RockStarKevin

1st Am

It’s not a good idea to criminalize opinion.
“Hate speech” laws strike at the heart of civilized society.”

~ Mark Steyn ~

Posted on May 5th, 2008 under quote • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback

23 Responses to “1st Am”

1
Kurt:
May 6th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Hey I didn’t see this until today. I agree with this quote a lot, though I didn’t click through to read the context. I don’t know if you agree, or are starting a conversation, but I wanted to take this opportunity to agree.
2
rockstar:
May 6th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
ah, here’s what i’ll say about mark steyn: i like him.
i hear him every thursday on the Hugh Hewitt show, and he’s got a great accent, and he’s witty, and i generally like his writings.
and i do like this quote.
i am not in favor of laws the criminalize opinions and speech. it does seem like a slippery slope, and i think that speech laws that we do have (defamation, slander) work well and don’t need to be expanded upon.

and mark is currently in a legal issue up in canada (he’s canadian). here’s a review of it, and is probably the reason for the quote.
3
Peter:
May 6th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
I think that the questions in regards to hate speech is whether it is possible for an opinion to be more than an opinion. Germany has some of the strictest hate speech laws in the world as a result of their own experience with hate speech. I think that I agree with Kev that it is a slippery slope to make a person’s idea illegal. And from what I have read on Canada’s laws - I think that may have gone too far. That being said, I think that I am not willing to say that all manner or speech in all forums should be de facto legal.

I also have to point out that from what I have read about what Steyn wrote about the Canadian Muslim community is petty, cruel, hurtful, and does not in any way help further the conversation about national identity.
4
rockstar:
May 7th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Here is the October 2006 article that Steyn had published in Maclean’s, Canada’s leading news weekly that caused all the controversy. I read through it sort of quick, but nothing jumped out as petty, cruel or hurtful.
I’ll have to read it more slowly to see if I have a different reaction then.
5
rockstar:
May 7th, 2008 at 9:23 am
and the current update from May 7th’s Maclean’s is here.
6
Peter:
May 8th, 2008 at 10:12 am
Steyn’s article is a rehash of the “racial suicide” concept that originated in the late 19th century. Of course he substitutes “muslims” for the more standard “inferior races” such as Eastern Europeans and African Americans that were the original scapegoats. The reason I put Muslims in quotations is that he is not using the term correctly since he lumps together everyone who is of Middle Eastern descent regardless of their actual beliefs. He lumps Shiite, Sunni, and non-practicing Muslims together as a group that believes in one thing (a huge Islamic state reaching across Europe ). He helps the reader to assume that those of Middle Eastern descent in Britain have the same beliefs and desires as those in Iran or Iraq and (even worse) Al-Qaeda. This is fear-mongering at best and blatant racism at worst. This is why I think that his article does nothing to help any conversation about what it means to be American, or Canadian, or European. Instead it just fosters really horrible negative stereotypes of a very diverse group of people.

As a side note, the racial suicide idea was taken up by Theodore Roosevelt (and others) as the major reason for the American Eugenics Movement. A program that heavily influenced the German Eugenics Program.

While I still do not agree with Canada’s censorship of Steyn, I can understand the fear that history could potentially repeat itself. This is what proponents of Canada’s hate speech laws - including Canada’s Muslim community - are worried about.

As one more side note, Here is an article that I found talking about Steyn’s perspective that I thought was interesting. I do not agree with the author’s tone, but I think that he is on to something.
7
Kurt:
May 8th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
CAVEAT: I haven’t read any of this, and maybe I will have a chance tonight, so I may be taking this discussion in the wrong direction…

What I find most troublesome about “hate speech” laws is that they are akin to “hate crimes” laws, which I find truly disturbing. I’m in a bit of a minority out here on that one, but I think everything in this general area is suspect because it punishes people for what they think. Motives are only important for discovering who might have committed a crime, they shouldn’t be part of the crime itself. Punishing people for what is in their head is, in my opinion, the beginning of the end (actually a west wing quote now that I think about it). I think any time someone wants to regulate speech or thought, they should have to pass the “pie cutting” test (version of Veil of Ignorance used to describe game theory in a context everyone understands; two kids are fighting over a pie and the parent says Kid 1 cuts the pie, Kid 2 chooses which part he wants, guaranteeing equal division unless there are other factors at play) of saying: “Okay, you decide how much to punish people for saying or thinking ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ things. Then, I’ll decide what is ‘bad’.” I think people often support these laws because they are in the majority opinion about what is bad. Majority opinions can change, I’d prefer not to be forced to change mine when that happens.
8
Peter:
May 8th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
I totally agree with you on this one. When I discussed this a few years ago with some fellow students, someone brought up this paper by a student at Yale which argues that we are stuck in a framework given to us by John Stuart Mill that cannot adequately be used to find an outcome.

here is my favorite quote:

“The real question that those for and against hate crime laws should be debating is whether those laws are right to see hate criminals’ values as more worthy of condemnation than those of other violent offenders.”

I have never been able to come up with an answer to that question that satisfies myself.
9
rockstar:
May 8th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
If I am reading the above question correctly, I would say “No, it is not right to see hate criminals’ values as more worthy of condemnation than those of other violent offenders.”
I don’t think we should distinguish between a person who murders and a person who murders because (insert hate thought here).
I think we should judge the action, and not add on intentions.

now i will have to read the paper Peter linked and see if my opinion changes at all.
10
Peter:
May 9th, 2008 at 10:12 am
So, am I not going to get a response to basically calling Steyn a racist?
11
rockstar:
May 9th, 2008 at 10:24 am
You will get a response. Monday.
i’m going to reread the article more carefully this weekend.
then i can respond better.
but thanks for asking
12
Peter:
May 12th, 2008 at 9:55 am
It’s Monday…
13
rockstar:
May 12th, 2008 at 9:58 am
it’s still Monday…
14
rockstar:
May 12th, 2008 at 10:28 am
As you described the article as,
“This is fear-mongering at best and blatant racism at worst,”
I think your view of the article isn’t wrong.
but wouldn’t say that he racist, but more likely just fear-mongering based on the demography that he believes in, to quote him,

But I do think, as I said, that a good 90 per cent of everything’s about demography.

,

so, are you saying we have nothing to fear? or if we are to fear something, it needs to very specific and not a broad brush generalization.
can a person make demographic observations about race or religion and not be called a fear-mongerer? or is it just a topic that shouldn’t be touched?
15
Peter:
May 12th, 2008 at 10:43 am
It is racist since he makes a blanket statement regarding an entire racial group (those of Middle-Eastern descent) with no regards to actual identity. All people of middle eatern descent are not muslims and very few muslims want the destruction of “western values.”

My fears are not based on who has the most babies, but on what lives in the hearts and minds of those who seek to destroy human life in the name of God or man. That means that I fear those that attack us such as Al Queda and I fear us as we attack in retaliation. If we decide to see the world as us (westerners) against them (muslims), we will do as much if not more harm than those that attack us.

Steyn’s reactionary language and concepts are harmful and wrong and racist.
16
Peter:
May 12th, 2008 at 10:44 am
Thanks for responding, rockstar.
17
rockstar:
May 12th, 2008 at 10:47 am
you said:

It is racist since he makes a blanket statement regarding an entire racial group (those of Middle-Eastern descent) with no regards to actual identity. All people of middle eatern descent are not muslims and very few muslims want the destruction of “western values.”

why isn’t this bad demography instead of racism?
18
Peter:
May 12th, 2008 at 10:49 am
Can you define what bad demography is? I am not sure I understand the term.
19
jedidiah:
May 12th, 2008 at 10:49 am
What do you mean by “bad demography”?
20
rockstar:
May 12th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Isn’t demography: the science of vital and social statistics, as of the births, deaths, diseases, marriages, etc., of populations.

and thus bad demography is when Steyn groups the whole middle east to make a point instead of specifically talking about which groups in the middle east he is concern about. I will assume that he’s not worried about the Israeli or middle eastern Christian birth rates. (and by “not worried”, i would mean he would be in favor of higher birth rates for these groups).

therefore, Steyn isn’t trying to be racist, but he’s making the point that if the current birth rates in a country like France continue the way they are, then France will be a very different country in 100 years if these trends continue. this assumes that birthrates continue in the same direction.
21
Peter:
May 12th, 2008 at 11:13 am
I did not mean that Steyn was including Jews and Christians in his stereotype of the middle east. I was talking about that fact that he was lumping all middle-eastern people no matter where they have grown up, what their particular beliefs are, whether they are Sunni, Shiite, agnostic, liberal, conservative, etc into one “global Islamic state”. And that “global Islamic state” would be linked to Al-Qaeda and would establish “sharia” law in place of “our western style laws.”

Whenever you take a group of people based on the color of their skin or where they came from and make on big sweeping negative statement that is racism. There is no evidence that the majority of immigrants from the muslim nations to Europe are radical Islamists bent on shaping Europe into a new Islamic state. Just like there was no evidence that the Czechs who moved to the U.S. wanted to recreate American culture in their culture at the turn of the last century (see racial suicide article from previous comment)
22
rockstar:
May 12th, 2008 at 11:28 am
in about the 10th paragraph down, he wrote:

Islam, however, has serious global ambitions, and it forms the primal, core identity of most of its adherents — in the Middle East, South Asia and elsewhere.

based on this statement early on, I didn’t read the rest of the article thinking about race.
But you might be right and Steyn might be wrong that “There is no evidence that the majority of immigrants from the muslim nations to Europe are radical Islamists bent on shaping Europe into a new Islamic state.” This will require further study…
23
Peter:
May 12th, 2008 at 11:31 am
Every religion has “serious global ambitions” that does not mean that every country and every adherent to a faith wants the same thing from a government or a culture. The followers of Islam are as diverse as Christianity.