Reading on in USS Clueless, I note a long post criticising European hate speech laws, in which I get a brief mention. Like most of the Australian bloggers who’ve commented on the Tobin case, I’m with Den Beste on this one. The discussion of individual vs group defamation in a recent comments thread on this blog reached the general conclusion that while a group defamation law might be defensible in principle, it could not be implemented in practice without impinging on the freedom of political speech.

These complexities do not arise here. The European laws are clearly aimed at political speech, banning genocide denial in such generic terms as to raise a host of nasty problems. Leaving aside the undeniable case of the Holocaust, European history is full of disputed cases which might be affected by this (the treatment of the Sudeten Germans after WWII for example). While I’m generally found on the European side of transatlantic disputes, the First Amendment to the US constitution is one of the greatest gifts any country has given to itself and the world. We, and the Europeans, would be well advised to adopt something similar.