Debate Subject

Ok, I'm on my school's debate team, so anyone who wishes to help us with our topic this month is welcome to.
Resolved: that colleges and universities have a moral obligation to prohibit the public expression of hate speech on their campuses.

Any thoughts?

1. You want "fer it" or "agin it" or both?

2. "Hate speech" would have to be defined for the purposes of the debate.

3. Who decides what is and is not to be classified as "hate speech?" How is the prohibition to be enforced?

4. What is the punishment for infringement of the prohibition?

5. What's your deadline?

6. WOW! What an awesome debate topic!

I agree with Gilthalion. Some people might consider a hate "crime" to be simply a citizen exercising his/her right of free speech without infringing on any laws.

Well, I don't have a good definition yet, as that's one of the things we have to come up with. I've found tons of internet sites about it, and I'm really getting into it. I have to have an argument both for and against by October... uh...sometime in the middle of October; it's a Wednesday. Basically, what we're arguing is whether the First Amendment(freedom of speech) takes precidence over the Fourteenth (protection from prejudice and all that). Though, actually, the resolution never SAYS it's American colleges we're talking about. That could be an interresting twist to through at someone...

I love debating but Im not terribily good at it im afraid. Just some questions...

-Peoples safety is first and foremost but if u take away this freedom whta will it cause. Will people go to the extent of rioting? So which will be worse? A hate speech, or a riot? Or maybe people won't riot, but certianly many things would be questioned. So we take away the first ammendment from people??? Then what happens? Heck lets take away all the amendments. That is something you can't do. (Maybe even the fact that in the past hate speeches have been made and what has happened good or bad? Nazi sects i believe have made speeches, if thats of ocurse considered "hate")

None of that is neccesarily my opinion just some basic (i stress basic) questions others may ask you. Anyway feel free to reply telling me how wrong I am (maybe im a little right, who knows) cuz im personally interested in this topic, it sounds intriging.

Check with your local library or the city attorney's office and see if they have any ordinances against "fighting language" or "fighting words." Forbidding these on protest signs seems to have passed constitutional muster and a number of large towns have such laws on the books.

There are also laws against menacing, slander, libel inciting violence, disturbing the peace, etc.

What precise harm is it that this prohibition would remedy? Can some definitive act of prejudice against a person be shown to occur as a result of the hate speech? If so, are there already laws that deal with such acts?

As Gwaihir questioned, is the good of such a prohibition outweighed by the potential for harm?

Finally, would a public accomodation like a university make such a determination as what is and is not "hate speech" in general or would would it have to identify specific lines of thought that would comprise "hate speech?"

Does a university have authority to do so at all? Or would this have to be an entirely new Constitutional issue?


WOW! What a debate topic!

First, as we say in computer sciences, if it works well like that, DON'T do the update!

has the college/university had an issue with that before? If no, don't change it.

Secundo (practicing espanol ) Try to make a parallel between "hate speeches" and the fact that the KKK is still tolareted.

I ran across this, just this morning. Hope it's not too late! --GILTHALION
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Tyranny Is Here


Paul Craig Roberts Sept. 27, 2000

Tyranny is creeping up on us. If you don't believe it, consider the most prominent hallmarks of the Nazi and Communist regimes, which sought to supplant democracy in the 20th century.

In National Socialist Germany and the Soviet Union, there were no First Amendment rights. No one could voice an opinion contrary to the politically correct views enforced by the Gestapo and the KGB. Media and education were used to instill politically correct thinking and bring denunciation upon anyone who departed from politically correct thinking.

This is precisely the situation that exists today in the vast majority of American colleges and universities. Verbal and facial expressions that are contrary to political correctness result in sensitivity training (a form of brainwashing) or expulsion for the offender, who may have done nothing more than laugh. If the source of mirth is an ethnic joke, a blonde joke or a hilarious claim by a multiculturalist, the hapless offender discovers that his constitutional protections do not exist.

In Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, there were victim groups that were championed and oppressor groups that were suppressed. In Germany, the "victims" were Aryans, who were said to be under the financial hegemony of Jews. In the Soviet Union, the hegemonic group was the bourgeoisie, who allegedly held sway over an oppressed proletariat. In both countries, victims were permitted to exercise violent language and actions against oppressors. In the United States today, white heterosexual able-bodied males constitute the hegemonic group. Everyone else is a member of a victim group.

In Germany and the Soviet Union, the abstract and imaginary group roles of oppressor and victim were given a frightful reality by ideologues. Race and class categories became the basis for discrimination and new legal systems that favored victims' groups with preferences.

On American campuses, multicultural ideology has revived the concepts of race and class oppression, and added new ones based on gender and sexual orientation. Men oppress women, and heterosexuals oppress homosexuals. According to multiculturalists, our culture and values reflect nothing but the arbitrary domination of society by white heterosexual males.

University of Pennsylvania professor Alan Kors says that, thanks to multiculturalism, "half a century after the defeat of Nazism, we distinguish by blood and we equate blood with culture." We now think like Nazis and explain our society and culture in terms of race (and gender) hegemony. Tyrannical states attack the family.

Both the Nazis and Communists are infamous for state intrusions in family affairs. In the United States, similar bureaucratic and political intrusions come from family courts. Most Americans are unaware of the existence of these relatively new "courts." Howard University professor Stephen Baskerville is the leading authority on these courts. He says family courts are "the most dangerous institution posing a threat to constitutional rights in our society. The only parallels are the ideological-bureaucratic dictatorships of the last century."

Family courts claim immunity from the Constitution and from scrutiny by federal courts. Baskerville describes them as follows: "Their proceedings are secret and unrecorded. Their orders are enforced by bureaucratic police who do not wear uniforms and whose sole responsibility is to conduct surveillance over families and private lives. As such, these police are akin to secret police. By the very nature of their jurisdiction, these courts and police are the most intrusive and invasive arm of government, and yet they are accountable to virtually no one. Such an institution is intolerable in a free society."

Recently a family court judge ordered the parents of a 7-year-old boy in Berne, N.Y., to put their child on Ritalin, a behavior-control drug. The alternative was to be found guilty of "educational neglect," an offense that would open the possibility of their child being seized by Child Protective Services - a Hillary Clinton "village" institution straight from the pages of the Gestapo. The child suffered serious side effects from the drug, but parents no longer have the right to decide what is best for their children.

Tyrannical states assault the individual in the inner recesses of his consciousness. He is not permitted to think certain thoughts or to express a prohibited thought privately to anyone. Recently, Janice Barton encountered a Spanish-speaking couple while leaving a restaurant in Manistee, Mich. She turned to her mother and said, "I wish these (ethnic slur) would learn to speak English." An off-duty deputy sheriff overheard the private remark, followed the woman to her car and noted her tag number. Janice Barton was sentenced to 45 days in jail for her thought crime.

This couldn't happen in a free country.


COPYRIGHT 2000 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.

Paul Craig Roberts is the John M. Olin fellow at the Institute for Political Economy, research fellow at the Independent Institute and senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

hey, I'm in Debate too, but I have it for a class. We're doing the Policy topic, which is boring. I think I'm gonna join the team tho, so I'll let you know if I find anything on the L/D topic!

What's the L/D topic? (Excuse my density!)

L/D stands for Lincoln/Douglass which is a form if debate. That topic our very own Lady showed you all, is the L/D topic....=)

Thanks for the essay! So far, I've found better stuff for affirmative than negative, so that'll really help.

To explain it a little further, Lincoln-Douglas debating is a method where two people debate an issue. One takes one side and the other person takes the other side. There is a specific set of rules for when you do what bits of your argument that each person has to follow. In each meet, everyone debates both sides of the topic at some point. In a lot of ways it's like a court case, and it's really fun!