So, Tex had a good post on the subject with which I think few of us will be much inclined to disagree. Here's an alternative idea of the importance of
restricting free speech when it comes into conflict with "hate speech," of which blasphemy might often be considered a subset.
Anyone with any kind of basic, entry-level knowledge of human rights will tell you that the human right to freedom of speech always has to be balanced against other human rights, such as the human rights to dignity, respect, honor, and non-discrimination. A human rights-based approach to freedom of speech (such as the one found here) emphasizes that speech has to be restricted when it comes into conflict with other human rights. Human rights activists – including the United Nations and human rights groups all over the world – not only believe that hate speech should be outlawed, but that so should cultural appropriation and other forms of speech which violate basic human rights (in the case of cultural appropriation, the right of cultures to retain ownership of their culture and to ensure that their culture is not misused).
This is reported to be the "whole world's view," with America as a kind of weird outlier. Of course, 'the whole world' doesn't end up including very much of the world -- not Russia, not China, not Africa, not the Islamic world, and not large parts even of India. I suspect that, if you move away from the question of formalities (e.g., UN treaties or unenforced legislation) and to the realm of lived experience, the number of people who believe this is actually very small.
My opposition to the view is easy enough to explain, so since she asks why Americans oppose her, I'll give it briefly. It starts with her idea that you have a right to honor. I suspect she really means that you have a right to
receive honors. You do not.
Honor is sacrifice. It is by showing honor, at significant personal cost, that you become deserving of
receiving honors. It's not a right.
Neither is respect. Respect must be earned.
Neither is dignity. Dignity can be thrown away, and if you throw it away, you have no right to insist on being given more.
Non-discrimination is a trickier case, but I think that if you strip it down to a generalized claim that no one should discriminate against anyone, it's unworkable and foolish. There are some specific things -- especially race -- that we should not allow to be causes of discrimination. There are lots of other things (for example, a history of felonious behavior) that are perfectly valid causes for discrimination.
So, we can begin our disagreement by simply noting that I dispute that anyone has rights to any of the things you list as rights. Even if we agree that freedom of speech has to deal with conflicting rights, I dispute that any of these are examples of rights. Freedom of speech sometimes conflicts with real rights, in which case we have to work out compromises. We don't have to compromise with rights that don't, and many of which can't, exist.
Also, perhaps you should re-read Orwell.
All human rights groups understand that all governments have an obligation to punish hate speech, and that outlawing hate speech does not interfere with freedom of speech in any way (if anything, it is necessary to outlaw hate speech in order to protect freedom of speech). Amnesty International, for example, has emphasized many, MANY times throughout its long history that hate speech MUST always be outlawed. Here, you can find an explanation from Amnesty International about what freedom of speech REALLY is. Freedom of speech is NOT the right to say whatever you want about whatever you want whenever you want. Freedom of speech – like all freedoms – comes with responsibility. Words have consequences, and your freedom ends when it starts to intefere with the freedoms of others – such as their freedom to live without hatred and oppression....
Many have compared my proposals to Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. These people do not seem to understand that human rights policies exist to prevent something like what’s described in Orwell’s dystopian world from happening, as they prevent people from advocating totalitarianism and other human rights violations.... Right now, hundreds of human rights groups are leading the charge to enact strong domestic hate speech legislation in Japan, while human rights groups in Europe are working to ban far-right parties that pose a threat to freedom and democracy.
What was going on in Orwell was that words were getting redefined by authority. The Ministry of Truth told lies, but the lies they told were declared to be true by authority, so they were "true" in the new sense of the term. You say that freedom of speech can't conflict with a ban on hate speech, because freedom of speech has been defined by your organizations to exclude hate speech. The reason this strikes your opponents as similar to Orwell is that you are conducting your argument by redefining the terms to mean what you'd like them to mean. Freedom of speech does mean, to many people, freedom to say what you want. You would like to use authority to redefine the terms to exclude what you want excluded, and to use authority to ban your opponents from organizing politically as "far-right parties that pose a threat to freedom and democracy." Do you see what you did there? You endorsed a plan to have government redefine "democracy" as something that would be threatened by allowing people who disagree to organize politically and have their message voted on by the people. That is, "democracy" would be redefined to mean the opposite of what the word means now.
Relying on the authority of these organizations to redefine the terms of the discussion is what your opponents are referring to when they say you sound like Orwell. You do.
There are other problems with the article, such as likening freedom to hold opinions you find bigoted to 'a right to murder,' which shows a hugely tendentious understanding of the harm principle. But we'll leave those for now.
