Opinions Columnist
“There is nothing more terrifying than the absoluteness of one who believes he’s right,” wrote Libba Bray. But not just men, woman too can assume this terrifying absoluteness.
I miss parody. When I first read self-proclaimed human rights activist and writer Tanya Cohen’s 7,000 word article on hate-speech, I thought it was satire. But alas, I think she’s serious.
Could Cohen simply be a satirist writing under a pseudonym? After all, as far as I can tell, Cohen did not exist before Jan. 1; the date of her first publication with the Daily Kos, and also the date when she first appeared on Twitter as @xTanyaCohenx. But pseudonyms, I would think, are used to express blunt honesty far more than satire. “A pseudonym gives them the liberty to write things they might not otherwise feel able to,” wrote the Economist. Maybe that’s why it’s called a “nom de guerre” and not a “nom de paix.”
Tanya Cohen may very well be a lost cause. But those tens of thousands -- nearly thirty thousand have read her first article and nearly twenty thousand have read her second article -- who have read Cohen are not. “[M]en of intemperate minds cannot be free,” wrote 18th century Irish statesman Edmund Burke in Letter to a Member of the National Assembly; “their passions forge their fetters.” Consider this an appeal to the temperate-minded.
I oppose hate-crime laws for the same reason Cohen supports them: first, they put the burden of proof on the accused rather than the accuser, and second, they criminalize thoughts rather than actions.
“In some countries people are automatically declared guilty of hate speech and other hate crimes unless they can absolutely prove their innocence beyond any reasonable doubt,” Cohen wrote. “The principle of guilty until proven innocent may seem a bit harsh to some, but it makes sense when you consider how severe the crime of hate speech is. . . ”
Ergo my first opposition.
“The U.S. has laws against racial discrimination, but these laws only target discrimination in service and employment. In all other countries,” she praises, “anti-discrimination laws ban the IDEA of racial discrimination, which means that ALL forms of racial discrimination -- including hate speech -- are outlawed.”
Ergo my second opposition.
In order to combat the threat of totalitarianism and “[f]ascist political parties like the Republican Party, the Constitution Party, and the Libertarian Party [which] freely exist and spread their hateful ideology. . .” Cohen berates, the United States must create “a government press regulating body to ensure that the media and the press are used responsibly.” Cohen’s campaign to suppress counter-democrats would include “[s]tate surveillance of intolerant citizens. . . [who would] be arrested. . . [and] sent to special re-education facilities designed to instill values of tolerance.”
“If you want a picture of the future,” said O'Brien as he tortured the thought-criminal Winston Smith in George Orwell’s novel 1984, “imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- forever.” If you want a picture of a democratic society, imagine a boot stamping on an anti-democrat’s face -- forever.
Through her argument, Cohen holds up the ever-amorphous “international community” and one particular sine qua non-international organization, which need not be named as the arbiters of humans rights. Pardon my dubiousness, but any organization that lets countries like Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, China and Zimbabwe serve as arbiters of human rights has major credibility issues from the get-go.
Journalist Christopher Hitchens, in a similar situation, said “The real question [i]s this: who’s going to decide? . . . Who will you appoint? . . . Who do you think -- who do you know -- who have you heard of, who have you read about in history to whom you’d give that job?”
I neither know nor claim to know; Cohen doesn't know but claims to know. If you claim to know “to whom you’d give that job,” might I suggest you have an u
