Sunday, February 26, 2006
Thoughts and Deeds
There's a difference, as we know, between thoughts and deeds. Inciting hatred that leads to violence--especially hatred based on rejection of human rights--is more than just thinking; it's an act of persuading people to deny others the right to exist. At its most extreme, it results in ethnic cleansing, collective punishment, and genocide.
The correlation between denying human dignity to a distinct ethnic or religious or racial populace and the subsequent brutalities visited on them is clear. The lessons of Bosnia, Rwanda, Palestine, North of Ireland, America, and Nazi Germany all indict unrestricted speech as reckless; how we might go about restricting it is something we should discuss at length, but not something we should avoid out of some misguided sense of freedom to hate as a civil right.
Perhaps looking at how these freedoms have been abused here and elsewhere will provide guidance to our discussion.
The correlation between denying human dignity to a distinct ethnic or religious or racial populace and the subsequent brutalities visited on them is clear. The lessons of Bosnia, Rwanda, Palestine, North of Ireland, America, and Nazi Germany all indict unrestricted speech as reckless; how we might go about restricting it is something we should discuss at length, but not something we should avoid out of some misguided sense of freedom to hate as a civil right.
Perhaps looking at how these freedoms have been abused here and elsewhere will provide guidance to our discussion.
