The phrase "I know it when I see it" was first used in legal description in1964 when United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart was describing his own threshold test for obscenity in Jacobellis v. Ohio. He famously explained why the material at issue in the case was not obscene under the Roth test, and fit the definition of protected speech that could not be censored.
I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.
The expression became not only one of the best-known phrases in the history of the Supreme Court but an example of the extreme subjectivity of things for which a proper definition could not be offered. "I know it when I see it" was his attempt to define "hard-core pornography". Some thought Stewart's "I know it when I see it" standard "realistic and gallant" an example of judicial candor. Others said it was ridiculous, fallacious and subject to individualistic arbitrariness.
The same could be said of "hate speech." The very promise of “hate speech” laws is that there exists a boundary between permitted speech and criminal speech but the actual definition of where that boundary sits is not only subject to individual decision but judges have disagreed. As much as some would like to cling to such a distinction, it has become a tool of the WOKE to remove not only speech but the very speech that was almost universally believed and accepted as normal a few generations ago. In Finland in the case of Päivi Räsänen, a doctor, grandmother, and long-serving member of the Finnish parliament, no less than eleven judges across three levels of the Finnish judiciary spent over six years trying to locate the line between speech permitted and criminal speech and they could not agree. By the narrowest majority the highest court of Finland found what they considered a boundary line.
Hate speech laws are the very definition of abusive power either by intimidation or by judgment. In any other case, the writer would have simply deleted what was deemed offensive and retreated but in the case of Räsänen and Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola, they refused to delete and fought the charge. Even with an international team of jurists to help in their defense, how do you defend yourself against a moving line which no one seems to know where it is located except by that vague old pornographic line from Justice Potter Steward -- "I know it what I see [hear] it." In a world in which those who testify before Congress insist they do not know how to define who a woman is and when the standard of truth itself has become subject to the whims of the individual, hate speech is one more example of a bad idea that cannot be rescued by fine tuning the hate speech laws or getting better judges. These are the bad kinds of laws that simply need to go.
3 comments:
If you were to ask one of today’s hardcore American Leftists to define “hate speech,” they would answer it in a broad way, “Any content in which they disagree.” It is fundamentally an issue of control. The woke crowd want others to comply with their reality, not truth, even if the issue is one of delusion, like biological men identifying as women, or advocating grammatical errors, like misusing pronouns. They want to blur the differences between biological men and women by insisting on illogical premises, and want these insane values inculcated into American children at an early age. This is why the Left despises homeschoolers, parochial schools, Christian education, charter schools, and traditional values and opinions which clash with their worldview, and challenge their insatiable desire to enforce it on society. Every single school kid in America should have the opportunity to read George Orwell’s “Animal Farm.” How I often wish thar young minds could see the manipulations which the Left has brought upon education, and learn critical thinking. How I wish every American would read God’s word, the fountain of all life saving truth, and that all would come to Jesus. To the Left, our society is a social experiment, and we are the Guinea pigs and lab rats, useful to fashion their ideas into the culture through any means necessary. For the Christian navigating through this pluralistic society today, it is essential to remain vocal and engaged. The Left will use the courts and the heavy boot of government, with the willing help of academia and media to move the country into a darker place. Proverbs 30:5 reminds believers to stand fast. “Every word of God is pure; He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him.”
Soli Deo Gloria
We can’t pretend that the issue of “hate speech” is merely a Leftist issue, when for years neo-conservative media outlets like FOX News have propped up folk like Mark Levin calling anybody who disagrees with him, even on theological issues, a “Woke Nazi”. Politicians and authoritarians of all stripes love the idea of “hate speech,” and similar vague concepts.
You are absolutely right. “Hate speech” can come from the right as well as the left. A neocon is as bad as a Marxist revolutionary, as both sides advocate violence often to the extreme. Two wrongs do not make a right. But my description of the hate speech from the Left is referring to the cultural indoctrination of society by those extremists who would readily persecute Christians and Jews, and others with whom they disagree. The fact that the Left today in America is a growing threat is seen in the recent elections of socialists and communists on the Democratic tickets in blue states. This is not merely a red flag for freedom of religion, and speech, but an effort to tear down our Constitutional Republic and replace it with a Marxist state. It is gaining some momentum. From an idea comes a cause, from a cause comes a movement, from a movement comes an organization, from an organization comes a racket, from a racket comes corruption. Polls show unfortunately, some in our society are starting to see Marxism and the end of private ownership as a good thing, and that is the concern of the argument.
Post a Comment