We have better tools than the law to defy hate-mongers: Butt

David Butt, a Toronto-based criminal lawyer, argues for more public discourse as a means to curb hate speech, rather than lengthy judicial processes, provoked by the visit of misogynist Daryush Valizadeh who essentially advocates legalizing rape among other unacceptable views:

Third, there is often truth to the cliché that the best antidote to hate speech is more speech that denounces the hate not through the force of state intervention, but through the force of enlightened reason. Defying the hate-monger with the very tools he uses, exposing his offensive, propagandistic assumptions and deceptions, can be a powerful antidote to hate speech. Social media, wisely deployed, can enhance our collective power to burst the bubble of hate-mongers. Boycotts can catch fire with devastating speed, the hate-monger’s enablers can be dissuaded from enabling, and the messages can be transformed into teachable moments on the virtues of the counterarguments.

The catch is that countering bad speech with good has traction only if people care enough to actually respond. A passive, disengaged populace is fertilizer to the hate-monger’s mushrooms. Speaking out against hate is a social responsibility associated with a truly vibrant freedom of expression that is all too often overlooked. It is hard work to rise up and speak against things that are just plain wrong, and too many of us are content to leave that hard work to someone else.

There are at least three reasons why it is not a good idea to prosecute malevolent gadflies like Roosh V. But there is every reason for all of us to take on his hateful propaganda with the tools we all have at our disposal: our discerning intellects and our expressive capacities. We maintain and deserve a vibrant freedom of expression to the extent that we exercise it.

We have better tools than the law to defy hate-mongers – The Globe and Mail.