Racism is not illegal. Never has been, at least in this country. Only when someone
acts on their beliefs in a way that would otherwise break the law anyway (say, assault, murder, libel, discriminatory hiring practices, etc) is racism confronted by the force of law.
The KKK still exists, and they're allowed to say whatever they want and believe whatever they want so long as they don't actually incite violence. When they do so, those responsible are prosecuted. Thanksfully we no longer live in the days when the entire legal establishment in a locality is dominated by the Klan and its sympathizers, and so they are no longer above the law.
But just as hate speech is not illegal in the US, neither is nonviolent confrontation of bigots and hatemongers. The court of public opinion is not the same as a court of law; identifying someone as a racist carries no
legal ramifications, but can carry significant
social consequences.
"Tolerance" and "intolerance" are words that get very easily tied up in semantics; is intolerance of those who are intolerant itself intolerance? Does respecting different points of view mean we need to tolerate those who perpetrate such atrocities as female genital mutilation?
In many cases, people are labeled as bigots for identifying bigots.
The fact is, freedom of speech flows in all directions. Untrue statements are even legal, so long as actual slander and libel are avoided - and those are ridiculously difficult to prove in the US from the start. Most importantly, freedom of speech is
only guaranteed by the
government. You will never face
criminal penalties for dropping the n-bomb, but there is absolutely no guarantee that your ability to speak without fearing imprisonment protects you from being
socially ostracised, losing your job, and generally being ridiculed as a worthless bigot who's wasting oxygen.
Public opinion is a fickle thing. Not all that many years ago, dropping the n-word or speaking hatefully about homosexuality wouldn't have had any consequences - and in fact could have been met with social
acceptance and approval. Some of the same things that will get you fired today would have been met with a laugh and a pat on the back 80, 50, even 40 years ago.
In the US, we typically hold the freedom of speech to be sacrosanct. That reverence carries consequences, which many people seem to forget from time to time. Whenever a person says "he shouldn't be allowed to say that," that person should think twice about how we should decide how ideas are propagated, and which ones are allowed to be communicated. We
should and
can, however, make social judgements. When Fred Phelps visits a funeral to spew hate speech, you cannot call the police on him any more than he can have me arrested for calling him a lunatic racist hatemongering douchebag who would do the world a service if he were to renounce everything he's ever said and then immolate himself as penance.
Being tolerant means we have to
legally allow even that which we consider barbaric and repugnant. That which is met with public derision is
exactly that which needs protection the
most.
But that necessity does
not mean that we must remain silent. Tolerance does not mean acceptance or agreement;
it does not even mean respect. It means that no matter how much we may find something to be despicable, we can speak against it as much as we want but we cannot legislate against an idea, or a word.
It's important to remember that many of the ideas we take for granted today would have been met with public ridicule and outrage yesterday. Abortion, homosexuality, atheism, and a slew of other ideas and words would be (and in some cases still are) met with the exact same sort of revulsion that today the majority feels towards racism.
You cannot legislate the dictates of a man's conscience; you can only legislate his actions. But you
can ridicule, deride, and insult ideas in peruit of your
own conscience.
When bigots complain about "reverse-discrimiantion," or whine when they get fired for making comments about "nappy-headed ho's," they're really just upset that public opinion doesn't agree with their views. Claims of "intolerance" in such cases are outright false - nobody was arrested for making racial comments on the radio. Imus' opinions and words were
tolerated. But since his employer (and perhaps more importantly their advertisers and audience at large) did
not share those opinions, they were well within their rights to follow the dictates of their own conscience and terminate his employment. After all, you don't have the
right to hold a specific job. In a different era, Imus' comment wouldn't even have been a blip on the radar. He had ever right to say what he said, but the rest of us had the right to decide whether we liket it or not, and his employer had the right to decide whether they wanted to give him a microphone. Unfortunately for him, racism today is met with scorn and anger.
Fortunately for him, even revolting speech is protected, and he wasn't sent to jail.
In the case of Barack Obama and the idiotic "stealth Muslim" conspiracy, you
cannot legislate against an idea. If a group of people honestly believes that a Muslim cannot be President, you cannot force them through legal means to vote for one, or a person they perceive to be Muslim. You cannot legally force them to be silent, and neither should you, any more than they should be able to silence your ability to identify them as racist douchebags who have no idea what they're talking about at best, and are outright lying at worst. Identifying them as bigots does not, by itself, make you a bigot.
In a battle of words and opinions, everyone loses when handcuffs end the dispute. Nobody convinces anyone to change their views through violence or imprisonment. Oulawing racist ideas only serves the purpose of convincing racists that there
is some (insert racial slur here) conspiracy against them. Every single time where human beings have tried to use governmental authority to force the dictates of conscience, disaster and oppression have resulted. Only by allowing free expression even for the most hateful of ideas can we ensure that we do not combat one evil with an even greater one.
When someone (say, Buzsaw) says that Barack Obama is an evil Muslimwho wasn't born in the US and is technically not President and he's a stealth agent for terrorists and he's going to take over the country and take away Bibles and force Korans into schools and take away guns and destroy [strike]Sparta[/strike] [strike]freedom![/strike] America, he has every right to do so, and
should be allowed to speak his mind. Period. Until he actually suggests taking an action that would break the law and enters into conspiracy to commit a criminal act, his speech and opinions are protected.
The rest of us then have the right to express
ourselves and proceed to mock, ridicule, insult, and deride that person to our hearts' content.
To paraphrase Evelyn Beatrice Hall:
quote:
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. And then brutally mock you for it."
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