Belief versus Expression

[steepholm]

This is a question that has long bothered me, but not enough to research the answer.

Let's say you live in a country with strong libel or hate-speech laws. If you write, for example, "X is a racist", and X has the resources to take matters further, you may well find yourself on the wrong end of a libel suit.

But, there is no law against having particular beliefs or thoughts. You're still allowed to believe that X is a racist, even if you can't write "X is a racist" in a newspaper without getting sued.

So, what about writing the sentence "I believe that X is a racist"?

It's a factual statement, and the fact that it reports on is unactionable (because it's a belief, not a statement). So, why do I get the feeling that X might still sue, and win?

Or, if X wouldn't win, why don't people use the tactic of prepending "I believe" (or equivalent) to every otherwise-actionable statement all the time, like some legal version of Simon Says?

I assume this is a matter that has already been well trodden by lawyers, and maybe philosophers too (phrases like "use-mention distinction" and "performative language" are going through my head even now), but what conclusion have they come to?

Comments

[jadelennox]

But if they answered any relevant question, they were held to have forfeited their Fifth Amendment rights and had to answer all other questions.

That is still true, I believe, per multiple SCOTUS opinions.

That's why it's always shut the fuck up friday.

So I wondered why nobody tried the tactic from an old Frank R. Stockton story about a man conversing with a sphinx

Because the courts will hold against you if you do that. A US judge is not going to be stymied by this One Cool Trick to protect your rights, because they never have.