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Unlike Others, U.S. Defends Freedom to Offend in Speech
NYT ^ | 12 June 2008 | By ADAM LIPTAK

Posted on 06/11/2008 6:01:20 PM PDT by shrinkermd

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — A couple of years ago, a Canadian magazine published an article arguing that the rise of Islam threatened Western values. The article’s tone was mocking and biting, but it said nothing that conservative magazines and blogs in the United States do not say every day without fear of legal reprisal.

Things are different here. The magazine is on trial.

Two members of the Canadian Islamic Congress say the magazine, Maclean’s, Canada’s leading newsweekly, violated a provincial hate speech law by stirring up hatred against Muslims. They say the magazine should be forbidden from saying similar things, forced to publish a rebuttal and made to compensate Muslims for injuring their “dignity, feelings and self-respect.”

The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal, which held five days of hearings on those questions here last week, will soon rule on whether Maclean’s violated the law.

...Some prominent legal scholars say the United States should reconsider its position on hate speech.

“It is not clear to me that the Europeans are mistaken,” Jeremy Waldron, a legal philosopher, wrote in The New York Review of Books last month, “when they say that a liberal democracy must take affirmative responsibility for protecting the atmosphere of mutual respect against certain forms of vicious attack.”

Professor Waldron was reviewing “Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment” by Anthony Lewis, the former New York Times columnist. Mr. Lewis has been critical of efforts to use the law to limit hate speech.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Canada; Constitution/Conservatism; Extended News; Front Page News; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: ac; censorship; firstamendment; freedom; freespeech; humanrights; indanger; of; speech; steyn
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To: shrinkermd

FIRE! FIRE!

i hope i don’t get banned...

we have the freedom to say anything, it is up to those hearing it to respond rationally and logically to ascertain its veracity.

if you don’t like it is not a reason to ban it.

teeman8r


21 posted on 06/12/2008 12:53:08 PM PDT by teeman8r (stand up for it all, cause their gonna tear it to shreds soon.)
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To: teeman8r

i hate when i due that..

ugh


22 posted on 06/12/2008 12:54:50 PM PDT by teeman8r (stand up for it all, cause THEY'RE gonna tear it to shreds soon.)
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To: shrinkermd

BTTT!


23 posted on 06/12/2008 10:19:17 PM PDT by neverdem (I'm praying for a Divine Intervention.)
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To: AdmSmith; Berosus; Convert from ECUSA; dervish; Ernest_at_the_Beach; Fred Nerks; george76; ...

...other than zero-tolerance policies and hate speech legislation, among other slippery slope P.C. B.S.


24 posted on 06/12/2008 10:25:40 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_________________________Profile updated Friday, May 30, 2008)
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To: shrinkermd

That is funny, it is pretty clear to me that the Europeans are flat out stupid. Once you give the Government control of your speech (HRC) or thoughts (hate crimes) you pretty much give them control over you. Then again the EU has been trying to enslave Europe under it’s unelected politicians anyways...


25 posted on 06/12/2008 10:43:07 PM PDT by Dawnsblood
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To: All

You take away any aspect of free speech in the United States and very slowly small concerned groups of citizens will organize. Their activity and numbers will grow and it will not be pretty. It will happen.


26 posted on 06/13/2008 1:02:54 AM PDT by warsaw44
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To: SES1066

Virtually every Communist and Fascist state had (and has) pleasant-sounding stuff in their constitutions about freedom of speech, freedom of religion, etc. But there was always some weasel-words about “maintaining public order and respect” that fatally undermined those guarantees. Same thing about the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.


27 posted on 06/13/2008 1:11:31 AM PDT by garbanzo (Government is not the solution to our problems. Government is the problem.)
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To: gorush

Exactly!


28 posted on 06/13/2008 10:46:19 AM PDT by 3areone
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To: shrinkermd

btt


29 posted on 06/14/2008 9:00:32 PM PDT by Cacique (quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat ( Islamia Delenda Est ))
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To: shrinkermd; GMMAC; Clive; exg; kanawa; conniew; backhoe; -YYZ-; Former Proud Canadian; ...

30 posted on 06/15/2008 6:03:00 AM PDT by fanfan ("We don't start fights my friends, but we finish them, and never leave until our work is done."PMSH)
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