Criminalizing hate speech

Chris Bertram says (clarified here) there might be a case for outlawing hate speech:

If particular groups are so stigmatized and marginalized because of hate-speech messages that their members cannot get their voices heard in the public sphere (they may speak, but most people will not listen to people like them) then the freedom and equality of citizens is undermined, and the formal right that those people have to legal, civil and political equality is of lesser value than the formally similar rights of others. Far from liberty being endangered by hate-speech legislation it may—and whether it is depends very much on the specific social and historical circumstances—ensure that many people continue to enjoy effective liberty.

This is a fine principle. But I'm not sure it can ever apply in practice under our current political arrangements. This is because by the time a group is sufficiently influential to be able to get legal protection against hate speech, it is - by definition - no longer stigmatized and marginalized.
For example, the time when gays needed protection from hate speech was in the 50s, when Alan Turing was being persecuted to death, or the early 80s, when homophobia made it impossible for an out gay man to become an MP. But those were precisely the times when people did not listen to people like them. It is only now that laws against inciting hatred of gays can be countenanced.  But  in these more civilized times, gays - to a large extent - already enjoy equality.
By contrast, the people who most need protection against hate speech today are those so marginalized that they can't get it: these might (very arguably) include asylum-seekers, "chavs", "hoodies", future generations or even the unborn.
Given this contradiction, laws against hate speech are highly likely to be illiberal interventions by an overly intrusive state, rather than attempts to expand the realm of liberal equality.
This is not a complaint against anything Chris has said, but rather against the inherent anti-liberalism and inegalitarianism of our existing political structures.

Comments

[dearieme]

The outlawing of hate speech is just the outlawing of speech "I" hate, just censorship by the powerful.

[Marcin Tustin]

I think you've got this wrong, Chris. The origins of our Race Relations laws are in certain minority groups needing protection from discrimination, when they weren't politically powerful, except in the sense that as a large body of the population who were angry, something needed to be done.

In the same way, any group might be so angry it might riot and protest publicly (not the sedate marches the police shepherd now) but not be able to get spokesmen into the conventional news media.

[dearieme]

The origins of our Race Relations laws is in politicians espying a potential client group.

[ad]

Chris, I have to say that I think your argument would apply under any political system.

In any system, an effective ban can only be imposed by those with the power to impose an effective ban.

[chris strange]

I hope that it is just the result of blind faith in big government. Those people that need free speech the most will always be those that get it taken away form them first.

Interestly that Peter Tatchell has argued against this legislation on the simple grounds of equality. Everybody should be equal before the law with no special groups with special protections, and equality (which is what human rights campaigners like Mr Tatchell wanted for gays) protects minorities because it protects everybody.

If all are equal then just as nobody is singled out for protection nobody is singled out for persecution. If all are equal then any restrictions would apply equally to the majority as to any minority therefore making the majority less likely to call for them.

[Peter Risdon]

This is genuinely scary stuff. Leaving aside Bertram's bizarre argument that in order for society to be free it must be unfree, Turing wasn't the victim of hate speech so much as hate legislation. Tatchell in Bermondsey was the victim of innuendo, not hate speech. The argument here is detached from reality.

The people who really are unable to speak today, in practice, not as a theoretical possibility, are the BNP, David Irving, the Islamofascism Awareness week speakers in the USA, the SIOE people who were beaten with iron bars and stabbed last Sunday in Denmark, and so on. This is regardless of whether they would be breaking any laws with their words. Even if hate speech laws were extended yet they kept on the lawful side of them, they'd be shouted down and attacked by counter-demonstrators.

These are the people who "cannot get their voices heard in the public sphere", in reality. Bertram's argument is disingenuous, because he's certainly not suggesting that the BNP gets protection so its voice can be heard. His is instead a dishonestly presented argument that opinions he personally disagrees with should be suppressed. I disagree with most of them too, but they should be able to speak.

[Matt Munro]

"Hate speech" is thought crime, it's bollocks, conceptually and practically.

[john b]

Are you seriously suggesting the Muslim-hating loonies *don't get enough of a platform*? Have you ever, like, read a newspaper...?

[Sweating through Fog]

I made a similar point in my blog entry on hate speech laws. The effort to protect the marginalized either a) requires the benevolence of a more powerful group (enlightened liberals),or b) is a smokescreen for a group to build an unnecessary defensive wall around itself.

http://sweatingthroughfog.blogspot.com/2007/10/bigotry-hate-speech-and-free-expression.html