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Regulating Political Speech

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
I've heard it proposed that politicians should be prosecuted for lying.
I sympathize. But the cure would be worse than the disease.
Michiganistan offers an example.

ACLU calls charges against Michigan Senate candidate unconstitutional
ANN ARBOR, MI – The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan has filed a court motion to dismiss a criminal case involving the campaign literature of a recent state Senate candidate.

The ACLU is contrasting Anuja Rajendra’s campaign speech with that of President Donald Trump.

“It is beyond ironic that the president of the United States regularly tells bold-faced lies with impunity, yet this first-time candidate was charged with a crime for allegedly making an isolated misleading statement during her unsuccessful bid to represent Washtenaw County,” said Michael Steinberg, ACLU of Michigan legal director.

Rajendra, an Ann Arbor businesswoman who lost a four-way Democratic primary race in August, was arraigned on criminal chargesTuesday, Nov. 13, in Ann Arbor’s 15th District Court.

The Washtenaw County Prosecutor's Office alleges Rajendra falsely represented herself as the incumbent senator in her campaign literature on two occasions in July.

A hearing in the case is now set for January and the ACLU is defending Rajendra.

=======================================================================

There is much potential for political mischief by those wielding prosecutorial power.
I'd prefer that a candidate's lying be addressed by the loyal opposition.
The voters will then judge.
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
We're in agreement for once. There's too much risk of abuse for laws allowing candidates to be sued or prosecuted for lying.
 

icehorse

......unaffiliated...... anti-dogmatist
Premium Member
ugh.

How about if we had a non-partisan agency that assessed and published every candidate's truthiness?
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
ugh.

How about if we had a non-partisan agency that assessed and published every candidate's truthiness?

That might not be a bad idea. But there would need to be some pretty good safeguards against such an agency becoming corrupted.
 

icehorse

......unaffiliated...... anti-dogmatist
Premium Member
That might not be a bad idea. But there would need to be some pretty good safeguards against such an agency becoming corrupted.

We'd need another agency to assess the first agency. Pretty soon it would be agencies all the way down.
 

Stanyon

WWMRD?
This reminds me of the recent ad for CNN that stated that lies often repeated become truth and then used the imagery of a girl taking a bite out of an apple while looking at a garden of Eden painting, then the word "TRUTH". I hadn't laughed like that in a while, but then a concern about any news organization billing themselves as the "TRUTH" from an electric pulpit.
 

Ponder This

Well-Known Member
Sadly, the courts have always been a political football.
Bringing a legal case against a political candidate is a classic dirty tactic and we should all take a skeptical view whenever accusations of that sort are levied.
 

youknowme

Whatever you want me to be.
The cure is to simply better educate the public, it is harder to lie to people that can think for themselves.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
I don't see how such a law can be enforceable when conviction would require proof of prior alternative knowledge and a deliberate intent to mislead. And even then, so what? If the deception resulted in no criminal offense then it is of no legal consequence. (Or else fiction-writers would all have to be be prosecuted.) Lying, by itself, cannot reasonably be considered a criminal offense.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
There are lies, and there are LIES. Legal consequences should depend on awareness, intent, consequences, &c.

A lot of politicians honestly believe they're telling a truth. They haven't fully researched the issue or have convinced themselves a desired interpretation is true. Others believe the lie serves a greater purpose. Then there are those whose lies are part of an actual conspiracy to achieve some nefarious end.
 

fantome profane

Anti-Woke = Anti-Justice
Premium Member
ugh.

How about if we had a non-partisan agency that assessed and published every candidate's truthiness?
Many years ago there use to be something like that. It was call “news”.

Sadly no such thing exists today and I don’t know how to bring it back.
 

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
This reminds me of the recent ad for CNN that stated that lies often repeated become truth and then used the imagery of a girl taking a bite out of an apple while looking at a garden of Eden painting, then the word "TRUTH". I hadn't laughed like that in a while, but then a concern about any news organization billing themselves as the "TRUTH" from an electric pulpit.
There's a vast difference between prosecuting someone for lying, except under oath, and a news organization which is careful about fact checking.

Of course such organizations will want to advertise their careful work. But such claims are subject to fact checking as well such as Fox which used to advertise itself as "fair and balanced" when it was and is neither.
 

Stevicus

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
There is much potential for political mischief by those wielding prosecutorial power.
I'd prefer that a candidate's lying be addressed by the loyal opposition.
The voters will then judge.

My eyes are playing tricks on me again. I first thought the thread title said "Regurgitating Political Speech."

Anyway, I think the best way to handle situations like this is to have both candidates take a test by walking on a tightrope across a pit full of alligators. Whoever falls off is lying.
 

columbus

yawn <ignore> yawn
This reminds me of the recent ad for CNN that stated that lies often repeated become truth and then used the imagery of a girl taking a bite out of an apple while looking at a garden of Eden painting, then the word "TRUTH". I hadn't laughed like that in a while, but then a concern about any news organization billing themselves as the "TRUTH" from an electric pulpit.
Um, what? Do you know what advertising is about? It's about serf serving lies.

Several years back I heard many TV ads where Chevrolet baldly stated "Here in Indiana, we drive Chevy" in a truck commercial. I was shopping for a car at the time, so I happened to know for a fact that Ford greatly outsold Chevy. I wasn't even shopping for a truck, I wanted a sedan. But I knew it was the kind of lie capitalists regularly tell.

Rather like Fox News claiming to provide "Fair and Balanced Coverage" While saying whatever the Republicans wanted Fox to say, no matter how obviously false.

Tom
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Note: This massive wall of text is presented in case a poster cannot access the links.

In the news.....
NYC bans calling someone an ‘illegal alien’ of out hate
Excerpted....
A document shared on the nyc.gov reads that, “It is illegal for a person’s employer, coworkers, or housing provider such as landlords to use derogatory or offensive terms to intimidate, humiliate, or degrade people, including by using the term “illegal alien,” where its use is intended to demean, humiliate, or offend another person.”
:
The City of New York shared news of this on Twitter, “BREAKING: New York City has made it illegal to threaten to call ICE based on a discriminatory motive or to tell someone “go back to your country.” Hate has no place here.”

It was reported that those who violate this new law can be fined up to $250,000 per offense. The City Hall’s Commission on Human Right released a 29- page directive about the new law.

The document reads, “Alien’ — used in many laws to refer to a ‘noncitizen’ person — is a term that may carry negative connotations and dehumanize immigrants, marking them as ‘other.”

And another section of the memo reads, “The use of certain language, including ‘illegal alien’ and ‘illegals,’ with the intent to demean, humiliate, or offend a person or persons constitutes discrimination.”

At the moment, four ongoing cases involve discrimination based on folks threatening to call to ICE in order to intimidate, harass, and threaten victims.

Carmelyn Malalis, the agency’s commissioner, told the New York Post that, “In the face of increasingly hostile national rhetoric, we will do everything in our power to make sure our treasured immigrant communities are able to live with dignity and respect, free of harassment and bias.”

And....
https://nypost.com/2019/09/26/city-bans-calling-someone-an-illegal-alien-out-of-hate/
https://www.americanthinker.com/blo...ds_illegal_alien_said_supposedly_in_hate.html

About the constitutionality of banning hate speech....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...hate-speech-exception-to-the-first-amendment/
Excerpted...
I keep hearing about a supposed “hate speech” exception to the First Amendment, or statements such as, “This isn’t free speech, it’s hate speech,” or “When does free speech stop and hate speech begin?” But there is no hate speech exception to the First Amendment. Hateful ideas (whatever exactly that might mean) are just as protected under the First Amendment as other ideas. One is as free to condemn Islam — or Muslims, or Jews, or blacks, or whites, or illegal aliens, or native-born citizens — as one is to condemn capitalism or Socialism or Democrats or Republicans.

To be sure, there are some kinds of speech that are unprotected by the First Amendment. But those narrow exceptions have nothing to do with “hate speech” in any conventionally used sense of the term. For instance, there is an exception for “fighting words” — face-to-face personal insults addressed to a specific person, of the sort that are likely to start an immediate fight. But this exception isn’t limited to racial or religious insults, nor does it cover all racially or religiously offensive statements. Indeed, when the City of St. Paul tried to specifically punish bigoted fighting words, the Supreme Court held that this selective prohibition was unconstitutional (R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul (1992)), even though a broad ban on all fighting words would indeed be permissible. (And, notwithstanding CNN anchor Chris Cuomo’s Tweet that “hate speech is excluded from protection,” and his later claims that by “hate speech” he means “fighting words,” the fighting words exception is not generally labeled a “hate speech” exception, and isn’t coextensive with any established definition of “hate speech” that I know of.)

The same is true of the other narrow exceptions, such as for true threats of illegal conduct or incitement intended to and likely to produce imminent illegal conduct (i.e., illegal conduct in the next few hours or maybe days, as opposed to some illegal conduct some time in the future). Indeed, threatening to kill someone because he’s black (or white), or intentionally inciting someone to a likely and immediate attack on someone because he’s Muslim (or Christian or Jewish), can be made a crime. But this isn’t because it’s “hate speech”; it’s because it’s illegal to make true threats and incite imminent crimes against anyone and for any reason, for instance because they are police officers or capitalists or just someone who is sleeping with the speaker’s ex-girlfriend.

The Supreme Court did, in Beauharnais v. Illinois (1952), uphold a “group libel” law that outlawed statements that expose racial or religious groups to contempt or hatred, unless the speaker could show that the statements were true, and were said with “good motives” and for “justifiable ends.” But this too was treated by the Court as just a special case of a broader First Amendment exception — the one for libel generally. And Beauharnais is widely understood to no longer be good law, given the Court’s restrictions on the libel exception. See New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964) (rejecting the view that libel is categorically unprotected, and holding that the libel exception requires a showing that the libelous accusations be “of and concerning” a particular person); Garrison v. Louisiana (1964) (generally rejecting the view that a defense of truth can be limited to speech that is said for “good motives” and for “justifiable ends”); Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc. v. Hepps (1986) (generally rejecting the view that the burden of proving truth can be placed on the defendant); R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul (1992) (holding that singling bigoted speech is unconstitutional, even when that speech fits within a First Amendment exception); Nuxoll ex rel. Nuxoll v. Indian Prairie Sch. Dist. # 204, 523 F.3d 668, 672 (7th Cir. 2008) (concluding that Beauharnais is no longer good law); Dworkin v. Hustler Magazine Inc., 867 F.2d 1188, 1200 (9th Cir. 1989) (likewise); Am. Booksellers ***’n, Inc. v. Hudnut, 771 F.2d 323, 331 n.3 (7th Cir. 1985) (likewise); Collin v. Smith, 578 F.2d 1197, 1205 (7th Cir. 1978) (likewise); Tollett v. United States, 485 F.2d 1087, 1094 n.14 (8th Cir. 1973) (likewise); Erwin Chemerinsky, Constitutional Law: Principles and Policies 1043-45 (4th ed. 2011); Laurence Tribe, Constitutional Law, §12-17, at 926; Toni M. Massaro, Equality and Freedom of Expression: The Hate Speech Dilemma, 32 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 211, 219 (1991); Robert C. Post, Cultural Heterogeneity and Law: Pornography, Blasphemy, and the First Amendment, 76 Calif. L. Rev. 297, 330-31 (1988).

Finally, “hostile environment harassment law” has sometimes been read as applying civil liability — or administrative discipline by universities — to allegedly bigoted speech in workplaces, universities, and places of public accommodation. There is a hot debate on whether those restrictions are indeed constitutional; they have generally been held unconstitutional when applied to universities, but decisions are mixed as to civil liability based on speech that creates hostile environments in workplaces (see the pages linked to at this site for more information on the subject). But even when those restrictions have been upheld, they have been justified precisely on the rationale that they do not criminalize speech (or otherwise punish it) in society at large, but only apply to particular contexts, such as workplaces. None of them represent a “hate speech” exception, nor have they been defined in terms of “hate speech.”

For this very reason, “hate speech” also doesn’t have any fixed legal meaning under U.S. law. U.S. law has just never had occasion to define “hate speech” — any more than it has had occasion to define rudeness, evil ideas, unpatriotic speech, or any other kind of speech that people might condemn but that does not constitute a legally relevant category.
 
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PureX

Veteran Member
Language is constantly morphing, and the inferences and connotations of the words we use change over time. I think it's important, especially in the legal realm, to mind these changes and make the necessary corrections as needed. This may seem rather a silly proposition to many of us, but we are not lawyers. It may be an important amendment in terms of legal usage and implication. Of course that won't stop any of us from imposing our 'opinions formed in ignorance' on it, I'm sure. :)
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Language is constantly morphing, and the inferences and connotations of the words we use change over time. I think it's important, especially in the legal realm, to mind these changes and make the necessary corrections as needed. This may seem rather a silly proposition to many of us, but we are not lawyers. It may be an important amendment in terms of legal usage and implication. Of course that won't stop any of us from imposing our 'opinions formed in ignorance' on it, I'm sure. :)
Good point. In politics or court, a misplaced comma could change everything.
 
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