More Tsesis debunkation
May 14, 2008
Hey, Mom! I invented a new word!
Anyhow, BCF has been in contact with Anuj C. Desai, and he has had some very interesting things to say about Canadian government legal scholarship source Alexander Tsesis:
I’m not aware of anyone else who has directly addressed Tsesis, in part because, as you imply, he is not particularly well-known here in the U.S. There was another review of his book in the Michigan Law Review by W. Bradley Wendel, who is now at Cornell Law School, although Professor Wendel doesn’t address Tsesis as directly as I do: The Banality of Evil and the First Amendment, 102 Michigan Law Review 1404 (2004) (reviewing Alexander Tsesis, Destructive Messages: How Hate Speech Paves the Way for Harmful Social Movements).
However, here are a few suggestions of reading on the general topic that might be of help. A comprehensive book that addresses the broader issue is James Weinstein, Hate Speech, Pornography and the Radical Attack on Free Speech Doctrine (Westview Press, 1999).
Despite its title, it is not polemical at all and very carefully goes through and responds to many arguments in favor of hate speech prohibitions.
Go and have a read of it all — it’s an excellent piece of blogging, and a damning indictment of the man that the Canadian government has chosen to rely upon in its attempt to defend allowing HRC-administered Censorship in Canada.
Update: Welcome, Steynians!
