Protecting vulnerable minorities from hate speech is one of the most basic and fundamental of human rights obligations, and all human rights organizations worldwide have emphasized this.

Course they do, so much easier to tell law abiding citizens what to do than deal with rape murder and slavery

If you sort the the comments by "best" there are many comments that assume Tanya Cohen is Jewish and then make anti-semitic statements about her, Jews, and American citizens who are Jewish.

If she is Jewish, she might see those comments as hate speech and think they need to be banned, but she might more wisely see those comments as to why protections for speech are so important.

it appears to me that she is committing hate speech against the artist by her definition of hate speech.

I find these kinds of stories traumatic (but I say that ironically).

Why no 'trigger alert' on this column? Oh, my poor sensibilities.

I confess, I only skimmed the Cohen article, but found something cringeworthy in every paragraph! Here's a dandy:

Like any sensible person, I am a strong believer in the unalienable right to freedom of speech and I understand that defending freedom of speech is the most important when it’s speech that many people do not want to hear (like, for example, pro-LGBT speech in Russia). Freedom of speech is the core of any democratic society, and it’s important that freedom of speech be strongly respected and upheld. Censorship in all of its forms is something that must always be fiercely opposed. But we must never confuse hate speech with freedom of speech.

Is it still hate speech if it's objectively true? Just ask!

The truthfulness or factual nature of statements should not matter. Numerous countries have ruled that completely true, balanced, and factual statements can be outlawed as hate speech if they are likely to stir up hatred, or if vulnerable minorities are likely to take offense to them. As such, any kind of speech – whether true or otherwise – which could potentially paint vulnerable minorities in a negative light must always be vigorously prosecuted in order to protect human rights.

What happens if you're declared naughty? Cohen'll tell you:

Anyone guilty of hate speech – which should carry criminal penalties of 25 years to life – should be sent to special prisons designed to re-educate them and to instill values of tolerance, freedom, democracy, and human rights in them.

There's much, much more to laugh at.

And it just occurred to me: Could it be that Tanya Cohen's kidding, that her pieces is meant to be satirical? I hope she is. If not, she's incredibly myopic. Given that "hate speech" is whatever somebody else decides it is, she could find herself convicted of what she deplores. She'd better hope for a nice cell in that prison she's advocating.

The authoress doesn't seem to exist online prior to 2015 and has a Jewish name yet calls Israel an apartheid state. Something doesn't quite add up.

Snoopy, there are many Jews like this on the left. It's uncool if you're, say, at Berkeley, to believe that Israel has a right to defend itself against the people who want to slaughter every single Jew on the planet. Whose religion commands it and whose Hamas Charter does as well.

Yet, they are light on condemnation for Muslim countries like Iran, where gay men were just hanged.

So, after reading the comments here, my take away is that Tonya Cohen is a communist of the first order.

As for Snoopy's question about her Jewishness, I'll remind the beagle of what good ol' Uncle Joe Stalin called useful idiots: Jewish communists in good standing informing on their more religious Jewish neighbors to the NKVD.

Those neighbors were shipped off the to gulags. Then the other shoe dropped, and the Jewish communists were shipped off to the gulags once their usefulness as informants ran out.

You know, Jews and all. They may have been commies, but it was still Russia and the pogroms were still going strong.

Take this article as an entrance essay for admission to a tribe. Cohen wants so desperately to be one of the inside-the Beltway kool kidz that you can feel her longing from here. In the world she wants to be in, this is a peacock display; it's mas macho, the literary equivalent of swinging your Johnson around in public. She's trying to gain membership in a group that considers itself to be the ultimate elite: superior and therefore entitled to rule over the rubes. In their world, everyone else is either a tool or an enemy.

And, it occurs to me that leftist propaganda seems to have reached its logical conclusion, where it consists of nothing but a platitude or two followed by repetitive lists of hot-button words and phrases. Let's see if I can do that:

Of course the Constitution is important.
Dignity of peoples.
My body, my choice.
No more hate!
All other nations agree.
The science is settled.
Save the whales.
Pure air, pure minds.
Spread the wealth.
Entitlement.

Hey, I'm pretty good at that.

"forms of speech which violate basic human rights"
"international human rights law MANDATES"
"the United States refuses to protect even the most basic of human rights"
"Making it [the US] a pariah state"

Holy crap - what an abuse of language! That writer sucks - those words and phrases don't mean what she thinks they mean. Here's a word she needs to learn - hyperbole.

@Charles: Holy crap - what an abuse of language! That writer sucks - those words and phrases don't mean what she thinks they mean.

I'm pretty sure she thinks they mean whatever she decides they mean. That's a problem with the mindset.

Anyone guilty of hate speech – which should carry criminal penalties of 25 years to life – should be sent to special prisons designed to re-educate them and to instill values of tolerance, freedom, democracy, and human rights in them. ~ Tanya Cohen

25 to life? For speech? What does murdering someone get you? Or in her little utopia, is that no longer a crime. Better to kill someone than to offend them?

Reeducation? She wants to imprison someone "to instill values of tolerance, freedom, democracy, and human rights in them?"

So, she's a freedom and democracy loving activist who wants to imprison people for life if they say the wrong thing (even if what they say is true) and re-educate them in prison to accept the government-imposed societal paradigm.

Utopians never see their imagined societies evolving. Everyone is friendly and nothing ever goes too far. History teaches us differently. Every revolution fought to impose a utopian paradise will go too far, whether the Roundheads, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, or Ms. Cohen's revolution to kill free speech in order to save it.

Almost every brutal totalitarian system the world has ever seen arose from a revolution that was going to make society fair, just, and free.

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Protecting vulnerable minorities from hate speech is one of the most basic and fundamental of human rights obligations, and all human rights organizations worldwide have emphasized this. But the United States refuses to protect even the most basic of human rights, firmly establishing itself as a pariah state that falls far behind the rest of the world in terms of protecting fundamental human rights and democratic freedoms. ~ Tanya Cohen

Protecting "vulnerable minorities" is the job of society, not government.

Shun those who advocate discrimination against minorities in business and civil affairs. Speack out against their positions. Don't pass laws restricting what people can say.

Once you've legislated that list of of what's acceptable and what's not, that list will grow until it restricts all but Yes/No answers to government-imposed questions.

And what happens when those "vulnerable minorities" Ms. Cohen is so desperate to protect from offense are folks who don't agree with her viewpoints? Will she speak up to protect them? Likely not. She'd have them spend 25 years to life in prison being re-educated.

====================

What happens when one group Ms. Cohen wants to protect hates another group she wants to protect (like Muslims who want to stone gays)?

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What happens when what Ms. Cohen says is on the list of banned speech? Will she willingly be re-educated? Will she happily serve her 25-to-life sentence, ruing her insensitivity?

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The founding fathers of this country left "freedom of speech" at just that. No qualifiers. They did this for a reason. Once you start qualifiying what is allowed under "free" speech and what isn't, speech isn't free anymore.

Society will evolve toward freedom, if government stays out of the way.

====================

We’ve all seen what can happen when hate speech is allowed to flourish. Hate speech has directly led to the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, the Srebrenica massacre, and many other genocides and war crimes throughout history. Hate speech has been a key influence on numerous far-right terrorists and murderers, including Anders Behring Breivik, Timothy McVeigh, and Jared Lee Loughner. By allowing hate speech to flourish, the United States is giving the go-ahead for tragedies like these to happen again and again. Hate speech has already had disastrous consequences for the United States. A recent example would be the “Innocence of Muslims” YouTube video – a disgusting Islamophobic video blatantly inciting hatred and violence against Muslims. This video directly led to numerous riots across the Islamic world, including an attack on a US embassy in Benghazi that left four dead. ~ Tanya Cohen

'cause none of those things were based on long-held hatreds or other causes. This woman lives in a bubble.

A German walking through the Tiergarten did not suddenly become anti-Semitic because he heard a Nazi propaganda speech. His desperation in living in a country with triple-digit inflation however, did cause him to listen to the Nazi's promises to fix things once he realized that the existing government could not. That the Jews would pay the price for this "fix" mattered not when feeding his family was his paramount concern.

Libyan Muslims did not rise up and attack the US consulate in Benghazi because of a YouTube video on the anniversary of 9/11. That attack was planned long before the film was released. The Benghazi consulate was indefensible, isolated, and vulnerable - an ideal place to mark the anniversary of a major attack on the US with an attack on US property. That the US ambassador was there at the onset of the attack was a stroke of luck for the attackers.

And yes, hate speech can turn someone to a cause or against a group - if it appeals to an already-held bias or animosity.

Amy's argument for more speech, not less, is the way to counteract hate speech. In fact, more speech works better than government limits to "free" speech because hate speech can go underground and be just as effective.

Protecting "vulnerable minorities" is the job of society, not government. ~ Posted by: Conan the Grammarian at January 6, 2015 9:07 AM

Protecting those minorities from being offended is the job of society.

Protecting them from being murdered is the job of both society and government.

Ensuring that all citizens and residents are afforded equal protection under the law and the protections of the Bill of Rights is why we imposed a government upon ourselves.

I think what snoopy (above) is trying to suggest is that "Tanya Cohen" is not a real person, that is, there is no online evidence that this is a person who is writing a sincere opinion. Aside from this article, which is on a site that seems to publish (without payment) anything that is submitted to it, the only record of her is a twitter account that has only 4 followers. I have more followers than that on the twitter account I use just to follow people that I have used to post exactly one tweet. There may not be anyone, including the author, who really believes what she is writing.

>>Anyone guilty of hate speech – which should carry criminal penalties of 25 years to life

"Why did I kill him your honor? Well, that's because I called him an asshole and figured I'd do less time for murder then I would for hate speech."

"The year is 2015 and all other countries have laws against hate speech along with laws against other forms of speech which violate basic human rights. "

First, this is simply false., so it's ignorant twaddle. And second, it's very teenagerish, with an appeal to "But everyone's doing it!!".

And third, I think her name is hate speech.

And Cousin Dave is spot on about her exhibitionism.

Oh my God, it's even stupider than you suggest. She advocates outlawing climate denial, gun rights advocacy, speech that undermines the authority of the state.

Poe. This has got to be satire, right?

Who cares? I hope she's offended that I don't. There's no shortage of self-important idiots.

"Tanya Cohen" has no Internet trail dating before 2015.

This is satire.

Cake will be outlawed.

Bacon will be outlawed.

Files...okay, I might be able to bring you a file. But it'll be owned by the state.

She is reportedly this person who has apparently been posting on reddit for a year: http://www.reddit.com/user/DreamBug

America needs to pass basic human rights legislation – such as a Human Rights Act – that outlaws, among other things:

18. Speech which is found to be blasphemous towards minority religions.

Since the religion is usually the arbiter of what is "blaspehmous," she would ban any speech a "minority" religion finds offensive.

I guess, by her standard, the majority religions are fair game. Since she lives in a majority-Christian nation, one wonders if her benevolent attitude toward "minority" religions is true benevolence or disguised animosity toward Christianity.

This also makes one wonder what she thinks of the solution to blasphemy applied by three young Muslims in Paris recently.

It's violence (with a gun, no less), which she professes to hate, but the magazine was blasphemous to a minority religion....