Congressional Candidate In Virginia Admits He’s A Pedophile

[screw_reality]

Nathan Larson also ran online forums for pedophiles and misogynists.

By Jesselyn Cook and Andy Campbell

Comments

[soleiltropiques]

Here is an excerpt from an interesting argument from legal philosopher Jeremy Waldron:

(From: 'The Harm in Hate Speech', by Jeremy Waldron: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/24/books/review/the-harm-in-hate-speech-by-jeremy-waldron.html)

"The United States is almost alone among Western liberal democracies in not punishing what is called hate speech - oral or written messages that “incite hatred” against a person or group on the basis of their race, religion, sex, ethnicity or sexual orientation. Canada, Britain, Denmark, Germany and New Zealand have such laws, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights purports to require signatory nations to pass them. (...) In his engaging new book, “The Harm in Hate Speech,” the legal philosopher Jeremy Waldron urges Americans to reconsider that tradition. (...)

Waldron begins with the premise that in a “well-ordered society” not only must all people be protected by the law; they are entitled to live in confidence of this protection. “Each person . . . should be able to go about his or her business, with the assurance that there will be no need to face hostility, violence, discrimination or exclusion by others.” Hate speech undermines this essential public good. “When a society is defaced with anti-Semitic signage, burning crosses and defamatory racial leaflets,” Waldron says, this assurance of security “evaporates. A vigilant police force and a Justice Department may still keep people from being attacked or excluded,” but the objects of hate speech are deprived of the assurance that the society regards them as people of equal dignity.

Even when the hate speech comes from isolated fringe elements, themselves despised by a majority of the public, Waldron tells us, we should not regard the harm as insignificant. “Precisely because the public good that is under attack is provided in a general, diffuse and implicit way,” he explains, “the flare-up of a few particular incidents can have a disproportionate ­effect.”

That, then, is the harm in hate speech. Waldron expects his readers to regard these harms as an argument for passing laws on the European model."

(The link above actually argues against Waldron's thesis, btw.)

I'm not saying that hate speech laws are a perfect guarantee: it is also true that they can be misused. (I personally feel very strongly that the use of these laws in France to attack the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement(https://bdsmovement.net/) is a gross misuse of these laws which may even have the side effect of aggravating anti-semitism in France).(1)

Anyways, food for thought.

References:
1. http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/12/frances-problem-with-bds.html