A British philosophy professor makes it in a chilling forecast of a world run by the professionally aggrieved:
What Kamm really has in his sights are restrictions on speech that are alleged to flow from the idea that we own one another respect, have duties of civility to our fellow citizens, and so forth. He’s surely wrong on this point, and for two reasons: first, in a democracy of equal citizens it is important to see to it that the conditions are in place for people to participate as equals; second, no-one has any legitimate interest in the protection of hate speech, as such.
Obviously the professor has no “legitimate interest” in liberty. As Andrew Sullivan points out, “bigotry is a right, a basic freedom, as intrinsic to freedom as freedom of religion and speech. Once you start deciding what speech is or is not acceptable, we no longer live in a free society. We live in a tyranny …”
Why protect bigots? Simple — I don’t trust anyone to decde what constitues hate speech. Particularly people like the professor quoted above.
Like this:
Like Loading...
