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Extreme Speech and Democracy

Author: Ivan Hare

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2010-11-18

Total Pages: 720

ISBN-13: 0191610453

A commitment to free speech is a fundamental precept of all liberal democracies. However, democracies can differ significantly when addressing the constitutionality of laws regulating certain kinds of speech. In the United States, for instance, the commitment to free speech under the First Amendment has been held by the Supreme Court to protect the public expression of the most noxious racist ideology and hence to render unconstitutional even narrow restrictions on hate speech. In contrast, governments have been accorded considerable leeway to restrict racist and other extreme expression in almost every other democracy, including Canada, the United Kingdom, and other European countries. This book considers the legal responses of various liberal democracies towards hate speech and other forms of extreme expression, and examines the following questions: What accounts for the marked differences in attitude towards the constitutionality of hate speech regulation? Does hate speech regulation violate the core free speech principle constitutive of democracy? Has the traditional US position on extreme expression justifiably not found favour elsewhere? Do values such as the commitment to equality or dignity legitimately override the right to free speech in some circumstances? With contributions from experts in a range of disciplines, this book offers an in-depth examination of the tensions that arise between democracy's promises.

Extreme Speech and Democracy

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 647

ISBN-13:

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This title considers the constitutionality of hate speech regulation, and examines how liberal democracies have adopted fundamental differences in the way they respond to racist or extreme expressions.

The Most Human Right

Author: Eric Heinze

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2023-09-19

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 0262547244

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A bold, groundbreaking argument by a world-renowned expert that unless we treat free speech as the fundamental human right, there can be no others. What are human rights? Are they laid out definitively in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the US Bill of Rights? Are they items on a checklist—dignity, justice, progress, standard of living, health care, housing? In The Most Human Right, Eric Heinze explains why global human rights systems have failed. International organizations constantly report on how governments manage human goods, such as fair trials, humane conditions of detention, healthcare, or housing. But to appease autocratic regimes, experts have ignored the primacy of free speech. Heinze argues that goods become rights only when citizens can claim them publicly and fearlessly: free speech is the fundamental right, without which the very concept of a “right” makes no sense. Heinze argues that throughout history countless systems of justice have promised human goods. What, then, makes human rights different? What must human rights have that other systems have lacked? Heinze revisits the origins of the concept, exploring what it means for a nation to protect human rights, and what a citizen needs in order to pursue them. He explains how free speech distinguishes human rights from other ideas about justice, past and present.

The Harm in Hate Speech

Author: Jeremy Waldron

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2012-06-04

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 0674065085

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Every liberal democracy has laws or codes against hate speech, except the United States. For constitutionalists, regulation of hate speech violates the First Amendment and damages a free society. Against this absolutist view, the author argues that hate speech should be regulated as part of our commitment to human dignity and to inclusion and respect for members of vulnerable minorities. Causing offense, by depicting a religious leader as a terrorist in a newspaper cartoon, for example, is not the same as launching a libelous attack on a group's dignity, according to the author, and it lies outside the reach of law. But defamation of a minority group, through hate speech, undermines a public good that can and should be protected: the basic assurance of inclusion in society for all members. A social environment polluted by anti-gay leaflets, Nazi banners, and burning crosses sends an implicit message to the targets of such hatred: your security is uncertain and you can expect to face humiliation and discrimination when you leave your home. Free-speech advocates boast of despising what racists say but defending to the death their right to say it. The author finds this emphasis on intellectual resilience misguided and points instead to the threat hate speech poses to the lives, dignity, and reputations of minority members. Finding support for his view among philosophers of the Enlightenment, he asks us to move beyond knee-jerk American exceptionalism in our debates over the serious consequences of hateful speech.

Hate Speech and Democratic Citizenship

Author: Eric Heinze

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016-02-04

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 019107683X

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Most modern democracies punish hate speech. Less freedom for some, they claim, guarantees greater freedom for others. Heinze rejects that approach, arguing that democracies have better ways of combatting violence and discrimination against vulnerable groups without having to censor speakers. Critiquing dominant free speech theories, Heinze explains that free expression must be safeguarded not just as an individual right, but as an essential attribute of democratic citizenship. The book challenges contemporary state regulation of public discourse by promoting a stronger theory of what democracy is and what it demands. Examining US, European, and international approaches, Heinze offers a new vision of free speech within Western democracies.

Freedom of Speech and Incitement against Democracy

Author: David Kretzmer

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-08-04

Total Pages: 299

ISBN-13: 9004482652

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Whilst the protection of political speech is essential to the preservation of a democratic legal order, events of political violence and assassinations highlight the need to rethink questions relating to the boundaries of free speech in a democratic society. To what extent should democratic countries committed to freedom of speech limit those forms of extreme speech that may be considered as incitements to violence? This is a question that has long divided academics and activists alike. It has become even more relevant today, with the recent rise of extreme right-wing parties in various European democracies. In this book, leading scholars of constitutional law, human rights and criminal law, from various countries with divergent philosophies on freedom of speech, address the question of whether we can, and should, regulate speech in order to protect democracy and, if so, how.

Social Media and Democracy

Author: Nathaniel Persily

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-09-03

Total Pages: 365

ISBN-13: 1108835554

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A state-of-the-art account of what we know and do not know about the effects of digital technology on democracy.

Countering online hate speech

Author: Gagliardone, Iginio

Publisher: UNESCO Publishing

Published: 2015-06-17

Total Pages: 73

ISBN-13: 9231001051

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The opportunities afforded by the Internet greatly overshadow the challenges. While not forgetting this, we can nevertheless still address some of the problems that arise. Hate speech online is one such problem. But what exactly is hate speech online, and how can we deal with it effectively? As with freedom of expression, on- or offline, UNESCO defends the position that the free flow of information should always be the norm. Counter-speech is generally preferable to suppression of speech. And any response that limits speech needs to be very carefully weighed to ensure that this remains wholly exceptional, and that legitimate robust debate is not curtailed.

Against Democracy

Author: Jason Brennan

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2017-09-26

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 1400888395

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A bracingly provocative challenge to one of our most cherished ideas and institutions Most people believe democracy is a uniquely just form of government. They believe people have the right to an equal share of political power. And they believe that political participation is good for us—it empowers us, helps us get what we want, and tends to make us smarter, more virtuous, and more caring for one another. These are some of our most cherished ideas about democracy. But Jason Brennan says they are all wrong. In this trenchant book, Brennan argues that democracy should be judged by its results—and the results are not good enough. Just as defendants have a right to a fair trial, citizens have a right to competent government. But democracy is the rule of the ignorant and the irrational, and it all too often falls short. Furthermore, no one has a fundamental right to any share of political power, and exercising political power does most of us little good. On the contrary, a wide range of social science research shows that political participation and democratic deliberation actually tend to make people worse—more irrational, biased, and mean. Given this grim picture, Brennan argues that a new system of government—epistocracy, the rule of the knowledgeable—may be better than democracy, and that it's time to experiment and find out. A challenging critique of democracy and the first sustained defense of the rule of the knowledgeable, Against Democracy is essential reading for scholars and students of politics across the disciplines. Featuring a new preface that situates the book within the current political climate and discusses other alternatives beyond epistocracy, Against Democracy is a challenging critique of democracy and the first sustained defense of the rule of the knowledgeable.