OT (????) Freedom of Speech

Whistle
1

I thought I’d celebrate my 100th post by starting a new thread on something I’ve been thinking about a bit lately … and maybe some of you have been too. But first let me apologise for getting to 100 so quickly.

Being pretty liberal, at least for a marsupial, I’ve always defended freedom of speech. I think I still believe in it but I’ve been wondering for a while how I’d defend it against a really clever opponent. I’ll state my puzzle as briefly as I can.

Someone famous whose identity escapes me once said something like this: I loath what your saying but I’d defend to the death you’re right to say it. Now Wombat isn’t quite that liberal but I kind of liked the sentiment though. But speech is action and you can do with speech just about anything you can do with other forms of action. To illustrate: if I hand a hit man $10,000 (is that the going rate?) and say ‘Kill my wife.’ that’s murder and will be treated as such if I get caught—I don’t have to pull the trigger. So the stock Millian liberal defence of freedom for all harmless kinds of act doesn’t work for harmful speech at all.

Now lets try the slogan for all kinds of acts: I loath what you’re doing but would defend to the death your right to do it. Are you kidding. Would anyone be loony enough to say that?

OK folks: what’s so special about speech then?

[ This Message was edited by: Wombat on 2002-10-06 13:55 ]

2

I think it’s advocacy that’s
special, if anything is special.
So, for Mill, I’m entitled to
claim this or that, or advocate
that we should do this or that,
at least under circumstances
where people have a choice
whether or not to listen
and also are in a position
to consider what I say
critically. Crying ‘Fire!’
in the movie theater is out,
publishing a pamphlet denying
the Holocaust is in.

But why exactly such acts
of advocacy are a right
is another matter.

3

On 2002-10-06 14:15, jim stone wrote:
I think it’s advocacy that’s
special, if anything is special.
So, for Mill, I’m entitled to
claim this or that, or advocate
that we should do this or that,
at least under circumstances
where people have a choice
whether or not to listen
and also are in a position
to consider what I say
critically. Crying ‘Fire!’
in the movie theater is out,
publishing a pamphlet denying
the Holocaust is in.

But why exactly such acts
of advocacy are a right
is another matter.

I think I agree, Jim, although that Holocaust one really bothers me. A lot of people believe it. It was the ‘why’ question that really puzzles me though.

4

Posted: 2002-10-06 13:45

Now lets try the slogan for all kinds of acts: I loath what you’re doing but would defend to the death your right to do it. Are you kidding. Would anyone be loony enough to say that?

OK folks: what’s so special about speech then?

Hi Wombat-

Congratulations on your 100th post. Great subject! In our country, a lot of people did just that (died for freedoms) during the Revolutionary War. (By the way, I know that y’all also have freedom of speech in Australia. K?). They fought for the freedom of all the American people. (Now you can easily launch into a big to do about slaves and the Native Americans but lets not go there. That is another worthwile subject all together). The quotation that you have put in your post is really meant to illustrate just how important the freedom of speech is to us. Kind of like when Patrick Henry said “give me liberty or give me death” He wasn’t looking for someone to say “you can’t have freedom” and then shoot him in the head. He was making a point. The point being that he would rather not live at all than not live free. He was serious about it. That’s the American spirit. I guess that you could call us martyrs for free speech (and other things). It is a big part of what defines us and we can’t imagine living in a place with rules that prohibit free speech.

Many of us have proudly died for it and I imagine that we will continue to do so as long as we are a nation and there is a threat (real or perceived) to that freedom (or any others). You see, the thing is that we can’t imagine why ANYONE would NOT want to have the right to say what they want when they want. So anyway, when you hear “I loathe what you’re doing but will defend to the death your right to do it” It is figurative, but serious at the same time.

Now your illustration about the man contracting with the hit-man to kill his wife brings to mind the most important thing about freedom of speech. Freedom of speech, and other freedoms come with an unwritten disclaimer… The people entrusted with such freedoms must exercise responsibility. This doesn’t always happen and as a result people often argue about the semantics of it all and new rules get made and so on and so on… So, if we’re not careful the freedom of speech gets slowly whittled away bit by bit…

Slan
-Paul

5

On 2002-10-06 14:32, Paul wrote:
Posted: 2002-10-06 13:45
---------------------------------------------- So anyway, when you hear “I loathe what you’re doing but will defend to the death your right to do it” It is figurative, but serious at the same time.

Slan
-Paul

Thanks for the kind remarks Paul. I’ll just make a couple of comments and then just leave others to get on with it. (As Dale said recently on a similar kind of thread: I really want to know.)

I started this thread for three reasons.

  1. I really want to know.
  2. I know how big this issue is in the States and there are a lot of Americans here who must have thought about it.
  3. There’s been a lot of stuff on other threads lately that perhaps some members would like to have seen suppressed.

I’m not sure about the literal/figurative distinction helping me here but I wonder whether you would make exceptions to the slogan, Paul, and, if so, where and why? Would you have said that to Timothy McVeigh if you’d known what he was planning? That’s the sort of case I had in mind when I said that no one would take the generalised slogan seriously but I would be surprised if someone doesn’t try to defend it (meant literally). Radical libertarians do exist.

cheers

6

On 2002-10-06 13:45, Wombat wrote:


Someone famous whose identity escapes me once said something like this: I loath what your saying but I’d defend to the death you’re right to say it.

That statement is attributed to Voltaire. But to keep this as short as I can (I’m posting less and less with each passing week), I think one of the key elements of the value of free speech is that you have to allow a thousand space cadets claiming there was no holocaust, to get one Galileo saying “Hey, I don’t think the sun revolves around the earth. It’s the other way around.” If you restrict one, you restrict all, and our innovators’ greatest contributions would then be saying “Would you like fries with that?”

If we say the Ku Klux Klan can’t hold a march because we’re going to restrict the freedom of expression of bad people, then where do we draw the line between bad people and good ones? Half this board would be saying the other half shouldn’t get to say what they want because it’s bad. And none of us are qualified to decide which of the others are bad. So the only way to allow the good folks to speak is to allow everyone to speak.

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  1. Without it we’d be living in some horribly repressive place.

  2. Without it, I would not be able to play my whistle in the streets of Deadwood at all.

  3. Without, it I would not be able to cuss at nasty old ladies when they poke me in the arse with their umbrellas.

  4. Without it, I think I’d be dumb as a post becasue there would be nothing to have an opinion about.

But then again, it’s only an idea, unless you like a nude bars and strip clubs in your neighborhood!

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“Once governments are given the authority to restrict the liberty of some sane adults for what it considers their physical or moral welfare, there is no principled stopping point in terms of what governments will have the authority to prohibit. The consequence will be that virtually anything which anyone holds of most value may become prohibited to them on grounds of its being judged immoral or dangerous to them. There are practically no forms of activity in which sane adults like to engage that others are not able to find reasons to condemn as morally or physically bad for those who engage in them. This ranges from drinking alcohol and smoking tobacco, to eating certain types of food, to not taking exercise, to taking too much, engaging in dangerous sports, practising certain religions, not practising any religion, reading books on science, etc. Unless government draws the line at only prohibiting conduct that harms others against their will, no member of society can be secure in being able to do or have anything they most want and value.” --David Conway

“He is always the severest censor of the merit of others who has the least worth of his own.” – Elias Lyman Maggon

“If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.” - Isaac Asimov

“In Germany they first came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.” – Martin Niemoller

“The only freedom which counts is the freedom to do what some other people think to be wrong. There is no point in demanding freedom to do that which all will applaud. All the so-called liberties or rights are things which have to be asserted against others who claim that if such things are to be allowed their own rights are infringed or their own liberties threatened. This is always true, even when we speak of the freedom to worship, of the right of free speech or association, or of public assembly. If we are to allow freedoms at all there will constantly be complaints that either the liberty itself or the way in which it is exercised is being abused, and, if it is a genuine freedom, these complaints will often be justified. There is no way of having a free society in which there is not abuse. Abuse is the very hallmark of liberty.” – Former Lord Chief Justice Halisham

“At the end of the day, freedom of thought is dependant upon freedom of speech. Conception of thought and articulation of thought are codependant; if one is removed the other steadily weakens into atrophy.” – James Peeples

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I wouldn’t at all say that (at least in the US) freedom of speech is a liberal issue. Most self-professed liberals I know are of the “Of course I believe in freedom of speech BUT. . .”. Most of the self-professed conservatives I know are just a little bit more honest about it. The differences between the two camps are both in the way they couch their arguments and in what they want to censor.

But back to topic at hand. There’s another quote, possibly also from Voltaire, but I really don’t know who said it (OW Holmes would be another possibility): “Your freedom to swing your fist stops at the end of my nose.” I think of freedom of speech in the same terms. There’s a difference between saying “I hate all Australians,” and saying “Go kill that Aussie and I’ll give you five hundred bucks.” The latter is intended to lead to a crime, whereas the former is a general statement.

I really have a problem with the countries that prosecute people for saying the Holocaust didn’t happen. The Flat-Earth Society denies that men walked on the moon – should we prosecute them too? I’m not saying that those views are valid, but I think that silencing people by putting them in jail is much less effective than confronting them with valid views.

10

Would you have said that to Timothy McVeigh if you’d known what he was planning? That’s the sort of case I had in mind when I said that no one would take the generalised slogan seriously but I would be surprised if someone doesn’t try to defend it

K Wombat… Great question. This is just the kind of thing that keeps coming up over here in the U.S. It bothers me and a lot of other people. There are actually groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) who might actually argue in favor of someone like McVeigh. Not for what he did but for what he said. They would argue his point to the horror and embarassment of most Americans, including me, for the sake of protecting the First Ammendment (Right to free speech).

As strange as it sounds, you have to try and understand… mcveigh and his ilk have the right to assemble and say what they will about or against the government or whatever. They can scream it into a megaphone while standing on the street in front of your home or business. If they are too loud, you can call the cops and have them hauled in for disturbing the peace But not for their beliefs. If they have a bookstore then you have the right to not go into it if you don’t want to. Blowing up buildings and/or killing people is a different thing all together.

If mcveigh was in a bar and started talking s**t about he’s going to blow up this building or that one and kill these or those people for whatever psycho reason he had it is the responsibility of anyone who hears his rants to report him to the authorities. If Timothy McVeigh had told me that he was planning to blow up anything whatsoever for any reason at all I wouldn’t have said a word to him. I would have reported him to the myself. There is no doubt that there are many law-abiding Americans who upon hearing of his intentions would have reached into their pocket/shoulder holster/waistband/sock or whatever and pulled out a legally lisenced loaded handgun and dispensed with the likes of timothy mcveigh on the spot! :slight_smile:

What mcveigh did has nothing to do with free speech. Wombat, there are those who would argue against that, (like the aclu) but they are only using semantics, micro-management of words, and taking statements out of context in order to win a battle that will only contribute to the ultimate loss of the war.

Free speech can only be only good if those who exercise it do so with responsibility. … (see reasonable person prinicple above :slight_smile: )




BTW I purposely did not capitalize mcveighs name or the aclu. Just a little exercise in free speech. :smiley:


Slan
-Paul


P.S.
This was my 100th post! :slight_smile:

[ This Message was edited by: paul on 2002-10-06 19:51 ]

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Vocal communication was first introduced over 35,000 years ago by the late neanderthals, sophisticated by the Cro Magnon, and modified by all those who came after until here we are today. At that first moment, the very first time that primal human refined a grunt to mean something, everything changed. But think about before then. How did our ancient ancestors communicate their basic needs? We still have a form of it today: sign language. My point is that communication cannot be supressed any more than that one way of it, verbal speech, can. Even if the government told us, oh, no talking–no signing–no writing.. human beings would adapt to fine-tune expressions or whatever else into communication. Because we couldn’t survive otherwise.
On top of that, would we really prefer–I’ll use blackhawk’s example-- the KKK to work in complete silence and secrecy? It seems to me that though sometimes feelings may be hurt because of it, free speech also helps to prevent possible calamaties. Of course I can’t think up any real good examples to cement that, but go with me here. :slight_smile:
Um.. and so therefore, I believe that trying to supress verbal communication is not only fruitless, but also potentially dangerous. Aaaaand scene!

12

Here’s my two cents. Mill
argued that it’s best to
let people advocate what
they please, even falsehoods,
because sooner or later
we’ll learn that the
falsehood is false–which
is worth the trouble. Human
knowledge marches on.

That’s a weak argument, I think.
Suppose I write a book maintaining
that Jews cut the throats of
Gentile children to use their
blood in the Passover matzah.
This finds widespread approval,
which leads to pograms in which
thousands are killed. Finally
we learn that Jews don’t do
that. Was it worth the trouble?
Well, no. We learn at a terrible
price that something idiotic is false
that nobody would have
ever even thought of if I
hadn’t advocated it.

Similarly the Millian idea
that once governments have the
power to restrict what sane
adults do for the sake of their
safety or well being, sooner
or later we will lose all
our freedom–which is certainly
attractive–seems too
broad. It would mean that
there shouldn’t be seat belt
laws, that it should be
legal to fry your mind on
LSD, to take heroin, etc.

There are, of course, people
who think that such laws
are indeed a mistake; still most of
us don’t view seatbelt laws
as bad or figure that our
freedoms are at risk because
of them.

The idea that without the
freedom of speech we would live
in a repressive place is also
attractive–still the freedom
of speech has been compromised
in Germany, where it’s illegal
to deny the Holocaust happened,
but Germany isn’t a repressive
place to live. Indeed, I believe
more opinions are expressed there
more freely than in the USA.

The argument that we’ve got to
let a hundred zanies deny the
Holocaust so that
one Galileo can express the truth
has a lot of force, I think.
To prohibit one is to prohibit
all. But only certain views are
prohibited in Germany, not all.
Galileo would have no trouble
in Germany, and it’s unlikely
that this is the beginning of
a general curtailment
of free speech there.

It’s risky, certainly,
to prohibit particular speech–
it sets a dangerous precedent–
but it doesn’t necessarily
lead to large scale
prohibition. It’s also risky sometimes
not to prohibit some speech–surely
Germany is trying to stop the rise
of Neo-Nazism, and letting a hundred
people deny the Holocaust and
say whatever about the Jews
could lead to some very bad things.

Once we’re weighing risks against
one another, it isn’t so clear
that prohibiting the expression
of certain views will always
be the more risky option. There
are other social values that
deserve protection–like protecting
the lives of minorities.

So if there is a fundamental
moral basis for a right to
express your views, it must
flow from another source,
I think. And the only place
I can find that is in the Kantian
idea (the Enlightenment idea) that
human beings have a special worth
on account of our being autonomous
agents, with minds of our own,
who have the ability to decide
for themselves what they want
and how they will think.

That
special worth is called dignity,
and the measure of a society
is that it will respect dignity
even when it isn’t useful to
society to do it, even when
we would be better off if
someone’s dignity wasn’t
respected.

Not to
let people say what
they think, is innapropriate
for the same reason
that it’s innapropriate
to enslave people–
it’s wrong to treat creatures
with minds of their own
that way.

One thing that Mill said that
I really like is that the
principal constraint on
our freedom doesn’t flow
from law but from social
expectations and norms.
At the moment there
isn’t much free speech
in the USA, not because
it’s illegal, but
because it’s considered
unpatriotic.

A society
with constitutional
guarantees may be more
repressive of freedoms
than one without them.

That’s what I think, anyway,
about the important question
you raised. Thanks,

[ This Message was edited by: jim stone on 2002-10-07 03:11 ]

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Sorry guys…too much reading for me. I’m tired.. z z z z z z z z z. . .

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Jim Stone, you said a mouthful. And while I disagree on several points, I will defend to the point of bruises and scrapes your right to make those points.

There are limitations to our right to free speech here in the good old U. S. of A., and they aren’t all just social norms, some of them are law. The laws on slander and libel, for instance, protect against malicious falsehoods like your example about the Jews and matzoh lie. We also have the hate crimes laws, which prohibit free speech during the commission of a crime. Look at it this way: if I kill a person, I might get 20 years to life in a state prison. If I call the person a name that could be considered derogatory of their race, gender or religious affiliation during the commission of that murder, I violated their civil rights and could be successfully charged with a hate crime and have to serve a longer sentence.

If we silences the unpopular opinions, radical extremists like neo-nazis would simply be silent. I’d rather let them have their rallies right out in the streets, where I can see exactly who they are and what they might be capable of.

Benjamin Franklin said that those who would sacrifice precious liberty for temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security. He probably wasn’t thinking of seat belts, but he was thinking of many of the rights that the ACLU protects for us. But on the subject of seat belts (and motorcycle helmets, smoke alarms, weapons, street drugs, extreme sports, whatever) I think I should have the right to use my own intelligence to weigh the risks and benefits (I’m also kind of a social Darwinist). Most of these government decision make me feel like they think we’re all children and can’t think for ourselves. The reality is that our legislatures are pressured into denying us these freedoms by the insurance lobby and other corporate interests.

On 2002-10-06 22:25, jim stone wrote:

The measure of a society
is that it will respect dignity
even when it isn’t useful to
society to do it, even when
we would be better off if
someone’s dignity wasn’t
respected. Respect for
dignity has a very high
priority in a good society,
which therefore ought to
be a democracy.

Not to
let people say what
they think, is innapropriate
for the same reason
that it’s innapropriate
to enslave people–
it’s wrong to treat creatures
with minds of their own
that way.

One thing that Mill said that
I really like is that the
principal constraint on
our freedom doesn’t flow
from law but from social
expectations and norms.
At the moment there
isn’t much free speech
in the USA, not because
it’s illegal, but
because it’s considered
unpatriotic. A society
with constitutional
guarantees may be more
repressive of freedoms
than one without them.

Amen to all of that. Opposition to going to war is rapidly becoming considered unpatriotic here. Being though of as unpatriotic is not a safe thing right now. Lots of folks are still really angry about last year’s events.

I have a habit of asking anyone who expresses a desire to go to war, “Are you willing to have your children go to Iraq and die for this cause? Are you willing to give your own life for this cause?” Since most people who want to go to war really just want to vent their anger about the events of last September 11, they don’t really think it’s cause enough to sacrifice their own life or the lives of their children. The war seems like an attractive idea to many people IN THE ABSTRACT, but when you think about the reality of our own children dying over there, it doesn’t seem like such a good idea anymore. Well, when I say this, I get accused of being unpatriotic or wimpy, of cowtowing to terrorism, etc. It makes people angry to make them think about this.

Anyway, I’ll bring this rambling expression of my freedom of speech to a close. I continue to keep all of you good people in my prayers.

Jim

15

Kudos to you for
speaking your mind! I never
liked Al Gore, but I was
struck by his courage in
criticizing the administration
when it’s so dangerous
politically to do so. I honestly
don’t know from one day to
the next what to make of
our present foreign policy,
but we’d bloody well better
start talking about it! But
not here, of course.

Thanks for your prayers, which
are much appreciated. Best, Jim

16

On 2002-10-06 17:40, Anna Martinez wrote:
3. Without, it I would not be able to cuss at nasty old ladies when they poke me in the arse with their umbrellas.

Seriously? Or is this just making a point? Because if you’ve really had this happen, I’d say the old ladies got off the hook too easily. I’d be ready to snatch the umbrella and feed it to the old bat. That’s not say that I’d really do it…

Anyway, Wombat, on the point of defending someone’s right to do something you loathe, I can come up with many examples, such as listening to Wayne Newton, or singing in a performance of South Pacific. Those things are thoroughly loathesome to me, but other people? They can have it. I demand your right to yodel, to watch The Land Before Time VII, to drive a Suburban (well, maybe not… anyway…).

Similarly, the right to vote as you choose. I found Bill Clinton loathesome. From the start. All that charm they said he had, back in 1991, I didn’t see… he was uglier’n homemade soup, and phony like most politicians. And anyone who wanted to vote for him had that right, and we needed to support whichever man won. Didn’t do us much good in his case, but we tried.

17

On 2002-10-07 03:02, jim stone wrote:

Kudos to you for
speaking your mind! I never
liked Al Gore, but I was
struck by his courage in
criticizing the administration
when it’s so dangerous
politically to do so. I honestly
don’t know from one day to
the next what to make of
our present foreign policy,
but we’d bloody well better
start talking about it! But
not here, of course.

Thanks for your prayers, which
are much appreciated. Best, Jim

I don’t think his criticism of Bush has anything to do with courage. He’s so out of touch with reality that he thinks he’s doing the popular thing. If he had any idea how ridiculous he looks to the average American, he’d shut up in a heartbeat.

18

On 2002-10-07 04:36, blackhawk wrote:


I don’t think his criticism of Bush has anything to do with courage. He’s so out of touch with reality that he thinks he’s doing the popular thing. If he had any idea how ridiculous he looks to the average American, he’d shut up in a heartbeat.

And yet, there is something disturbingly sane about him, in the point of view of non-Americans…

19

On 2002-10-07 05:13, Andreas wrote:

On 2002-10-07 04:36, blackhawk wrote:


I don’t think his criticism of Bush has anything to do with courage. He’s so out of touch with reality that he thinks he’s doing the popular thing. If he had any idea how ridiculous he looks to the average American, he’d shut up in a heartbeat.

And yet, there is something disturbingly sane about him, in the point of view of non-Americans…

Well, I guess the guy who invented the internet can’t be all bad. And I know the Chinese liked him enough to give him lots of money, so you must be right.

20

The right to exercise the freedom of speech, after having been involuntarily stifled for much of the past year, is resurfacing again, whether what is being said is popular or not. Though I may not currently agree with what Al Gore is saying, a dissenting voice is desperately needed in America at this time as we watch our bumbling country bumpkin of a President change his tactics in the “War on Terrorism” almost on a daily basis. His only saving grace is that he has some very astute political minds in his administration, if only he will listen to them and comprehend what they are saying.

And I watch with amusement those (insert your own expletive) “antiwar” protesters out in the streets, wondering if they realize how fortunate they are that they weren’t doing what they’re doing 35 years ago, when the same actions resulted in physical brutality and (on the campus of Kent State) out and out murder. But I digress.

To me, freedom of speech is one of our most cherished rights in America and must be defended at all costs.

My $.02 worth.