The Sordid Origin of Hate-Speech Laws, by Jacob Mchangama, is an excellent, comprehensive analysis of the little-known roots of hate-speech laws.
Totalitarians, whether communists of the Soviet bloc during the Cold War, or Islamofascists, neoconservatives, and progressives today, have disingenuously sought to destroy universal human rights of freedom of speech and expression in the name of prohibiting intolerance and hate-speech.
The roots of this dilemma comes from the fact that political leaders no longer acknowledge that our rights come from our humanity, but insist instead that they come from government. They have abandoned the natural law.
Black’s Law Dictionary defines the natural law in a purely rationalistic and non-theological manner:
Jus Naturale, the natural law, or law of nature; law, or legal principles, supposed to be discoverable by the light of nature or abstract reasoning, or to be taught by nature to all nations and men alike, or law supposed to govern men and peoples in a state of nature, i.e., in advance of organized governments or enacted laws (3rd ed., p. 1044).
The noble natural law tradition was a primary construct of Western Civilization for millennia. It was articulated by Aristotle, Marcus Tullius Cicero, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Hugo Grotius, Sir William Blackstone, John Locke, John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, Thomas Jefferson, Tom Paine, Lysander Spooner, Lord Acton, Herbert Spencer, A. P. D’Entreves, Leo Strauss, John Wild, Robert Nozick, Murray Rothbard, Andrew Napolitano, and countless others.
Introduction to Natural Law, by Murray Rothbard
The Rise, Fall, and Renaissance of Classical Liberalism, by Ralph Raico
This abandonment of classical liberalism and the natural law basis of universal, inalienable human rights which exist prior to the State has had dire and serious consequences. It was replaced with the doctrine of legal positivism and the rise of the all-powerful, all-encompassing state.
The doctrine of legal positivism has been the handmaiden of repression and state terror since its inception. It has long been the rationale for tyrants to act under cover of law against their subject peoples. That insidious legacy continues unabated today.
1:21 am on March 28, 2015
