The right to be wildly unpopular
US civil libertarian Wendy Kaminer answers your questions on Obama, the Tea Party, Leveson and loads more.
Why do you think it’s still important to campaign for civil rights today?
Negative liberty facilitated efforts to achieve legal equality: civil rights movements are contingent on the rights to organise, speak our minds, express and disseminate wildly unpopular ideas, and lobby for change, obviously. And those same rights – the gifts of negative liberty – should stand as insurmountable bars to current crusades against bullying, hate speech and various forms of ‘verbal harassment ‘ (all broadly and vaguely defined). Put very simply, we have fundamental rights to insult, demean, mock, and heartily dislike each other, for any reason; and along with the right to give offence, we have an obligation to take it…
This is a preview of the April edition of spiked plus, our exclusive ‘magazine within a magazine’ for readers who make invaluable contributions to spiked‘s fundraising drive. To read the rest of the article, sign in, or sign up, to spiked plus here.
To enquire about republishing spiked’s content, a right to reply or to request a correction, please contact the managing editor, Viv Regan.
Comments
Want to join the conversation?
Only spiked supporters and patrons, who donate regularly to us, can comment on our articles.