free speech
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Freedom and Institutions
The who study the question of religious freedom often wonder why it should benefit and protect not only individual believers, but also religious institutions. Application of religious freedom to institutions such as the Catholic Church―institutions which, needless to say, are not often themselves models of internal liberalism, equality, or democracy―generates a good deal of criticism. Continue reading
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Vive le Québec Libre!
Prosecutors in Québec seem to have forgotten that this is a free province in a free country. First, they came for a makeup artist whose gory videos, though involving no actual gore or violence whatsoever, were too realistic for their liking. And then, after a mere busybody concerned citizen complained, they came for a ranting blogger for, apparently, Continue reading
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Hate, Dignity, and Law
For those who are not yet sick and tired of my expostulations on the subject, I venture some concluding thoughts on the criminalization of hate speech, and on Jeremy Waldron’s argument in support of such criminalization. My previous posts on the topic are here, here, here, and here. Prof. Waldron argues that hate speech must Continue reading
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Offence and Defence
I come to the third and final part of my comment on Jeremy Waldron’s case for criminalizing hate speech, The Harm in Hate Speech, a book that extends the Holmes Lectures he delivered at Harvard a few years ago. I addressed his attempt to define hate speech as group libel here, concluding that it was not successful. I Continue reading
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Hate and Disagreement
This is the second part of my comment on Jeremy Waldron’s case for criminalizing hate speech, The Harm in Hate Speech. I addressed his attempt to define hate speech as group libel here. That attempt was not successful, I concluded, but that need not mean that we should not be criminalizing hate speech, regardless of Continue reading
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Hate Speech and Group Libel
As I promised yesterday, I want to share a few thoughts on some arguments that Jeremy Waldron makes in The Harm in Hate Speech, his book making the case for criminalizing hate speech. (Prof. Waldron’s Holmes Lectures, from which the book grew, were published in the Harvard Law review, and are available here.) I will address Continue reading
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The Rear-Guard of Hatred
I am reading parts of Jeremy Waldron’s book on The Harm in Hate Speech, in which he argues that hate speech can and should be criminalized to uphold the dignity of all the members of society. I will have more detailed thoughts on it later, probably tomorrow. But for now, just an observation that has Continue reading
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Pity the Censor
I have started reading the WWI memoir of a British journalist, Philip Gibbs, called Now It Can Be Told. At least part of the reason for the title is that during the war, what he saw could not be told because of military censorship. Gibbs’ description of the censors’ modus operandi is worth quoting at Continue reading
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The Idea of the Marketplace
Apologies for the lack of blogging for the past week. We had this minor disturbance of a hurricane, and then I went to a conference in Chicago to present my paper on federalism and judicial review. My topic today is the highlight of that conference, a keynote address by Robert Post, Dean of the Yale Continue reading
Double Aspect 