Tag Archives: Freedom of speech

Abhorrent Speech is Still Free Speech


Posted by Omnipotent Poobah

WHIPPIN’ UP FREE SPEECH – The Constitution doesn’t say a word about whether free speech has to be smart speech or inoffensive speech. it just says speech is free, even if some do decide to push the limits.

When it comes to the First Amendment, I’m a fundamentalist. First, I believe all other constitutional rights flow from the First. For example, you can’t have a Second Amendment without the First. Freedom of speech has to be fair and truly free for the gun opposition to debate their points and for the NRA to debate theirs. Without that back and forth, neither side could bring out valid points they each have. Laws without debate come out more flawed.

Second, for speech to be truly free it has to be unencumbered. There’s nothing in the First Amendment about speech not being stupid. People will do and say many things I think are outrageous, but that’s my opinion, not a certifiable fact. There is no easy way to determine what is truly over the top vs. just ignorant or offensive.

A local Tea Party group has a parade float depicting an Obama effigy wielding a whip against a prostrate figure known as “future taxpayer”. Not surprisingly, many have condemned it as hateful, racist speech. As someone who finds almost every stance by the Tea Party abhorrent, I tend to agree. However, I’m not sure my opinion would be different, even if someone else were sponsoring it.

It’s About Accountability?
The head of the group that sponsors the float said, “It’s ridiculous when people say it is racism. It has nothing to do with that. We need accountability.” In fact, the local NAACP agrees, “A lot of people will see it in different ways. I don’t see it as being racist.”

I’m not sure how the float makes anyone accountable, so I’m, perhaps, not as forgiving as the local NAACP. But, it doesn’t really matter whether I think its racist. As the NAACP spokesperson said, viva la difference. Whether it is racist depends on your opinion, not on what I think.

But don’t be surprised if someone attacks you as a racist when you’re on thin ice, which is where the floaters seem to be. It’s their opinion and both sides have free rhetorical reign to swing away.

Or, take the recent apology from the Portland, ME Press Herald for a front page, upbeat story on Muslims celebrating the end of Ramadan – coming this year on 9/11. Tempers flared. One reader commented, “I don’t want to here [sic] how caring the Muslim religion is on 9/11.”

Fair enough, but I’d wager Muslims are pretty sic [sic] of hearing about Muslim mosques supposedly from hell, filled with people who have no value for human life.

Gutless Apology
The paper took a rather gutless approach, I think, by apologizing for not presenting a story showing the opposing view. Not everything requires an opposing view and no one is obliged to offer one. That’s why some people watch Fox and others watch MSNBC. Not only do those “news” outlets not present opposing views, they frequently and vociferously shut them down whenever possible. Besides, I’d wager the Mainiac reader would’ve been just as offended by the Muslim view, even if a Christian view appeared directly alongside.

As for lies, it’s a tough call – that’s why slander and libel suits are notoriously hard to win. Most cases of this type aren’t about truth and falsehood, but the wide band of subjective truthiness that fills the gulf between them. One person’s “fact” is another’s “opinion” and inconclusively determining where a lie came from is damnably hard. Admissibility tends to default to “free” in the truest form of the word. This is as it should be.

Holding a fundamentalist view of the First is sometimes a retching, clothes pin-on-the-nose  job. You find yourself defending people who can and do say the most crapweaselish things, but even the crapweasels deserve their day. They deserve it because if we limit them today, someone will eventually come along to limit us tomorrow. The day we prohibit abhorrent speech is the day we can kiss the rest of our freedoms goodbye.

Kiss very freely, you understand.

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At the Tipping Point of Free Speech and Deadly Speech


Posted by Omnipotent Poobah

CULTURE CLASH OR COULTER CLASH? - Students at Ottawa University go nose-to-nose and toe-to-toe over a scheduled speech by Ann Coulter. Is Colter's dog and pony show over the edge of the free expression tipping point?

Update Even Crapweasels Get First Amendment Protection

At the outset, let me make something clear. I’ve never heard a statement from Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin, or John Yoo that I didn’t think was the planet’s biggest bucket of elephant slop. But at the convergence of this Triumvirate of Twits is an example of how our nation is close to the tipping point between deadly expression and free expression.

Ann Coulter is the doyen of the teabagger set and the most outrageous of the three. Her diatribes are an uninterrupted string of vitriol and hate specifically designed to provoke. It’s a winning situation too. She can turn out books like the Keebler elves turn out cookies and clean up.

Recently, protesters turned up to prevent her from speaking at the University of Ottawa. That should be no surprise. Mixed in amongst her usual racist, homophobic, liberal paranoia she took time to call out the entire nation of Canada a few years back. Canada has “become trouble,” in her words. “They better hope the United States doesn’t roll over one night and crush them. They’re lucky they’re allowed to be on the same continent as the United States.”

Canada?! I mean, WTF.

To the Left of Atilla the Hun Divorce Lawyer
On the other hand, Jon Yoo is professorial in comparison. He’s generally quiet, but defends actions and interprets laws in maddening ways that baffle any lawyer to the left of Attila the Hun’s divorce attorney. But, his mild-mannered appearance didn’t stop hecklers from shouting during a speech at the University of Virginia. He finished the speech, but not before several people we’re fired up enough to be carried away by the local constabulary.

Then, there’s sexy schoolmarm, Sarah. She’s leaping aboard the obstructionism bandwagon, saying, “Commonsense Conservatives and lovers of America: Don’t retreat, instead – RELOAD!”

These three are cardboard cutouts of real people. I’m confident Coulter would “hate” anyone she could make a buck from – hate being an emotion far outside her grapes to raisins repertoire.

Yoo is a mere lackey who follows orders without much thought or emotion. “John, I need a legal reason to invade Canada because Annie hates the place,” Dick Cheney might have asked. “Yessir Mr. Vice Emperor. I’ll have it by Tuesday.”

Sarah is a bubblehead. I’m sure she doesn’t mean for people to actually take guns and shoot people because that would mean fewer people on the street to pay attention to her preening – regardless of whether the attention is good or bad.

I’m a fervent believer in the First Amendment. I believe everyone – even the asshats, crapweasels, and miscreant among us – has the right to say what they want, even if I think it’s a load of hogswallop. In fact, precisely BECAUSE they have an unpopular message. The measure of a democracy is how it treats it least desirable citizens. To do less would be to invite the fringe to take become the majority.

‘Reload’ and Hand Out the Ammo
However, unrestricted freedom of expression assumes the speaker has some modicum of self-control – for example, not saying “reload” and then handing out the bullets. It assumes messages will stay generic enough to avoid overly inciting the daft to unwanted shenanigans.

I don’t think you could make an argument that any of these people’s statements is specific in of itself, but you could make a valid argument they amp up the vitriol to the point where the violently-inclined begin to think it’s safe to act out the throwaway lines off unthinking, self-aggrandizing blowhards. But, where is the line? Which statement is the tipping point between absurdist trifle and calls to action received via tin-foil hat?

I’ve still not given up on unrestricted free speech. It’s too important. However, I know that unless people try to dampen their, um, “enthusiasm”, the protests of the 60s and 70s will look like a gaggle of stoners too high to do anything other than stick daisies in gun barrels. There will be real violence, destruction, and death.

It’s a times like these that freedom becomes more than a 200-year old theory and it’s a damn shame everyone can’t be at least a little responsible for their actions.

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To Smite or Not to Smite Westboro, That is the Question


Posted by Omnipotent Poobah
SMITE THEM GOD, SMITE THEM - Westboro's God Hates Fags campaign is an embarrassment to humanity. Yet they have the right to make idiots of themselves. Even if we do want to smack them down.

SMITE THEM GOD, SMITE THEM - Westboro's God Hates Fags campaign is an embarrassment to humanity. Yet they have the right to make idiots of themselves...even if we do want to smack them down.

There are few things as repugnant as Westboro Baptist’s “God Hates Fags” screeds at military funerals. It’s an understandable impulse to want to thump these yahoos to within an inch of their putrid lives, but if you do, expect to do some time in the pokey. Free speech is allowed, violence isn’t.

The Supreme Court will soon hear the question of whether free speech protections cover Westboro’s lunatic fringing. It’ll be interesting to see how it goes.

Cases like this pose a constitutional dilemma. For the most part – save the whole “shouting fire in a crowded theatre” question – I favor letting people say what they want. Free speech doesn’t mean free to anyone I don’t think is stupid, rude, or just plain wrong. It means free…for everyone…even if they are ignorant pootieheads.

Defending the Rights of the Asshatted
I recently defended the right of gay rights opponents to say what they want and received some not unexpected fallout for my trouble. Several commenters took a zero-tolerance line – they said it’s never OK to oppose anything as important as gay rights…period. However, you could just as easily turn that around to say it’s never OK for Republicans to speak either. No matter how much I fantasize about stopping their unending, infernal chants of NO it would be clearly unconstitutional and just plain wrong. The offense in Westboro’s case owes a lot to where you and your opponents stand.

The Constitution presupposes there is someone on either side who is rational and feels as strongly about others’ rights as they do their own. It assumes these people will speak and not poke each other in the nose. It assumes that words don’t cause permanent damage regardless of how insulting and wrong you may feel they are.

But cases like the Westboro Association of Pinheads’ picketing the funerals of innocent, grieving bystanders who have nothing to do with their “issue” seems to go a step farther. Is this the point where the right of grieving families and friends should be protected from a group if nimrods who have no respect for others? After all, my general rule is that exercising your right is OK as long as you don’t impinge on someone else’s right to exercise theirs. Not respecting their rights takes you one step closer to their values, not farther away.

GOD, ARE YOU LISTENING? - God needs a better PR person on Earth. Fred Phelps and his ilk are damaging God's brand.

GOD, ARE YOU LISTENING? - God needs a better PR person on Earth. Fred Phelps and his ilk are damaging God's brand.

The Slippery Slope
My first impulse is to squash them like the vermin they are. However, in the back of my mind I keep hearing a constitutional voice whispering that depriving Westboro of their idiotic fun may be the first in a series of slip slides down a mucky slope.

Who gets to make these decisions? What are the criteria? How much does asshatery cost per pound when compared with the cost of individual freedom? It’s too simple to just say STFU and be done with it. As clear-cut as it may appear, it’s anything but.

As with many issues, there isn’t a good black and white answer and I don’t profess to have one. At the end of the day, the Supremes will make a decision. In all likelihood, Congress will pass more legislation and the Supremes will have to retest the new version of Constitutional right and wrong. No doubt, this question will come back up repeatedly, if for no other reason than the Westboro loons are unlikely to stop until their God snatches up the last of them and casts them into a lake of fire. This is the juncture between the letter of the law and its common sense application.

The whole sordid affair makes me long to go back to my original thought and thump the stupid bastards to within an inch of their crapulent lives.

But that’s not Constitutional either.

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