Dershowitz: Censoring Advertising Critical Of Islam Will Only Inspire More Violence
Famed legal giant, and Harvard Law professor, Alan Dershowitz is critical of the decision by the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s decision to outlaw controversial advertising in subways (my previous post here) arguing that it will only inspire more violence.
In an interview with The Algemeiner, Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz slammed new approved advertising guidelines announced by the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority, calling them “Plain Dumb” and “Unconstitutional.” …
“A. it’s clearly unconstitutional” he said, and “b. it incentivizes people to engage in violence. What it says to people, is that if they don’t like ads, just engage in violence and then we’ll take the ads down.”
“It’s very bad policy,” he continued, “and it’s just plain dumb, because it is going to encourage violence.” …
Referring to the recent uptick in violence in the Middle East, Dershowitz added, “It is the worst possible approach to dealing with radical Islam.”
What Dershowitz is talking about is the “heckler’s veto,” which has always been the problem with exceptions to the 1st amendment based on “fighting words” or other sorts of objectionable content. What these exceptions tell those who would like to silence speech is that if they raise enough of a stink, if they riot and vandalize and even murder, we’ll invoke the exception and silence the speech.
Which is kind of how the Obama administration is handling what’s going on the middle east.
American soldiers getting murdered? Must be because they insulted Islam.
Muslims burning down our embassies and murdering our diplomats? Stop insulting Islam.
Meanwhile IKEA has taken to photoshopping the middle eastern versions of their catalogs to remove women that might offend the sensibilities of Muslims.
It’s an upside down world we’ve living in.
Tags: alan dershowitz, Barack Obama, fighting words, free speech, hecler's veto, islam
