Round Up Hate-Promoters Now, Before Any More Holocaust Museum Attacks
By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
Three incidents and counting.
If yesterday's Holocaust Museum slaying of security guard and national hero Stephen Tyrone Johns is not a clarion call for banning hate speech, I don't know what is. Playwright Janet Langhart Cohen appeared on CNN yesterday right after the shooting, as she wrote a play that was supposed to have been debuted at the Holocaust Museum last night. Her play is about Emmett Till, whose lynching helped launch the Civil Rights Movement, and Ann Frank, whose diary told the story of Holocaust victims in hiding in the Netherlands during World War II.
She said something must be done about ridding the Internet and the public dialogue of hate speech. I agree. Not only have we had three hate crime murders within the last two weeks (Mr. Johns, as noted above, Dr. George Tiller a week ago last Sunday, and Pvt. William Andrew Long by an American-born Muslim convert outside a recruiting station just before that.)
Now we have this quote from the so-called Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who used to be President Obama's pastor. Hate comes from among all peoples and all religions. He said this about his lack of communication with Barack Obama since he's been elected president, according to the AP:
"Them Jews ain't going to let him talk to me. I told my baby daughter that he'll talk to me in five years when he's a lame duck, or in eight years when he's out of office," Wright told the Daily Press of Newport News following a Tuesday night sermon at the 95th annual Hampton University Ministers' Conference.
It's not enough to prosecute these murders as murders. They are hate-motivated crimes and each of these men had been under some sort of police surveillance prior to their actions. Isn't it time we started rounding up promoters of hate before they kill?
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Reader Comments
One man's "hate speech" is another man's attempt at insight
Jon Rauch said it best in a Harper's Magazine piece about ten years ago. there is no getting rid of hate speech,and there is no way to tell whether someone is motivated by "hatred" or simply is not thinking clearly.(This article "In Dense of Incendiary Speech" can be found on line.) If someone says Negroes smell different, we don't know if he's motivated by hatred or simply trying to tell the truth as he sees it. We have to protect people's attempts to speak.We have to protect their clumsy attempts to think f9or themselves. Error, published, leads to truth. We answer errors and ridicule stupidity, but we do not "round up" people ahead of time. Gawd, Ms. Erbe, you sound like you belong in a totalitarian state. That's where people who are "hateful" about the state are rounded up ahead of time. Of course they don't have journalists in such places--so that's why you re staying here, I guess.I guess when you are talking about rounding people up, you are thinking of yourself as in charge of the roundup, not the victim of it. Failure of imagination, Babe Erbe.
Do You Think Before You Write
James Taranto says it best:
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB124511771177917603.html
Natural Manure Indeed
Scratch a liberal elitist, find a Nazi.
Thomas Jefferson called to say you're not authorized to use his name in any fashion.
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