Moderator Note: I did a small edit to Steve's sub line, at his request, and therefore made the same edit in every reply. That is why all respondents so far will see an indication of a mod edit in their post. That is the explanation - and nothing else was changed in any of the posts (nor in Steve's).
... the fundamental necessity of free speech in open societies. In fact, one cannot have any real operatives sense or breadth of personal freedom unless they have a bedrock right to free expression, no matter how much some people may not want to hear the expressions.
In my line of work in the arena of public commentary, I hear from complainers all the time who demand that I shut up, fall in line, and go along with the majority. Otherwise, they don't want to hesr it. Many of them honestly believe that once they've told the contrarian ro shut up, that person has an obligation as an American to oblige. Really? Tell that to the colonists.
And when I haven't agreed to critics' demands that I publicly apologize for expressing my opinions that they deem to be unacceptably "offensive," or to their demands that I shut up and sit down, they have responded by telling me I should be fired, have demanded of my supervisors that I'd be fired, and that IB forced to leave the country.
I respond that perhaps they should be the ones to leave the country//perhaps relocating to Russia, China or North Korea, where editorial cartoons critical of the government is not tolerated--and where offenders are punished and their newspapers shut down.
(I've also rrceivrd death threats, as well as threats directed at my family, along with police protection. All over my constitutional right to free speech).
Good lord, this is a no-brainer--one that shouldn't me mystically profound. It should be patently obvious.
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 01/02/2017 07:18AM by steve benson.
steve benson Wrote: -------------------------------------------------------
> Many of them honestly believe > that once they've told the contrarian ro shut up, > that person has an obligation as an American to > oblige. Really? Tell that to the colonists. > Really? Tell that to the Native Americans. But then as your grandad and the rest of Gods chosen tell us. America was taken from the loathsome dark skinned Lamanites and given to the white and delightsome dudes. One of the kindest genosides blamed on the Christian God.
If people do not want to hear something, chances are likely that they WILL not hear it, at least in the way you intend it, and in fact probably won't even listen. If that's even partially the case, that it won't open their minds and bring them to their knees,'who' are you saying it for? For them, with their predictably defensive reaction, ...or for yourself? Again, why do you want to say it? What will the results be? The "freedom" to say whatever you want carries relational and social responsibilities.
I'm not talking Gandhi or Martin Luther King, who were addressing wider audiences, but people in their daily interpersonal communication.
You think for a moment--and preferably longer. People may not want to hear something and, in fact, don't have to listen to it if they don't want to hear it.
However, the person who is speaking has the right to tell them what they don't want to hear. It's called free speech. Without free speech as a fundamental right, all other rights become vulnerable, if not eventually non-existent. It is because of free speech, that citizens have the right to peaceably assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances. That's the fountainhead. It's the stuff that First Anendments are made of. It's not a profound concept. It's a basic, self-evident human right, from which all other rights arguably flow.
The US Supreme Court--regardless of ideological differences among the individual justices--has been remarkably and consistently aligned over the years in issuing decisions in behalf of free speech thst sre solid and uncompromising. It has even declared--twice now--that It is a constitutionally-protected form of speech to burn the American flag.
Orwell was correct--and he was British, living in a country that attempted to suppress free speech in the American colonies and which, to this day, does not even have a written constitution of its own (at least not anything like the US does). Hell, in Britain there was even a controversy over whether or not to build a monument in his honor outside the offices of the government-owned BBC, where he worked as a reporter during WW Ii.
Orwell got it. I'm surprised you don't. In the name of your amorphus, open-ended, nebulous notion of "social responsibility," any speech can be suppressed if the government so chooses.
Welcome to 1984.
Edited 7 time(s). Last edit at 01/02/2017 06:47AM by steve benson.
I understand how being an editorial cartoonist requires you to be thick-skinned if not downright impervious to others' reactions. And no, I am not at all in support of social or governmental suppression of dissidents. But it's a different story in terms of one-on-one interpersonal communication where it's a two-way street and one needs to be keenly aware of how others will take things.
It's in that private sphere where the Orwell line certainly needs qualification.
what about telling people what they DO want to hear, even though it's a lie? It may be legal, but is it moral? Is "freedom" not to be guided by morals or even constrained by facts?
And, of course, what is "socially responsible" is a matter of private opinion.
The trouble is that too many people want to impose their private opinions on others, in the form of censorship, firings, banishment and government control.
I see this on a regular basis in the course of my dsily work.
It underscores what Alexander Hamilton said during the Constitutional Convention (the proceedings of which were closed to the general public):
"The masses are asses."
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/02/2017 07:25PM by steve benson.
There is another side to the free speech issue. Going all the way to gradeschool, I remember seeing a film (yes, a film and not a video) where a young man in a Nazi uniform approached an elderly jewish woman - apparently a holocost victem - on a downtown street somewhere in the US. He yelled pro nazi things in her face and told her that she should be killed. She collapsed. Then the film ended and the lights went on. Did the young man have a right to do what he did by virtue of free speech?
I think the laws should allow any military veteran to ask anyone who is burning an American flag to stop doing it, at which point that person is bound by law to stop. For myself and others who didn't serve, it may be repugnant. But those individuals have that right to free expression whether or not we agree with them. For those who served their country, I think they deserve that special privilege to put a stop to it. Whether or not it would be enforcable all of the time isn't the point.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/03/2017 09:29AM by azsteve.
azsteve Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I think the laws should allow any military veteran > to ask anyone who is burning an American flag to > stop doing it, at which point that person is bound > by law to stop. For myself and others who didn't > serve, it may be repugnant. But those individuals > have that right to free expression whether or not > we agree with them. For those who served their > country, I think they deserve that special > privilege to put a stop to it.
"Special privilege" isn't equal rights under the law, and is the beginning of oppression.
I thank those who serve our country in the military. And as police officers. And fire fighters. And civil servants. And many others. Their "service" does not give them any special privileges. It certainly doesn't give them the right to demand that people stop doing things because they don't like them or they're "offended." Their service was in the cause of a free country, not in the cause of one that denies people free speech because some "privileged" group doesn't like what they say or do.