speech and respect - College of Social Sciences and International ...

The Excesses of State Regulation
hear the other side. ... In a judgement delivered at the end of
July, a Canadian court ruled that there was no proven connection
between tobacco advertising and overall tobacco consumption.
And no proof that banning advertising reduces consumption. In
fact, the Court struck down Canada's tobacco advertising ban as
"a form of censorship and social engineering which is incompatible
with the very essence of a free and democratic society."
The ad neglected to mention that the judgement is on appeal. A
week later the industry raised the spectre of Puritan intolerance,
quoting Cromwell: "Not what they want but what is good for them"
and adding: "there's something inherently anti-democratic in
imposing upon people your view of what's best for them." A third ad
invoked Juvenal: "Let my will replace reasoned judgement" and
sought to inflame British resentment against Eurocrats: "That's not
fair or democratic. But that seems to be Brussels' view when it comes
to tobacco advertising." 91
With considerably less sophistication, racists have presented
themselves as champions of free speech victimised by state oppression.
We saw earlier how the National Socialist Party of America
shifted public debate from the hatefulness of its message to its
constitutional right to march in Skokie. Tom Metzger of the White
Aryan Resistance insists: "I believe everything I publish is protected
by the First Amendment." 92 Justifying the invitation of Holocaust
revisionists to a conference, the head of a black Los Angeles group,
declared: "It's time we hear all sides of this thing of holocausts. And
that is what the 1 st Amendment is all about. . . ." 93 The revisionist
California Institute for Historical Review bought advertisements in a
number of university student newspapers under the heading "Committee
for Open Debate on the Holocaust." 94 Electoral politics also
offers a protected arena. IRA members otherwise silenced by British
television can speak as political candidates. 95 Well before George
Bush's 1988 campaign ad featured a rape by a black prisoner on
weekend leave, the British National Party used elections to propagate
racism. A candidate for the Loughton, Essex local council
pictured a 75-year-old white woman "savagely beaten by two young
black thugs who raided her flat in Brixton." The Tower Hamlets
branch condemned "Asian racial violence directed at the white
community" and warned: "The Moslems are taking over our East
End." 96
If state regulation of speech were merely ineffective it might be a
harmless diversion. But punishment can be positively perverse. Civil
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