Shelby Talcott on October 30, 2019
The former editor of “Time” wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post Tuesday making an argument for why the First Amendment needs to be changed to include a hate speech law.
Richard Stengel, also a former Obama State Department staffer and current MSNBC commentator, was the managing editor for Time Magazine from 2006 to 2013. He began his op-ed by noting that he sees the First Amendment as an “outlier” when comparing America to other countries.
Even the most sophisticated Arab diplomats that I dealt with did not understand why the First Amendment allows someone to burn a Koran. Why, they asked me, would you ever want to protect that?
It’s a fair question. Yes, the First Amendment protects the ‘thought that we hate,’ but it should not protect hateful speech that can cause violence by one group against another. In an age when everyone has a megaphone, that seems like a design flaw.
The op-ed continues on to note that the First Amendment protects both “good guys” and bad people, such as the Russian’s who spread misinformation during the 2016 election. Stengel also wrote that “Domestic terrorists” such as the El Paso shooter “were consumers of hate speech,” using this as an argument for developing a hate speech law.
The op-ed adds that “speech doesn’t pull the trigger,” but suggests that “hateful speech creates a climate where such acts are more likely.”
“Hate speech has a less violent, but nearly as damaging, impact in another way: It diminishes tolerance,” Stengel’s op-ed reads. “It enables discrimination. Isn’t that, by definition, speech that undermines the values that the First Amendment was designed to protect: fairness, due process, equality before the law?
Why shouldn’t the states experiment with their own version of hate speech statutes to penalize speech that deliberately insults people based on religion, race, ethnicity and sexual orientation?”
This op-ed comes as more Americans are in favor of making hate speech illegal, according to a poll published Oct. 23 by the Campaign For Free Speech. The poll found that 51% of Americans are in favor of re-writing the First Amendment, and 48% believe hate speech should be illegal.
The Washington Post and Richard Stengel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Stengel supports Arabs who'd criminalize the burning of the Qur'an in America but doesn't speak to the illegality of bringing in the Torah or the Bible into Muslim countries for other than personal use or the criminality of giving of Bibles to Muslims in Arab countries. Why not?
In Saudi Arabia churches or synagogues aren't allowed. Jewish and Christian jewelry isn't allowed to be seen.
Until and unless there's an equality of tolerance for Jewish and Christian faiths in Muslim countries, why should we allow Islam here? It's because we have the 1st Amendment which doesn't declare Islam as hate speech.
Here’s one for you. Freedom of the press means just that, using a printing press. It was/is not about newspapers and people who call themselves “journalists” being able to confront folks they don’t like that no one else could even remotely begin to do and hide their aggression under the guise of the first amendment. There were only two newspapers in the colonies when the Revolution began, both in Boston.
They have created an institution out of a thing that never existed. The amendment was to protect everyday people from government retribution for criticizing the government using the printing press to get the word out... period. The current use of the term “press” and the elite class of persons empowered by expansions of the basic concept of spreading the word into an invasive institution with extraordinary power to meddle in peoples affairs was never intended. There is no such language in the amendment, it is a complete invention without historical or constitutional support.
Here’s one for you. Freedom of the press means just that, using a printing press. It was/is not about newspapers and people who call themselves “journalists” being able to confront folks they don’t like that no one else could even remotely begin to do and hide their aggression under the guise of the first amendment. There were only two newspapers in the colonies when the Revolution began, both in Boston.
They have created an institution out of a thing that never existed. The amendment was to protect everyday people from government retribution for criticizing the government using the printing press to get the word out... period. The current use of the term “press” and the elite class of persons empowered by expansions of the basic concept of spreading the word into an invasive institution with extraordinary power to meddle in peoples affairs was never intended. There is no such language in the amendment, it is a complete invention without historical or constitutional support.
Mr. Stengel - Either there is free speech, or there is not. Some of the things we hear in public should not be said, but again either there is free speech or there is not. Who is to decide what is to be restricted. According to Muslims, that would be THEM. This would effectively make Christianity, Judaism, Bhuddhism, Hinduism, and nearly every other religion illegal. I do not like it when Muslims claim their "god" is better than mine. But I do not espouse the idea that their opinion should be illegal. Buddhists and Hindus have their own opinions. This country was founded so that we could ALL worship as we please. It WAS founded as a Judao-Christian nation, but it was done without regard to any particular version of Christianity, thus allowing all to worship as they please - even Muslims, so long as they do not try to prevent me form doing so; and so long as we do the same (though there were NO Muslims here at the time). The question thus becomes, once again, WHO decides what "hate speech" is. It CANNOT be defined equitably between the religions - it is that simple. The Founders knew this. The 1st Amendment is fine just the way it is. There is hate speech, no question...but hate speech to you is different than it is to me, or to my neighbor, Abdullah. How about this - we just try to speak as respectably as we can to one another. You are entitled to your opinion, and to express it. But so am I. So f*ck your opinion...
Mr. Stengel - Either there is free speech, or there is not. Some of the things we hear in public should not be said, but again either there is free speech or there is not. Who is to decide what is to be restricted. According to Muslims, that would be THEM. This would effectively make Christianity, Judaism, Bhuddhism, Hinduism, and nearly every other religion illegal. I do not like it when Muslims claim their "god" is better than mine. But I do not espouse the idea that their opinion should be illegal. Buddhists and Hindus have their own opinions. This country was founded so that we could ALL worship as we please. It WAS founded as a Judao-Christian nation, but it was done without regard to any particular version of Christianity, thus allowing all to worship as they please - even Muslims, so long as they do not try to prevent me form doing so; and so long as we do the same (though there were NO Muslims here at the time). The question thus becomes, once again, WHO decides what "hate speech" is. It CANNOT be defined equitably between the religions - it is that simple. The Founders knew this. The 1st Amendment is fine just the way it is. There is hate speech, no question...but hate speech to you is different than it is to me, or to my neighbor, Abdullah. How about this - we just try to speak as respectably as we can to one another. You are entitled to your opinion, and to express it. But so am I. So f*ck your opinion...
Who the hell is this asshat anyway
Who the hell is this asshat anyway
The reason they want the 1st amendment changed to outlaw "hate speech" is because they have labeled the red MAGA hats as an symbol of hate, and that way they could lawfully ban the wearing or display of the hat. Liberals are a ruthless bunch of thugs.
The reason they want the 1st amendment changed to outlaw "hate speech" is because they have labeled the red MAGA hats as an symbol of hate, and that way they could lawfully ban the wearing or display of the hat. Liberals are a ruthless bunch of thugs.
There is an implied assumption that the left will be in power to enforce their ideas of hate speech. What this "journalist" should really be asking himself is, since leftists do not like weapons, who will be the real enforcers.