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The Freedom to Hate

by Lawrence M. Krauss
21 April 2024 7:00 AM

In 2006, at the University of Toronto, my late friend and the brilliant writer and orator Christopher Hitchens gave a speech whose eloquence I could never pretend to emulate, defending the argument that the freedom of speech includes the freedom to hate. At the time, he was castigating the Canadian Government for its legislation regarding hate speech.  

Alas, once again the Government has introduced legislation to curb free speech in the name of safety, but this time in even more insidious ways. Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act, purports to keep Canadians safe online, but does so by regulating speech that “foments hatred” via civil penalties within a human rights framework that invites abuse.

Under the proposed legislation the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal could fine defendants accused of online hate speech violation up to $50,000, and they could be made to pay up to $20,000 to complainants. Journalist Christine Van Geyn cogently described in the National Post last month the many worrisome features of this aspect of Bill C-63, which resurrects previously repealed attempts to allow hate speech to be penalised via civil rights penalties.  

Effectively, complainants bear no financial risks while having large financial incentives to make complaints, while those accused will be responsible for paying thousands of dollars to defend themselves even against frivolous complaints. And complaints can be against anything you have ever written, going back as far as records might exist. As Van Geyn put it: “The process becomes the punishment even if the case does not proceed past an investigation.”

The Canadian criminal code already prohibits supposed hate speech, which is narrowly defined as advocating violence against individuals or groups.   A law which allows a tribunal of Government bureaucrats, empowered with the same powers as a federal court — without any of the protections of rules of evidence provided in actual legal proceedings — to decide whether online speech foments hatred, and then to financially penalise individuals accused to have done so, is more than a direct assault on free speech. It is downright Kafka-esque!

But it gets even worse. Toby Young, writing in the Spectator, pointed out an even more dangerous feature of this new legislation.

If the courts believe you are likely to commit a ‘hate crime’ or disseminate ‘hate propaganda’ (not defined), you can be placed under house arrest and your ability to communicate with others restricted. That is, a court can force you to wear an ankle bracelet, prevent you using any of your communication devices and then instruct you not to leave the house…. Anyone who refuses to comply with these diktats can be sent to prison.

If prospect of this kind of thought-police legislation on its own doesn’t give Canadian legislators pause, they might want to learn from the example of Scotland, whose hate speech laws have recently been widely mocked, including quite publicly by Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, who has invited authorities there to arrest her for claiming a man cannot become a woman, a biological claim deemed by some to be hate speech.   

Beyond the worrisome legal issues at place here, there are deeply misplaced philosophical underpinnings of the newly proposed legislation that I want to focus on here, returning to the brilliant arguments of Hitchens in 2006. 

In the first place, aside from your own concern about who may decide whether your own speech is hateful, whom do you trust to tell you what you should not be able to read online? Are you willing to give up the right to learn what others might think before knowing what they actually say? And if they say something unpopular, or something you think was wrong, do you want to give up the right to learn why they say it?   

Next, if the speech is so unpopular that some deem it to be hateful, that speech is the speech most worth protecting. I paraphrase a joke Hitchens used to say: if the Pope says he believes in God, one says to oneself, “well he is doing his job”. But if he says he has doubts, then you might say “he may be onto something there”. Speech that is the most difficult to express against the background of political correctness is the bravest, whether or not it may be true. As a host of philosophers have pointed out, by denying the haters their right to express their views, you deny yourself the right to hear them. Hearing them might force you to re-examine your views, which you might decide were wrong. Or alternatively it may force you to come to grips with why you believe what you do. In the end, you come away richer for it. 

Although I am an atheist, I come from a Jewish background. As a result I have had my share of antisemitic insults thrown at me online over the past year. When I read something hateful, I first recognise that the person has his own issues to deal with. I can choose to ignore him, which I usually do. Or, depending on the way he says it, I may wonder, if he hates Jews, what is the reason? And I may even respond. Is there something I said, or anyone else said or did, or any government actions that caused this hatred? Is there anything we can do to assuage this kind of hate in others in the future? It may be stupid or ignorant, but shouldn’t be illegal to express reasons why one might hate Jews, or even encourage others to agree with you. What is illegal and should be illegal is to claim that Jews should be killed or harmed, and to encourage others to kill them. There is a profound difference. The first speech can be countered by reason. The second promotes violence against individuals.   

Finally, if fomenting hatred is to be forbidden online, what are we to make of religious teachings? There are few books as full of hate, or which have promoted hate more than the sacred books of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Islamic fundamentalists, for example, may claim Islamophobia when the violent teachings of their holy books, and the violent practices carried out in some corners of the world based on them, are called out. But are the hate laws to be applied only to those who then condemn such teachings? And if not, will Online Harms legislation forbid web pages that present the scriptures of these religions, which have in many cases fomented hatred not just for decades but for hundreds if not thousands of years? Will people like me be able to claim $20,000 from every church, synagogue or mosque in the country every weekend when offending verses in the Old or New Testaments or the Koran are recited?

It is a slippery road, and there is no way to avoid it except to defend free speech absolutely against tyrannical legislation like C-63. And more generally, as a matter of fundamental principle, that means defending the freedom to hate.

Lawrence M. Krauss is a theoretical physicist, the President of the Origins Project Foundation, and the author, most recently of The Edge of Knowledge: Unsolved Mysteries of the Cosmos.

Tags: AntisemitismCanadaChristopher HitchensFree SpeechHate CrimeHate speechOnline Harms Bill

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24 Comments
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huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago

https://youtu.be/02cxttcA02w?si=kPMV_qtnscPmbMFZ

Donald Tusk in Poland arresting and locking up political opponents.

No surprise really.

52
-1
varmint
varmint
1 year ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

I believe the EU fine Poland for daring to use coal. But I thought all countries in the EU were “Independent”?. ——At least so said the wicked witch Sturgeon

34
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago

https://www.youtube.com/live/abhmHqj7WCk?si=rJCR9lh1q_-27BfS

Sir Kneel doesn’t know the sex of his children.

26
0
Lockdown Sceptic
Lockdown Sceptic
1 year ago

Midazolam Health Secretary The Covid Con

latest leaflet to print at home and deliver to neighbours or forward to politicians, media, friends online. 

05a-Midazolam-Health-Secretary-The-Covid-Con-MONOCHROME-copy
29
-1
varmint
varmint
1 year ago

Bringing blankets to cold eco activists worried about warming is about as absurd and pathetic as it comes. All institutions today are infected with the Snowflake virus. They would want to bring Ian Huntley some extra bottles of bleach to make sure his house was clean and free of evidence. They would ask Harold Shipman for advice on their mother in law. They would make sure Hitler had enough corn beef and beans in his bunker.

41
-1
WyrdWoman
WyrdWoman
1 year ago
Reply to  varmint

Amusing to note that they were all wearing hi-tec fossil fuel based clothing and happy to accept fossil fuel based blankets too…

43
0
Nigel J Sherratt
Nigel J Sherratt
1 year ago
Reply to  varmint

He was a vegetarian because he objected to animal slaughterhouses so beans only. I suppose Blondi, Negus and Stasi would have enjoyed the corned beef.

7
0
Monro
Monro
1 year ago

“France gives up on meritocracy”

Brilliant comment underneath this article:

‘Writing from France, I need to say this:

Firstly, Macron was never supposed to be elected president in 2017. He was having a go to build up his CV but, suddenly, a scandal engulfed the front leader, Francois Fillon, and forced him out. A vaccum opened up, and Macron walked in. Pure luck and coincidence.

He had huge momentum behind him and set up a new party, “En Marche” and just about every chimp with that label got elected – Attal being one of them.

Macron’s first choice of premiere was Edouard Philippe. A fairly competent and steady person who soon started attracting rumours of presidential standing. Macron reacted by sacking him and replacing him with the most awful gormless oaf imaginable, Jean Castex, who was premiere during covid. He is now in charge of the Paris metro, and he still wears a mask (whenever on TV, that is).

At the last elections, Macron lost his majority in parliament and appointed Elizabeth Borne, who has one quality in common with Castex: totally gormless.
Now he replaced her with this kid.

I remember Attal vividly from the covid nightmare. He was the media spokesman nervously lying through his teeth. He was so nervous and so dishonest you could see him visibly shaking. He has no guts, no brains and no spine.

What he does have in common with previous holders of the office (after Macron learned his lesson with Edouard Philippe), is that Attal is absolutely no threat to the boss.
Macron chooses people not because of their abilities, but because of the exact opposite: no one in government can outshine him. Given that it does not take much to do so, he is scraping the barrel ever harder.

Meritocracy vanished in France ages ago. Not just now.

Unfortunately, the mass/legacy media is totally pro-Macron, who pays McKinsey consultants to tell him what he should do. It is a muppet show here. (Sorry Kermit, Ms Piggy.)’

Let us never forget Micron’s complicity in bullying the spineless Bunter into lockdown.

‘We had prepared the closure of our border and told Prime Minister Johnson we would implement it that day if there was no evolution [of British measures],” a senior French official familiar with the conversation told POLITICO.

French paper Libération reported Saturday evening that Macron had “threatened” Johnson. The French official said that was “too strong a word” to describe the call.’

https://www.politico.eu/article/france-was-ready-to-shut-border-had-uk-not-toughened-coronavirus-measures/

Micron always reminds me of ‘Inspector Clouseau’. Where is Chief Inspector Dreyfus when you need him……..

33
0
The old bat
The old bat
1 year ago

The ‘news round up’ above is dominated by the Horizon scandal. How I wish that the outcry, attention from politicians and column inches dedicated to it over the last few days were also being directed to the (ongoing) wrongs of the covid era. One can only dream how quickly the population would wake up if all the press were trumpeting the government wrongs and lies about being stabbed and the tremendous harms (and excessive deaths) that have been caused.

93
0
James.M
James.M
1 year ago
Reply to  The old bat

Yes, yes, yes!

35
0
Dinger64
Dinger64
1 year ago

‘‘Trial by media’ saved the sub-postmasters. Ministers should know better than to attack the press”

Attack the press? The press are in their fecking pockets! Msm are the government mouthpieces, this is just a one off

59
0
JohnK
JohnK
1 year ago

Smokescreens part 8 was a good article. Made me think that it might be wise to add the affair of the last 4 years to the same bucket list as the Horizon scandal.

13
0
soundofreason
soundofreason
1 year ago

In

“Covid hasn’t gone away so where’s the plan?” – Mainland Europe is taking the threat of the Juno variant seriously, but Rishi Sunak is sticking his fingers in his ears, writes Alice Thomson in a typically hysterical piece in the Times.

we find

But the government response is bizarre. It’s their job to take this virus seriously.

And right there is the problem. It’s not their job. It’s our job or the NHS/GP businesses job to take it as seriously as we/they deem appropriate. Telling us how to (they think) avoid infection is a medic’s job, not government. Deciding how to sub-allocate the enormous piles of taxpayers money which has been given to the NHS – that’s their job.

I know a number of retired medics from drinking with them in our student days. I can assure you they were no more intelligent than other people and just as unconcerned about drinking to excess.

36
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago
Reply to  soundofreason

I work with a just retired GP one or two days a week. He’s a nice enough chap but in all other respects thoroughly mediocre. Very much BBC informed. Medically too much a fan of pharma solutions. He never ventures to discuss the Scamdemic, well at least not in my presence but I get the impression he is / was fully on board.

Not nice but dim but certainly nice but mediocre.

7
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/gas-lamps-westminster-led-replicas-jacob-rees-mogg-tory-tories-b1131514.html

Cultural vandalism is the comment. Exactly. This is the Khant’s true, undeclared Manifesto. London must be destroyed.

12
0

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