Oct. 6, 2010 10:05 AM UTC by John Stossel
Should it be illegal to publicly compare the Koran to Hitler's Mein Kampf? To say that it "incites hatred and killing"?
America’s First amendment protects such comments, but most countries have no such free speech guarantees.
Dutch politician Geert Wilders made the claims above, and today he goes on trial for it. If he's convicted of “inciting hatred and discrimination”, he faces up to two years in jail.
In Spain this summer, a court fined a Catholic group $130,000 for running ads critical of gay pride day (over an image of a gay pride parade, they printed the words "One day of gay pride, 364 days of pride for normal, everyday people.")
That may offend you. And Wilders is not such a sympathetic character. He doesn't even support free speech -- he supports banning the Koran, and Muslim headscarves.
But offensive opinions like his should still be allowed to be heard, because we can't trust government to decide what is "offensive".
The Canadian government recently prosecuted a Canadian magazine publisher because he published the Danish Mohammad cartoons that sparked riots around the World. The government eventually dropped the case, but the prosecution cost Levant more than $100,000 in legal fees.
Levant notes, correctly, that offensive speech is most in need of protection:
"It's not benign speech that is at risk of censorship. No one tries to censor weather predictions or recipe books. It's the spicy stuff that needs to be safeguarded...If the choice is between individuals using their freedom of speech hurtfully and an all-seeing Big Brother watching our words and thoughts, I know which society I'd rather live in. You can always ignore a racist. You can't escape from the government."
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