on public property and commit other crimes. Those should be but haven't been enforced when the demonstrations are against Israel. But it is the government you want to control speech that isn't enforcing it.
The answer to hateful speech is not censorship. That doesn't mean our nation needs to admit those who hate it or Israel and will rabble rouse. It doesn't mean a university needs to employ terror supporters or publish their "work". But it does mean the government musn't be allowed to shut it down. Period.
Joshua, your readers deeply appreciate your clarity. The wonderful discussion and debate below is outstanding and a wonderful example of democracy in action. The 10 Commandments clearly still have importance to each of your commenters. GF
"As John Stuart Mill argued in On Liberty published in 1859 that the open contest of ideas was the surest path to knowledge. Even falsehoods had value, for they sharpened the truth."
Had Mill been aware of the powers of persuasion that advertizing, PR agencies, the media, and electronic influencers exercise over the public, he would never have said that falsehoods sharpen truth. He would have warned against disseminating falsehoods.
Hate speech, the incitement of hatred against an identifiable group is on the books in many countries but sparingly applied. It is excused as criticism when patently it is not. In fact, criticism, pointing out that which is condemnable in others, is one step beyond critiquing, evaluating the merits of an issue based on established standards, which is valid. As the excuse for fomenting hatred goes, "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" and so, for one, Hamas is never identified as a terrorist group by the media or most politicians but rather as militants.
"No police chief in the West would shrug and call it protected expression."
A psychological profile of those who choose policing as a vocation reveals that they are staunchly conservative, love authority, and inclined to violent reaction if they feel provoked. As committed defenders of public morality, cultural and religious norms, they are inclined to be, shall we say, not sympathetic to Jews,
"A society that cannot distinguish between dissent and destruction, between debate and incitement, between criticism and propaganda, has lost its moral compass."
The issue is more than mere morality. It is about the ability to exercise critical thinking skills, skills that should be taught in schools beginning at least in grade one.
"neutrality in the face of barbarism is not virtue; it is moral blindness"
Actually, these influencers have enough information at their disposal to know that claiming neutrality is a cover for siding with Jew haters. The end result is that they are promoting the social poison of antisemitism rather than calling it for what it is.
Lefties think anything THEY say should be protected and anything anyone says disagreeing with THEM should be suppressed. Obviously, they think defending the Jewish state is evil while advocating its destruction is just hunky dory. Mental confusion with lefties is a virtue whether or not it makes any sense.
Commandeering public spaces and violently repressing "free speech" is now sacred. The right to maraud and be here illegally is a protected class. The public found the policies of a decrepit president reprehensible. The VP candidate for president goes on the wokest of programs to proclaim "for the record" this was the closest election. Had she reached me...she'd be president now. I look back and see what the free speech issues were when I was a teen. I look forward and its very cloudy. I am sick at heart over the NYC election and I'm at a loss to understand how working class people in Bed Stuy and East NY are so willing to vote this Dem Socialist who will eviscerate public safety as mayor is good for them. The Israel / Palestine thing....if people aren't crazy about their pale Hasidic neighbors they think Free Palestine....I"m not crazy about the veiled and niqabed women everywhere now in my nabe....it's totally common to see. I wonder how they feel comfortable here but not in Dhakka...except that Dhakka is poverty. I don't doubt what free speech means to them.
This is such an outstanding essay that so clearly explains the difference in using free speech for criticism, change, or for our destruction. Burning down federal buildings, stores, and cars, setting fires, attacking police, federal agents is a clear sign of the abuse of free speech. But those same "protesters" have now changed the definition of free speech and leaders have allowed it to happen. Thank you for such a brilliant essay reminding us of the origins of free speech and the abuses that have evolved over time.
Well said that "The dark side of 'free speech' is not free speech itself, but its abuse." I can't agree with you more... Attention USA & Other Democracies: Free Speech Is Not Free.
A very interesting line of reasoning. There's currently a significant disagreement between the Trump administration and the European Union, whether or not tech giants are obligated to filter conspiracy theories, blatant nonsense, and discriminatory content. Vice President Vance even believes that the EU lacks freedom of speech because of this. However, in Europe, as Joshua also writes, they believe that a democracy is not obligated to undermine itself.
Using speech to incite violence is clearly not protected, yet it has been in the case of calling From the river to the Sea, and Free Palestine, and Globalize the intifada. But when the people in power are not on our side, or your side, it is way too easy for them to ban speech they disagree with—as they did during Covid, as they do in Arab countries, as they are doing in Britain and Germany now. We must fight the lies with truth. Shutting down speech, labeling and banning speech we don’t like as “hate speech”—even if it is hateful, is wrong. The ADL labeling Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA a “right wing extremist group” is slanderous and harms Jews—as we are all lumped under the ADL umbrella. The ADL has been smearing people who point out some basic tenets of Islam as Islamophobes, or people who question transing children as Transphobes, not to mention extorting people, or trying to extort people like Kyrie Irving. This backfires and harms us.
That's right. And you can bet that if the government is allowed to define hate speech much of the things conservatives believe will be so labelled while the Israel bashers will continue to operate unimpeded.
Exactly.
It's not just the West, it's any functioning democracy. In India, for example, Islamist and leftist calls to eradicate Hinduism and Brahmins, and separatist calls to divide India up into bits, denigration of the Indian government and army as genocidal and fascist, are commonplace.
Absolutely right.......Free speech is undoubtedly wonderful/Democratic, but unfortunately we're exposed to lots of HATE speech " from the river to the sea ", " by all means necessary " " globalized the intifada ", " genocide ", etc. And like you brilliantly stated, will definitely will incite HATE against Israel and Jews......and now, we can the results, antisemitism all over the world !!!!!.....
That's not the legal meaning of incitement.
What we have seen is rhetoric that has led to assaults on Jews and their institutions.The DOJ’s lawsuit that was commenced today is a very important response that Biden refused to authorize
Reading this, I see the blending of first amendment concepts ranging from pure speech to expressive conduct to pure conduct to notions of subsequent punishment vs. prior restraint.
For example, Joshua gets the Lockean ideal that even lies have a role. We don’t suppress lies because they help define truth. It’s the concept of the marketplace of ideas. Entrance to the marketplace does not depend on truth. Rather truth is discerned within the marketplace.
We subsequently punish speech that causes or imminently threatens public order. We don’t, however, suppress it from reaching the marketplace. That’s what makes freedom of expression messy.
Saying “from the river to the sea” is therefore allowed much like Skokie had to permit Nazis to march into a very Jewish community.
In my view Joshua is closer to nailing the problem when he mentions something else. It’ not the fact that the objectionable, indeed odious “speech” is permitted. Rather it’s the topsy turvy modern moral relativism which is causing the marketplace itself to fail. When good becomes evil and evil becomes good, the marketplace is rendered dysfunctional. When the marketplace can no longer ferret out truth it’s not free speech that fails, but rather its practitioners: us.
I offer two more points.
Terrorism is conduct not speech. Support for it or appeasement of it, is a moral failure. It’s a malignancy that has spread through western elite circles.
As to what would happen if the same invective was heaped on other minorities ? That is the result of another moral failure: Antisemitism. The willingness to accept every blood libel, to ignore incontrovertible facts, to redefine downward things like genocide or starvation to indict only the Jewish state is the paradigm of antisemitism.
I have to take issue with this. You are conflating several different things. First, you are conflating the ethics of allowing hate speech or vile terrorists to compete on private (Or in the case of the BBC) public outlets with normal leaders and the government actually banning speech and shutting it down or arresting those who do so. The former is wrong and the media that permits must be attacked and shamed. But the government musn't be permitted to shut it down. Because I don't trust the government to do so. ALl you have to do is look at Britain or France where people are arrested for tweeting negative statements about Islam. I can assure you that if you give the government the power to define what is "hateful" it will be something you want to be said. It always is.
Additionally you attack civil libertarians as a straw horse. There are no "free speech absolutists." Even Libertarian ideologues support libel and slander laws. Furthermore, the mass hate riots and demonstrations are not legal. They almost certainly do not have permits and in many cases they encroach on public property and commit other crimes. Those should be but haven't been enforced when the demonstrations are against Israel. But it is the government you want to control speech that isn't enforcing it.
The answer to hateful speech is not censorship. That doesn't mean our nation needs to admit those who hate it or Israel and will rabble rouse. It doesn't mean a university needs to employ terror supporters or publish their "work". But it does mean the government musn't be allowed to shut it down. Period.
Joshua, your readers deeply appreciate your clarity. The wonderful discussion and debate below is outstanding and a wonderful example of democracy in action. The 10 Commandments clearly still have importance to each of your commenters. GF
"As John Stuart Mill argued in On Liberty published in 1859 that the open contest of ideas was the surest path to knowledge. Even falsehoods had value, for they sharpened the truth."
Had Mill been aware of the powers of persuasion that advertizing, PR agencies, the media, and electronic influencers exercise over the public, he would never have said that falsehoods sharpen truth. He would have warned against disseminating falsehoods.
Hate speech, the incitement of hatred against an identifiable group is on the books in many countries but sparingly applied. It is excused as criticism when patently it is not. In fact, criticism, pointing out that which is condemnable in others, is one step beyond critiquing, evaluating the merits of an issue based on established standards, which is valid. As the excuse for fomenting hatred goes, "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" and so, for one, Hamas is never identified as a terrorist group by the media or most politicians but rather as militants.
"No police chief in the West would shrug and call it protected expression."
A psychological profile of those who choose policing as a vocation reveals that they are staunchly conservative, love authority, and inclined to violent reaction if they feel provoked. As committed defenders of public morality, cultural and religious norms, they are inclined to be, shall we say, not sympathetic to Jews,
"A society that cannot distinguish between dissent and destruction, between debate and incitement, between criticism and propaganda, has lost its moral compass."
The issue is more than mere morality. It is about the ability to exercise critical thinking skills, skills that should be taught in schools beginning at least in grade one.
"neutrality in the face of barbarism is not virtue; it is moral blindness"
Actually, these influencers have enough information at their disposal to know that claiming neutrality is a cover for siding with Jew haters. The end result is that they are promoting the social poison of antisemitism rather than calling it for what it is.
Sticks and stones will break your bones but ‘RIGHT’ words will likely find you in jail.
Lefties think anything THEY say should be protected and anything anyone says disagreeing with THEM should be suppressed. Obviously, they think defending the Jewish state is evil while advocating its destruction is just hunky dory. Mental confusion with lefties is a virtue whether or not it makes any sense.
Commandeering public spaces and violently repressing "free speech" is now sacred. The right to maraud and be here illegally is a protected class. The public found the policies of a decrepit president reprehensible. The VP candidate for president goes on the wokest of programs to proclaim "for the record" this was the closest election. Had she reached me...she'd be president now. I look back and see what the free speech issues were when I was a teen. I look forward and its very cloudy. I am sick at heart over the NYC election and I'm at a loss to understand how working class people in Bed Stuy and East NY are so willing to vote this Dem Socialist who will eviscerate public safety as mayor is good for them. The Israel / Palestine thing....if people aren't crazy about their pale Hasidic neighbors they think Free Palestine....I"m not crazy about the veiled and niqabed women everywhere now in my nabe....it's totally common to see. I wonder how they feel comfortable here but not in Dhakka...except that Dhakka is poverty. I don't doubt what free speech means to them.
This is such an outstanding essay that so clearly explains the difference in using free speech for criticism, change, or for our destruction. Burning down federal buildings, stores, and cars, setting fires, attacking police, federal agents is a clear sign of the abuse of free speech. But those same "protesters" have now changed the definition of free speech and leaders have allowed it to happen. Thank you for such a brilliant essay reminding us of the origins of free speech and the abuses that have evolved over time.
Well said that "The dark side of 'free speech' is not free speech itself, but its abuse." I can't agree with you more... Attention USA & Other Democracies: Free Speech Is Not Free.
https://thetruthfulproject.blogspot.com/2023/11/attention-usa-other-democracies-free.html
A very interesting line of reasoning. There's currently a significant disagreement between the Trump administration and the European Union, whether or not tech giants are obligated to filter conspiracy theories, blatant nonsense, and discriminatory content. Vice President Vance even believes that the EU lacks freedom of speech because of this. However, in Europe, as Joshua also writes, they believe that a democracy is not obligated to undermine itself.
חתימה טובה to all readers of this amazing, brilliant column and all thanks to Josh for his ongoing bullseye insights. 🍎🍯
So now even our most cherished rights must be curtailed so that Bibi can annex the West Bank in peace.
You know, when you wonder why antisemitism is rising, maybe this has something to do with it? The special treatment the "Jewish State" demands?
Correction: we can see the results