The Right To Hate
I was astounded and outraged by the recent story from Nigeria, where 200 girls have been kidnapped and sold as wives or into slavery by a radical group of thugs, calling themselveshttp://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2014/04/30/reports-abducted-girls-forced-to-marry-extremists. The girls were attending a Physics test along with boys when the group surrounded the school and carried out the kidnapping. It was reported the group is against school for women, not unlike other religious sects in the Middle East, including areas of Pakistan and Iran. The legal protection of the rights of women in most third world countries are almost non-existent, due primarily to the practice of Islam. and other radical religions. The situation in that region of Nigeria was described by one spokeswoman as " "life has become nasty, short and brutish. We are living in a state of anarchy." This of course echoing Thomas Hobbes, the english philosopher, who said in his book Levithian (1651),
"No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short."
Hobbes was a firm believer in a strong, central authority of governance created on moral foundations. This comment was in part an explanation regarding Men living in a constant state of Nature, where Man sees all property his. There are no rights in a State of Nature, but complete freedom.
On the same day, I read Eudaimonia/s post of Yale's current push to curb racist and bigoted comments which are popularly used. I was struck dumb that the push made headlines and I seriously wondered at the use of scarce resources for such a program. The justification included sentiments such as empowerment of women. People have a good understanding of what is basic politeness and what is not. So it begs the question, why the need to keep pushing at some cost programs or plans on words and phrases which are permissible/not permissible in the name of political correctness? There are so many things wrong in the world today-You can't travel and feel safe, You are stopped and searched by your own police, The NSA is spying on private citizens, the IRS is targeting certain groups, the EPA is regulating your private property and business right out from under you. 200 girls are kidnapped and made slaves because they wanted to learn....The irony of a major and important US university focusing on and elevating the hurt feelings of the few and being alarmed enough to "educate" their students about it compared to the alarm regarding real rights-being kidnapped! is staggering. I find it equally ironic that the former Dean of Yale Law School, now legal adviser to the State Department, Harold Koh, was very outspoken for the US to adopt a "transnational" approach to law, in response to the now famous video "smoking gun" for the Benghazi cover-up. We should revise our laws to include broader interpretation of Hate Speech, including denouncing of Islamic practices, which sees women as property and of little worth. Protect the rights of the group who do not acknowledge natural rights of women and denounce and pass hate laws against people who point that out! http://www.volokh.com/2012/09/13/former-.... This is referred to as the "abuse of free speech."
IF we get to a place where people's outrageous comments are considered so important that they may lose their business, their income, perhaps face jail, the influence of such programs like Yale's serves to not only indoctrinate but define the very terms for which a free citizen may be bound-in speech. The fact that the owner of a basketball team can lose his business and pay outrageous fines for words spoken in the privacy of his home- or a man lose his job because of a political donation is getting ever closer to the same tactics used by the villains in Nigeria. "I don't like what you are doing and I will control you." Why are free citizens of the once greatest country on Earth standing for that?
If racism and bigotry have become the MOST important issue Americans are facing today-we are in serious trouble. Because they are not. People are going to hate you for the color of your skin, for your political orientation, etc. You cannot legislate that away. Protecting natural rights and property rights is the single most effective way to address racism issues.
If we continue to raise false flags, eventually, when real problems need to be dealt with, like the team owner's privacy being violated by not one person but by multiple organizations through publishing of recordings, and no one is held accountable, you'd better strap on your skiis-the slope is a black.
"No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short."
Hobbes was a firm believer in a strong, central authority of governance created on moral foundations. This comment was in part an explanation regarding Men living in a constant state of Nature, where Man sees all property his. There are no rights in a State of Nature, but complete freedom.
On the same day, I read Eudaimonia/s post of Yale's current push to curb racist and bigoted comments which are popularly used. I was struck dumb that the push made headlines and I seriously wondered at the use of scarce resources for such a program. The justification included sentiments such as empowerment of women. People have a good understanding of what is basic politeness and what is not. So it begs the question, why the need to keep pushing at some cost programs or plans on words and phrases which are permissible/not permissible in the name of political correctness? There are so many things wrong in the world today-You can't travel and feel safe, You are stopped and searched by your own police, The NSA is spying on private citizens, the IRS is targeting certain groups, the EPA is regulating your private property and business right out from under you. 200 girls are kidnapped and made slaves because they wanted to learn....The irony of a major and important US university focusing on and elevating the hurt feelings of the few and being alarmed enough to "educate" their students about it compared to the alarm regarding real rights-being kidnapped! is staggering. I find it equally ironic that the former Dean of Yale Law School, now legal adviser to the State Department, Harold Koh, was very outspoken for the US to adopt a "transnational" approach to law, in response to the now famous video "smoking gun" for the Benghazi cover-up. We should revise our laws to include broader interpretation of Hate Speech, including denouncing of Islamic practices, which sees women as property and of little worth. Protect the rights of the group who do not acknowledge natural rights of women and denounce and pass hate laws against people who point that out! http://www.volokh.com/2012/09/13/former-.... This is referred to as the "abuse of free speech."
IF we get to a place where people's outrageous comments are considered so important that they may lose their business, their income, perhaps face jail, the influence of such programs like Yale's serves to not only indoctrinate but define the very terms for which a free citizen may be bound-in speech. The fact that the owner of a basketball team can lose his business and pay outrageous fines for words spoken in the privacy of his home- or a man lose his job because of a political donation is getting ever closer to the same tactics used by the villains in Nigeria. "I don't like what you are doing and I will control you." Why are free citizens of the once greatest country on Earth standing for that?
If racism and bigotry have become the MOST important issue Americans are facing today-we are in serious trouble. Because they are not. People are going to hate you for the color of your skin, for your political orientation, etc. You cannot legislate that away. Protecting natural rights and property rights is the single most effective way to address racism issues.
If we continue to raise false flags, eventually, when real problems need to be dealt with, like the team owner's privacy being violated by not one person but by multiple organizations through publishing of recordings, and no one is held accountable, you'd better strap on your skiis-the slope is a black.
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1. Every time government makes a new law, they take away something that used to be a free choice.
2. You cannot legislate morality.
Media fomenting the mob, knowing the irrational behavior it will cause.
How long might it be until facts are not allowed...Black people are 7 times more likely than white people to commit a crime...Is this hate speech? Sure is more statistically relevant than human affected climate change, but boy would it be an unpopular story.
Anybody recall Eddie Murphy's Mr Robinson's Neighborhood skit on SNL? Will humor become illegal?
Hey, how about we get a Supreme Court case brought against the media on the same grounds as yelling "fire" in a theater?
The real problem arises when "dumb speech" is elevated from one person exercising their freedom to be "dumb" by efforts to make others regulate their lives by this "dumb speech".
The owner of this basketball team was making comments intended to be private, between his girlfriend and himself. At which point he took down whatever guards he must have kept up when addressing people on a day to day basis, or this "news" should have came out long a go. So we should look at how his "hate speech" differed from those muslin kidnappers.
First it must be noted that the highest paid members of his organization were paid millions each year. Next that the most publicly recognizable figures of his company were these same, highly paid black men. While there were a couple white men at these levels of payment, they were not paid more than a fraction of the blacks pay scale. Were there blacks who were maltreated by this individual who were not so paid (payment being the highest level of recognizing excellence in our capitalistic society), possibly, but in the case of this recording no reference was made to any person who was not a millionaire basketball player and no allegation has been made that he allowed his personal views to influence his hiring or the pay scale of his employees. In all ways, this was a conversation that epitomized "dumb speech". Speech that effected nobody apart from the two people involved. It may have displayed the poor choice of boyfriend - girlfriend of this pair, but the entire thing was, well, dumb.
Then we look at the sad case of the 200 girls kidnapped and carried away marry men they have never seen, ripped away from parents and friends to be placed into marriages where they may be killed for no more a crime than looking at another man. Where they will be forced to live under Sharia Law, never allowed to attend school again and not allowed any of the freedoms that young women enjoy in our society without being killed - all nice and legal.
They will never have a conversation like the "dumb" one between "Mr. basketball" and his girlfriend, they won't be allowed to call another man or to speak to one who is not their husband. Of course they won't be afflicted by racism - under a burka, race is not important. And hate speech won't be a problem for them to avoid - they won't be allowed "free speech" and any time they'll be allowed away from home a male will accompany them and if they vary away from the legal stricture of Sharia Law, he will be empowered to beat her appropriately, even kill her if it's required, but that right is more often reserved for her husband.
In short, her life will now be comprised of little more than hate all directed at her and only because she is a female.
Contrast the life she will lead against the lives million dollar basketball players lead - it's really hard to equate the two will any such word. The hatred we know in this land would not rise to the level of mind dislike in most of the world.
I've talked with a lot of folks over the years--white, black, asian, even a Navajo--and most agreed that deep down we all carry at least a small residue of prejudice--some learned from our elders and some through life encounters. The important thing is to recognize this in ourselves and deal with it.
We've all heard the saying: "good neighbors come in all colors." I think its equally true that "sonsabitches come in all colors". So we ought to be able to recognize "an SOB who happens to be black, or brown, or white (wait--maybe that's the default) and say as much without it being labeled "hate speech" and cowaring from it, i.e., separating out the "SOBness" Condescension is just a subtle form of prejudice.