Hate Speech Legislation

The new year is starting off in on the wrong foot, as the article linked to below will show.  A hat tip to Instapundit for this item out of the Manchester Guardian on "Irish atheists challenge new blasphemy laws."  I was reading along, thinking that the Irish Government had made a bad turn by strengthening its Blasphemy laws rather than abolishing them.  In the back of my mind I was thinking of how extremists of this or that faith have shown that they can turn out murderous mobs if someone draws cartoons about their religious founders.  I was think about how some are pushing for Government protection of their faith from any criticism, calling it blasphemy.  I was thinking about how this is all bad and how it offends the First Amendment of our US Constitution and that I hope it doesn't jump the pond to our nation.♠

Then I read a couple of the comments and came to the one by TichyJr at 02/0059 January 2010. Mr Tichy is in favor of "Hate Speech Legislation" but thinks this new Irish law is bad:

Carefully written laws preventing certain well-defined forms of "hate speech"? I'm pretty much in favor of that.

So, it is bad to say certain words, but it is OK to attack someone's sacred beliefs.  Apparently the "clingers" and the "Tea Party" people are open targets.

My position?  You can say what you want as long as you are not saying to kill the President (or the Vice President or some other high official) or you are not crying "Fire" in a crowded theater.  If you feel the Pope is a idiot and a Nazi, feel free to say so.  If you think Mohammad was wrong, say so.  But, remember that Pope Benedict XVI is trying to save Western Civilization in Europe, something Professor Richard Dawkins seems not to be doing.  Remember, Mohammad is seen by a big chunk of humanity as someone who is about social justice, even if a small minority are about anything but social justice.  But, most important, in the US, all such points of view are allowed by law and custom.

So, don't come up to me and say that people who believe in God are idiots and not expect me to tell you that you are another pseudo-intellectual who hasn't thought it all through.  And please show some cuth and not drop the F-Word in front of me without being well acquainted with me and especially don't do it in front of young ears.  If you do, expect me to say that you are totally lacking in class.

The Irish Government got it wrong, but so did commenter TichyJr.

UPDATE:

I actually updated this posting after it went up, to soften it around the edges with regard to Islam.  Then, in the news we find that some fanatic from Somalia has tried to murder Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, in his home, with his 5-year old granddaughter in the house.  The reason that the man was going after Mr Westergaard is that the cartoonist was one of those Danes who produced some cartoons taking the mickey out of Prophet Mohammad.  In the case of Mr Westergaard, he is the artist who produced the Bomb-in-the-Turban of Muhammad Cartoon.  Here is the report on al Jazeera and here is the report in al Arabiya.  Hat tip to Gates of Vienna and Instapundit.

Here is part of the story from al Arabiya:

The 28-year-old man, armed with a knife and axe, failed to get into Kurt Westergaard's home in the town of Aarhus late on Friday and was shot in the leg and hand after he threw the axe at a policeman, a police spokesman said.

The man, now under arrest, had "close ties to the Somali terror organization al-Shabaab as well as to al-Qaeda leaders in East Africa," the Danish Security and Intelligence Service PET said in a statement.

Let us hope that this attack does not lead to more weak-kneed responses to the cartoon issue, like that of Yale University Press last year.  A quick synopsis of that imbroglio can be found here.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Things may be different to the north, in Canada.  Thinking back a year or so I recall some Canadian Government lawyer being caught on tape at a hearing saying that there is no such thing as "Free Speech" in Canada—that is an American thing.  And thank God it is a thing in America.