I’ve said it before: hate speech laws, whenever they exist, will always be exploited to suppress speech that’s politically charged. Italy’s proving my point this week, as it contemplates Web restrictions after the attack on Berlusconi.
Riding the PATH this morning on my early morning commute back to Princeton, I saw this sign from a new Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey campaign to maintain our current drinking age. While I am as drug-free as they come and no fan of alcohol, the sign struck me as classic, meaningless political rhetoric.
What I found remarkable about this sign was that all of the reasons put forth for maintaining our current age limit on drinking are plainly reasons for the total prohibition of alcohol — not reasons for the selective prohibition of alcohol based on age discrimination. To make their case, the PDNJ would need to demonstrate that the reduction in car accidents attributable to prohibiting the sale of alcohol to those under twenty-one is not in any way comparable to the reduction we would see after prohibiting the sale of alcohol to all Americans irrespective of age.
That said, clearly prohibition was more trouble than it was worth, so I think we need to ask: is prohibiting minors from drinking more trouble than its worth? Perhaps lowering the drinking limit is a good idea.
After all, there were certainly girls drinking at last night’s Dredg show that could not have been even eighteen, let alone twenty-one. Here, as in so many other places, needlessly restrictive laws lead to a society with no respect for laws.
Dear Supreme Court,
Please do not end the Exclusionary Rule. We do not need to encourage the police to disregard the constitutional requirement for warrants.
Thank you.
Bilski, et al., v. Doll is now on the Supreme Court’s docket. Now that is something to be excited about.
My friend Harek and I were recently discussing the obvious and not-so-obvious reasons why both Amazon’s Kindle and Amazon’s considerable repertoire of e-books are not available for sale outside of the U. S.. I noted that there are many legal hoops one must go through before selling a product in the countries of the European Union, and that these hoops were likely sufficient to explain Amazon’s choice of first entry markets.
While reading “Blown to Bits,” this suspicion of mine was reinforced by the following passage:
National and state borders still count, and count a lot. If a book is bought online in England, the publisher and author are subject to British libel laws rather than those of the homeland of the author or publisher. Under British law, defendants have to prove their innocence; in the U.S., plaintiffs have to prove the guilt of the defendants.1
This tidbit relating to the differences between American and British libel law is exemplary of a general pattern: American products are often not available in Europe because American businesses fear the unfamiliar and sometimes incomprehensible laws of European governments. If Europeans want freer access to American goods, they will need to make sure that they will not punish Americans for selling goods that they can sell without fear in the States. In the opposite direction, but following precisely the same pattern, American children will have access to Kinder Eggs and other wonderful European products just as soon as America repeals some of its excessive child safety laws.
This snippet of court proceedings is amazing:
“Why shouldn’t I put you in jail for contempt today?” Booth asked. “I told you twice.”
“I’m sorry,” Arnold said.
“No, you’re not,” Booth said. “I told you twice. I even fined you for being in contempt. Why shouldn’t I throw you in jail today? You apparently don’t care about the court’s orders.
“I forgot,” Arnold said.
“How could you forget?” Booth said. “No, seriously, how could you forget? It’s a complete disregard of court order. Complete. You should go to jail today, and you’re going.”1
I particularly like the fact that the judge used the words, “no, seriously.” For those who don’t want to read the original article, the judge was so incensed because the defendant repeatedly wore short shorts during her trial.
Over at Gene Expression, Razib has posted an article entitled, “Insulting religions and races; should it be allowed?“, that has done a little to restore my faith in the willingness of Americans to respect freedom of speech.
I have previously written about the worrisome willingness of Canadians and many Europeans to suppress speech that is intended to shame or mock certain religions or races. It should be doubly worrisome because this same willingness to suppress “hate speech” has recently become a part of the doctrine of universal human rights according to the U.N. Human Rights Council, thanks to a vote pushed through by such luminaries of civil liberties as China, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia.
I, for one, feel that we Americans must continue to defend the doctrines crafted for us by Learned Hand and other jurists. We should never allow ourselves to forget that it is not the task of government to determine what speech is hateful, because such a requirement leads all too quickly to a government defining speech as hateful as justification for its suppression.