Goodbye to our Freedom to Hate

The Hate Crime Act will criminalise free speech, warns Alexander Cockburn

FIRST POSTED MAY 14, 2009

America is on the verge of making it illegal to say anything nasty about homosexuals, Jews, blacks and women. Hate speech, even when it falls far short of any direct incitement to violence, is about to be criminalised. Freedom of speech, enshrined in the First Amendment to the US Constitution, will be gone the way of the dodo.

The House of Representatives approved at the end of April, and has since passed to the Senate, a bill backed by Barack Obama's White House to classify as 'hate crimes' those attacks based on a victim's sexual orientation, gender identity or mental or physical disability.

Now, there already was a federal statute going back to the 1960s proscribing hate crimes based on race, colour, religious or ethic origin, but prosecutors could only invoke this law if the victim was engaged in a federally protected activity, like going to school or praying in church. No more, if the Senate agrees with the House, which it surely will.

Suppose two fellows in a bar see another fellow come in, are overheard stigmatising the man as a homosexual and are then later convicted of beating him up. They not only get sentenced for inflicting grievous bodily harm, they get an 'enhancement' - several more years behind bars - for committing a hate crime.

The gay lobby has been pushing for just such a hate crime law ever since Matthew Shepard got beaten to death in 1998 by two roofers outside Laramie, Wyoming. It's actually somewhat unclear whether the roofers, high on methamphetine at the time, specifically murdered Shepard because he was gay.

The problem with the Hate Crimes Act is that it creates a thought crime

But gay and 'human rights' groups have been fundraising on the Shepard martyrdom ever since, as have most of the major women's organisations. An amped-up hate crime law has been on the pledge list of liberal politicians ever since.

The problem with the Hate Crimes Prevention Act is that it creates a thought crime. After all, violent acts like assault or murder or rape carry specific and very serious penalties for the perpetrators, if convicted. (The Laramie roofers were convicted of murder anyway, and will spend the rest of their lives behind bars.) Motive does not enter the matter. And how will a prosecutor prove that a lesbian was murdered because of her sexual preference or because the mugger who stabbed her in the darkened entry to her building did so because she refused to give him her handbag?

As Representative Lamar Smith, ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, protested: "All violent crimes must be vigorously prosecuted. Unfortunately, this bill undermines one of the most basic principles of our criminal justice system - equal justice for all. Justice will now depend on the race, gender, sexual orientation, disability or other protected status of the victim. It will allow different penalties to be imposed for the same crime."

Advocates insist that the Hate Crimes Act will deal only with crimes of violence and have nothing whatsoever to do with limiting free speech or thought. But given the way case law evolves, and the manner in which ambitious prosecutors advance their political careers, there will be an irresistible incentive to bring indictments against anyone speaking hatefully about members of protected categories of people. Speech itself will become a 'violent act' and therefore unlawful.

As Paul Craig Roberts, a former assistant secretary of the Treasury, writes in his fine book on civil liberties, The Tyranny of Good Intentions: "All laws are expansively interpreted. For example: the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organisations Act (RICO), passed in 1970, was directed at drug lords. Nothing in the law says anything about divorce; yet it soon was applied in divorce cases."

Under the Clean Water Act (1977), says Roberts, the Exxon Valdez accident was criminalised. "An unintentional oil spill became the intentional discharge of pollutants without a license, and the bird kill became killing migratory birds without a license. An accident was prosecuted as a crime of intent."

Roberts also points out that since the passage of the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act in 2004, the US Department of State is required to monitor anti-semitism worldwide. In order to monitor anti-semitism, the term must be defined. Anti-semitic speech can be interpreted as inciting hatred. Inciting hatred can be interpreted to be a violent act.

'Excessive' criticism of Israel is a subjective, undefinable concept that can be used to determine anti-semitic speech. It is easy to conflate 'excessive' with 'strong'. Thus, demands that Israel be held accountable for

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Alexander Cockburn has managed to make a career of being one of the most ornery curmudgeons to every prowl the world of print. What misguided thought caused anyone to pay him to pen his perpetual pessimism and discontent escapes me. In this instance, Cockburn values the right to ignorance, disrespect, fear, intolernace and other flawed thinking that leads to hate and harm over the right of decent individuals to live their lives as their creator made them. Typical of those who haven't the courage to admit they are rigid hateful bigots, he tries to hide behind a "right" supported by a misinterpretation of the letter and the spirit of the US Constitution. THe Constitution guarantees people the right to say whatever they wish provided their words do not endorse or incite action that harms others. When citizens translate their hateful thoughts into hateful actions, a decent society should put them away for an extra-long period of time. Our society is based on mutual respect and the rule of law. Those unable and unwilling to conduct themselves accordingly choose to forfeit their right to freedom. When one abuses freedom, one loses the right to enjoy it. The new law is not about speech, it is about violent socially-unacceptable behavior, those who encourage and those who perpetrate such. Any attempt to represent the federal hate crimes legislation as anything different is wrong and likely a thinly veiled defense of racism or other bigotry.

Posted by fischerwdc at 5:05pm on May 15, 2009

Is the messiah Obama--and doubtless Mr. Cockburn's choice for the White House--going to save us from loss of our freedom of speech? No, as a product of Political Correctness, he is a leader in the parade of free speech's destruction. Watch how fast and oratorically he signs the bill into law.

Posted by rphillips at 5:30pm on May 15, 2009

Hate crimes break out hate from the universal downside of human nature and assign it to a specific population sector, exclusively white, straight, gentile and mostly male. It wants to promote the delusion that right-thinking progressives are free of the awful affliction, and it's guaranteed no one will branded a "hater" and see his sentence boosted for murdering a Republican country-club squire, even if he despises right-wing golfers. And it's absolutely no surprise this stupidity originates with the Left. Despite its chronic self-congratulation as free speech champion (in societies that already allow and encourage free speech), the Left is the traditional enemy of any exchange of ideas truly free and open. This is the slippery slope to "hate speech" laws, and if we allow it to happen, we deserve our shackles, our stocks.

Posted by San Fernando Curt at 11:29pm on May 15, 2009

Isn't it surprising that when the redneck voices of America - fischerwdc and rphillips - pop up here, they're peddling exactly the kind of hatespeech they claim to be legislating against?? Alexander Cockburn is braver than either of you two Dukes Of Hazzard rejects.

Posted by neil mcgowan at 4:30am on May 16, 2009

ficherwdc..... It's not often i agree with Alexander Cockburn, i do on this subject. There should be no weighting or any difference in punishment or prosecution due to gender, race or sexual orientation. We already see how the present discrimination laws are twisted to suit just about every situation already. My company are downsizing due to the current economic climate, and im damn sure that women, ethnics and soon to be if this law is passed gays will be exempt from the redundancy numbers, due to companies being too scared of discrimination lawyers.

Posted by Gary O'Brien at 3:18pm on May 17, 2009

It should come as no surprise that similar "hate crime" laws in both North America and europe were authored by the same group, The Anti-Defamation League (ADL). These laws were wholly written by the ADL and then were pushed through government legislatures using its well known abilities to both threaten and intimdate our elected representatives. The ADL has also succeeded in both infiltrating and controlling most of the gay rights groups which have now bceome nothing more than apprendages of it. Many, if not most, of the leaders of these groups have been put into power because of ADL pressure and bribes. The original "hate crime" laws were in instituted by the ADL in Europe and Canada and have essentially ended free speech in these countries. Since US Congressman Paul Findley says that that the ADL is nothing more than an appendage of the Israeli government what we now have is a miniscule country in the Mideast essentially curtailling free speech in the west.

Posted by John Dudley at 11:10pm on May 18, 2009

Mr Cocburn you and other hate filled geezers will be free to hate, don't worry. What I believe is that you will have to curb your violent streaks or face the consequences. It beggars belief that people educated to the point of being able to string sentences and paragraphs together in a comprehensible form could spout such nonsense, and get support from others , too. Sometimes I think the fundamentalists may well have a point when they claim that the world is coming to an end. Perhaps it should, having sunk to its lowest with people holding opinions like these.

Posted by Yolande Agble at 12:35am on August 1, 2009