Seraph wrote:
What a fucking mess. Wilders is charged with slandering a group and inciting hatred, and discrimination on the basis of race or religion. Articles 137(c) and (d) of the Dutch Criminal Code are quite explicit regarding the bolded bit, and I think it is totally unnecessary. Inciting hatred should be an offence regardless of what it is grounded on.
I cannot disagree more. "Inciting hatred" is far to vague a standard to base any kind of law on, and it is far too dependent on the reaction of the listener to speech rather than the actual speech.
For example, Muslims were "incited" by the cartoons drawn by Danish and Swedish cartoonists, and have even attempted murder, rioted, committed arson, committed mayhem, assaulted, battered, and threatened people as a direct result of the cartoons. The Muslims claimed that the mocking nature of the cartoons "incited hatred" against Muslims and Arabs. If "inciting hatred" is wrong, then the publishers of those cartoons are at risk.
So, clearly, it cannot be that "inciting hatred should be an offence regardless of what it is grounded upon," at least not unless you want everything you say that might just set off someone somewhere being criminalized.
Seraph wrote:
It is also positively pernicious because you now cannot rip into any religion without risking to be charged with "inciting hatred" of its adherents.
This statement directly contradicts your statement that "inciting hatred should be an offense regardless of what it is grounded upon." On what basis do you claim the right to "rip" a religion, but not not the right to "rip" something else?
This is really not at all complicated. The fair rule is that governmental action restricting speech and expression should be "content neutral." If someone thinks that smoking marijuana or doing heroin is good, even though those things may or may not be illegal, then that speech should be protected. If someone thinks that Stalinism is the way to go, and they want to speech in the public square, publish a video or a book, or whatever, stating that Stalin was a good leader and had the best philosophy, so be it. If someone hates George Bush or Barack Obama and thinks everyone should hate them too, then so be it. If someone hates Islam, or Muslims, or Jews or Zionists or whatever, so be it. If someone wants to say that Anglo-Saxons are the worst, or whatever, then so be it.
All of those things can "incite hatred" - so can saying "Irish people are drunks." Some Irish folk might punch you in the nose if you said something like that (probably in a bar fight
), and they might claim that such stereotypes encourage and incite hatred of the Irish. Many people might claim "oh, but come on, nobody hates the Irish, really..." but then think differently about a statement like, "black people are lazy and shiftless..." or something like that.
However, the right speak cannot be based, IMHO, on the vicissitudes of the audience. If it is, then something any of us may say that we think is just innocuous fun or reasonable speech is potentially illegal, depending on audience reaction. That kind of atmosphere greatly chills speech unnecessarily. Whether someone holds a different, unflattering, or nasty opinion is their right as a human - freedom of belief. And, there is no reason why an individual cannot express his or her belief to the same extent allowed other individuals - freedom of speech/expression.
