This is an interesting comment. I don't believe in blasphemy laws or any other restriction on freedom of expression. But my principles get wobbly when I look at the literature on genocide and civil war. There *are* certain forms of speech that prefigure these horrors.
Americans defend the First Amendment as strongly as they do, I think, because we have a society where people get along quite well, despite all the noise we make and the fact that from time to time we shoot and bomb each other.
I get very conflicted when it comes to laws against Holocaust denial. Partly, it's because I don't want Nazis ever to come to power again, and especially in countries where they've come to power before, it seems to me a bad idea, a risky idea,
To allow Holocaust deniers to say whatever they like.
But if I'm honest with myself, it's also because I find Holocaust denial blasphemous.
But if I'm honest with myself, it's also because I find Holocaust denial blasphemous.
Yet I'm also proud that the US let the Nazis march at Skokie--and very worried that we're no longer the country that so ardently believed in freedom of expression that we would even protect *that* speech.
But when I think about it: We had the luxury of letting them march. We all knew, deep down, that they were just a bunch of nuts. We were not genuinely afraid of them. Offended as hell, yes--but we did know they were just a bunch of nuts.
Perhaps you can only have US-style freedom of expression, with something like the First Amendment, in countries that aren't at proven high risk of civil war and genocide. Perhaps longing for freedom of expression is longing for a particular kind of country:
One where no one *wants* to say things that could very plausibly lead to catastrophic violence. The question is hard, because Americans know free speech exists ---and works--in America. But would it elsewhere?
It may be a moot point, because Americans are losing their enthusiasm for the letter and the spirit of the First Amendment. But we did have it, for real, and it worked. No one immediately committed genocide after Brandenburg v. Ohio.
