Hate-Speech? Check Yes/No

Ohmygosh.

You have no idea how many saved drafts there are awaiting to be written. Eventually.

I should be writing a personal statement right now. However, that is hard and this is easy-- hello here I am.

Alright so I'm a big fan of Salon.com, which I had accidentally been ignoring until my WSJ.com subscription ended. I love WSJ and all, but thank goodness because I don't know when else I would have turned to Salon. Their mix of straightforward info with entertainingly offbeat pieces such as "Man Tests Cosmo's Scary Sex Tips" (read here) are great for someone SO well rounded as IIII am

...

hahahaha

I was going to make a comment about how I must be joking because there's only room in this relationship for one ego (my fake relationship with Kanye West)-- and then had an idea for a new blog. One where I just put up exiguous daily posts about my life with Kanye.

What a dream. Literally.

Back to Salon-

Yesterday Glenn Greenwald posted an Opinion piece about "The creepy tyranny of Canada's hate speech laws" which featured a letter sent to Miss Ann Coulter from the Vice Provost of a Canadian university upon her upcoming arrival. Here it is:

Dear Ms. Coulter,

I understand that you have been invited by University of Ottawa Campus Conservatives to speak at the University of Ottawa this coming Tuesday. . . .

I would, however, like to inform you, or perhaps remind you, that our domestic laws, both provincial and federal, delineate freedom of expression (or "free speech") in a manner that is somewhat different than the approach taken in the United States. I therefore encourage you to educate yourself, if need be, as to what is acceptable in Canada and to do so before your planned visit here.

You will realize that Canadian law puts reasonable limits on the freedom of expression. For example, promoting hatred against any identifiable group would not only be considered inappropriate, but could in fact lead to criminal charges. Outside of the criminal realm, Canadian defamation laws also limit freedom of expression and may differ somewhat from those to which you are accustomed. I therefore ask you, while you are a guest on our campus, to weigh your words with respect and civility in mind. . . .

Hopefully, you will understand and agree that what may, at first glance, seem like unnecessary restrictions to freedom of expression do, in fact, lead not only to a more civilized discussion, but to a more meaningful, reasoned and intelligent one as well.

I hope you will enjoy your stay in our beautiful country, city and campus.

Sincerely,

Francois Houle,

Vice-President Academic and Provost, University of Ottawa

So Glenn Greenwald went all wild saying that, "The hubris required to believe that you can declare certain views so objectively hateful that they should be criminalized is astronomical" and I'm pretty sure many of us would agree.

At the same time though, this was not even close to what ran through my mind after reading the letter. Maybe I'm oversimplifying it, but I didn't see anywhere that Houle was attacking "certain views" of Coulter's but rather he was warning against the general "[promotion of] hatred against any identifiable group."

Again, maybe I'm oversimplifying this, but why is denouncing hatred against any identifiable group a bad thing?

Greenwald, in an effort to make his case against "the creepy tryanny of Canada's hate speech laws" had to continually refer to "certain views" targeted by the laws, but what I'm seeing is that Canada has an issue with all hateful expression in general. So maybe that was Greenwald's real issue, that speech in general should never be censored, and somewhere along the line (correct me if I'm wrong), I also got the idea that according to him, America is awesome because we are all allowed to say whatever we want.

I agree, that's great, and I love America. At the same time, I don't understand why truly "hateful" speech should be condoned in any realm. I'm an RA, and it's our responsibility to create a safe and comfortable living environment for every single resident, kind of like we expect our government to do for us--and yes, on the scale of university housing that includes, at the very least, having some sort of rational discussion with the guy yelling "That's so gay!!" across the hall as to why that's probably not the best use of judgment. We aren't, however, denouncing every homophobic viewpoint and asking every homophobe in the world to come out of that closet and indulge in an enlightening homosexual experience. We're just saying, hey, you believe what you believe, someone else may or may not agree with you, but you might want to think before you go riling them up the wrong way, and there's always a better way to get your point across. And I don't feel that Houle was asking Coulter to change or mask her views, but rather express them in "a more civilized discussion, -- to a more meaningful, reasoned and intelligent one as well." Sure, in America you technically don't run the risk of criminal charges for yelling out that you hate (insert racist/sexist/bigotist termed group name here), but I wouldn't say that we exactly make it an open forum for "promoting hatred against any identifiable group" here either, if that's what Greenwald was looking for.

And Greenwald should really calm down and take a closer look at America. Yes, there is a singular freedom of speech here unique from probably anywhere else in the world. And yes, I would see this as a strength more than a weakness twenty million times over. However, I'm not just going to forget about the Vegas lady who was banished from the U.S. for cracking anti-Bush jokes about 8 years ago, or the 11 students who have gained (in my opinion, an unwarranted) notoriety for being arrested on account of interrupting Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren's speech just last month at UC Irvine-- and are now being denied protection by the 1st amendment. And their remarks weren't even "hateful."

In my opinion, I doubt there will be a time and place where anyone will have the right to "hateful" free speech away from their own homes. But at least Canada doesn't discriminate which free hate speech it allows and which one it doesn't. Living in America, I can definitely think of which groups are probably more acceptable to express hate for than others, which comments would warrant more public backlash than others. This is sad, but this is true.

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Ultimately, I don't necessarily support the whole Canadian anti-hate speech thing, but a part of me didn't see what was so wrong with Houle's letter to Coulter. (C'mon, it's Coulter, LoL...) Don't get buck-wild up there and start passing out KKK hats to our students-- seemed like a semi-reasonable request to me. Semi, because at heart I am still American and am still obsessed with my right to free speech, despite how untasteful it may be at times. (Hopefully never.) But like I mentioned earlier, why is denouncing public bombasts of hate such a thing to scoff at anyway? What breeds hateful remarks to begin with? Ignorance? Displaced hurt? Fear of the unknown? Hate, I'm sure any educated person would agree, is the stuff of slander, it comes from a dark and often irrational place. It all seems pretty unfounded if you ask me, and quite frankly I'm never really in the mood to hear that crap. Might as well tone it down a notch or twenty.

The only good that ever really came from me hearing someone else's outright negative stance towards another group was that I was able to make a mental note to stay away from them, only after wildly exhausting myself mentally and emotionally having debated them.

Blah blah blah. At the end of the day, I am in tune and agreement with what I've learned as an RA. I'll believe what I want and you believe what you want but if we're going to live together, we better talk about it, rationally, which means, you better not be calling me a "Bitch" and I won't be calling you a (insert rude racist term here) if we're going to take each other seriously.

I'm tired.

FUN STUFF TIME!

Things that came up today:

• cute boy on lookbook.nu (after the jump)
• Robin Thicke's birthday cake looked BOMB (also after the jump)
• Goldfrapp - "Rocket"
• Joe Jonas and Jake Gyllenhaal (and Lil Jon and RZA) in a Vampire Weekend music video
• Freelance Whales - "Broken Horses" (I'm really, really into this)
• Japandroids - "Art Czars" (take it or leave it but it came up)
• Amerie - "More Than Love ft. Fabolous"
• my 50th realization that I love Amerie
• Mumford and Sons - "Little Lion Man" (equally into this)
• DIY Bleached Skinny Jeans on ThreadBanger Projects
• Robin Thicke has good taste in women
• Some drama regarding Mitt Romney
• Drexel Medical College
• ...and party ...and bullshit ...in the USA (this will always come up. Miley Cyrus came up-- on the cover of Teen Vogue-- but she's more fun with Biggie) (after the jump)
• speaking of which, "Jump in the Air (Stay There) ft. Lil Wayne" came up as well but I don't like it so I'm not linking it.
• hooded dudes on stylesightings.com (after the JUMP!)