Probably one reason that "hate speech" laws haven't gained a foothold here, even while numerous and equally odious restrictions on liberty have proliferated like Kudzu, is that hate speech is now a ubiquitous and often servile handmaiden to the powers that be.

How far apart, really, is Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, et al. from, say William Kristol or Richard Perle? Isn't the entire neoconservative movement and its authoritarian goals popularized at the micro level by, essentially, the nakedly racist and eliminationist blather that dominates the airwaves, one conveniently deniable step or two from its beneficiaries?

No wonder hate radio personalities whine incessantly that a return to the Fairness Doctrine, which would provide the classic antidote, more speech, would amount to "censorship." When racism, dictatorship, sexism, and homophobia is what you're selling, the only way to legitimize your vile beliefs is to claim membership in a persecuted "minority." (Yes, irony escapes this bunch.)

Although hate speech laws would make Fox News illegal, and Clear Channel and Sinclair Broadcasting at least in need of programming revisions, I still believe such laws are un-American and self defeating.

The problem is, of course, the mainstreaming of hate they create, and protecting fringe ideas is a little different from protecting ideas that dominate such a large part of the government and media.

"I think I'd sooner just call Jack Bauer to deak with you in a tax-payer friendly manner."

Pssst. Jack Bauer is fictional.... Not unlike, say, Marvin Martian. Your otherwise creepy threat loses a litlle something with this small oversight.

RMP, you and a Canadian poster are hitting on the point that I perhaps failed to emphasize in a previous post. That is, that attacking the powerless is inherently different than attacking an aggressive and domineering majority. Here, hate speech is routinely abetted, and even promulgated, by the "majority," in this case the Bush administration and its media enablers, while minority opinion is relentlessly silenced. No hate speech laws protect pacifists, racial and sexual minorities, or non-Christians, all of whom have been through much worse travails than the Canadian crackpot in question.

Worse, Christians, Republicans, and neocons wrap themselves in the sackcloth of persecution to draw sympathy for the "hate" they suffer. What is clear is that any anti-hate speech laws we might enact would be unnecessary to protect hate speech against the powerful, but ruthlessly applied against minority opinion.

It's #98374 in the "heads we win, tails you lose," saga that makes Fox News America so great.

RMP... I guess I have to agree, at least on a pragmatic level, with the Canadian who said, "we trust our government."

Green with envy I am, at such cutting to the quick, and from such a strong position.

The distinction here seems to be between "de jure" censorship, which the Canadians have, and the much more effective "de facto," which we "enjoy" here. The best thing about "de jure" is that it's written down, and therefore limited.

The "de facto" kind, on the other kind, was responsible for your recent unpleasantness. Turns out, to my mind, that the rule of law, even oppressive law, at least lays down a rule or two. What we have is the absence of the rule of law, wherein the law of the jungle continues to favor the usual suspects.

At our expense.

I may be unclear here as to whether Levant was subject to sanction for what he had published, or for what he wanted to publish. When I was in journalism school, the difference between our system and others, as I recall, was that prior restraint, or preventing the words to be published, rather than suffering the consequences if they were, was the crucial factor in deciding whether opinion was legally actionable.

At the time, I marveled at our superiority, which was based on the fact that the truth or falsity of the speech in question would carry the day, and no government could serve as gatekeeper.

I no longer feel that way. Censorship is rampant and widely favored now, dictated wholly by a governmental and media elite which is so effective at punishing disfavored speech that proir restraint needn't be strictly enforced. Prior restraint is now in our DNA.

Beats passing some pesky law.

When one drops in on a thread in which one has not previously participated, carefully reads the previous posts, and drops a salient, often hilarious comment on several different preceding posts, I'm delighted to read "five posts in two pages."

Great entertainment, and it reminds us what we were talking about.

Hijacking generally involves a tangential, rowdy, and increasingly bitter and personal argument among two or three individuals.

It's a key difference. Make a note of it.

Given the overwhelming evidence that the Justice Department has been inappropriately politicized, to the point that political figures are in jail, and certainly others have gone free, based on their political beliefs and activism, how would your administration correct this problem?

It is abundantly clear that the Bush Administration has made a mockery of federal jurisprudence, and that they have attempted to make their influence and that of their corporate clients permanent by installing ideologues in career positions as well. If your administration were to shun such practices, wouldn't that still leave the Dept. of Justice, and for that matter all the agencies, significantly compromised and perhaps permanently hampered by the lack of quality and morale difficulties the Bush Administration has created, deliberately?

If these appointees have committed crimes, which is possible, and if they have abetted them, which they clearly have, how would you go about prosecuting these crimes?