Thoughts on free speech and free thought

[unixronin]

Randy Cassingham, author of the email newsletter This Is True, had the following (in part) to say regarding the recent furor over the Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirts lampooning West Virginia, and the governor of that state's delusion that he had the authority to order Abercrombie & Fitch to destroy them:

A&F could well owe the people of WV an apology; that's not at all what I was remarking on.  Rather, it's this: what does ANY government official think he's doing by ORDERING someone to give up their Constitutional rights?  I speak, of course, of our First Amendment right of free speech.  Like many politicians, he probably swore an oath to DEFEND the Constitution, not whine like an idiot when someone exercises their rights, even if he doesn't like what they have to say.  Indeed, there's no NEED to guarantee speech everyone LIKES, is there?

Now this is the pernicious, creeping problem of political correctness.  The Constitution acknowledges and (theoretically) protects a right to free speech.  It does NOT grant nor recognize any right to be listened to, nor a right not to hear anything which one might deem offensive.  As soon as you start creating "hate speech" statutes, you start eroding that right to free speech and inserting the thin end of a wedge that begins with euphemisms like "persons of color," "African-American," and "physically challenged," and ends with it being illegal to mention Allah when a Christian is in the room, to mention Christ when a Muslim is in the room, to mention oil with a Sierra Club member in the room, and so on.  This same kind of asininity led to the Victorian and Edwardian practice of referring to women's "nether limbs" because it was unthinkable that someone should actually admit out loud that women have legs, and other even more ridiculous excesses.

There is, in fact, NOTHING non-trivial that can be said without the potential of offending someone.  If all speech that might someday offend someone, somewhere is banned, then we are all left mute.

I would actually go so far as to say that speech that shocks and offends people is not merely something that should not be banned, but something that should be specifically preserved.  Boundaries, including mental ones, should be challenged and expanded, not endlessly tightened and shrunk.  To demand that people think only inside a box that is continually being nipped, tucked and tightened is worse than folly, it is intellectual tyranny.

You know, I remember when 1984 rolled around and all kinds of people stood up and said, "See?  George Orwell was wrong!  It's not like that at all!"  I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and things have only gone downhill since then.  The Founding Fathers must be spinning in their graves at seismic levels over the fenced "designated free speech zones" into which people critical of George Bush are currently being herded at his public appearances.

The saddest part of it is that so many people are too stupid or too thoughtless to realize that the same limits that bar anyone else from goring THEIR sacred cow will bar them from - even unintentionally - goring anyone else's, and that currently the people making the rules about which set of sacred cows it is not permitted to gore are among the most small-minded and repressive in the nation.

Comments

[jmkelly.livejournal.com]

You pushed my "political correctness" button. When I was a kid, back in the 50s and early 60s, it was what we'd now call "politically incorrect" to be a Communist, or even to hold opinions too similar to Communism, or to opine that freedom of conscience and freedom of expression included the right to think and speak like a Communist. There was no body of law that specifically forbade pro-Communist speech; but it was impossible to get a job at the University of California or any other large employer without signing a loyalty oath; and if you wanted to keep your job, and had any kind of pinkish cast to your thought, you kept your mouth shut, period.

That was the majority oppressing a minority. In what's currently called "political correctness", things are reversed: a coalition of minorities and those who presumably (and often presumptiously) speak for them oppress the majority by taking exception to remarks that embody or smack of bigotry.

Forgive me if I see this as small potatoes compared to the political correctness of my childhood. In my personal experience, those who moan and bitch about "political correctness" have been those who, in reality, could say and do anything they please--their background and education put them securely in the ruling class. If they miss the days when they could make jokes about less fortunate people, well gee, my heart bleeds all to pieces.

That being said, Cassingham was right: A&F did nothing terribly wrong, and West Virginia's governor was an ass to make such a big deal about it.

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

Sadly, now that PC holds sway, it's become impossible to mock those fools who still think Communism is a good idea.

Noone should be forced to sign a loyalty oath. On the other hand, employers should be free to choose who they hire. If a company didn't want to hire people who were so deluded about reality that they though Communism was a valid economic structure, that should likewise be their descision.

But you're right, that people should be allowed to hold and express whatever foolish opinions they want. whether it's the notion that black people are somehow inferior, or that Marx wasn't a brain dead psychopath with a chip on his shoulder about not being rich.

-Ogre

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Actually, I seem to recall reading somewhere that the Communists basically took much of Marx's writings totally out of context and re-interpreted what he said to support their own agenda -- just like probably 90% of the other ideological movements in the history of human thought.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Forgive me if I see this as small potatoes compared to the political correctness of my childhood.

Oh, in terms of specific instances, sure. But it's all part and parcel of the same thing. The point I was trying to make was that a fence has been erected around the domain of what is considered Acceptable Thought, and that fence is being drawn progressively tighter and tighter -- and mostly by the people inside it. Sure, the A&F shirt isn't a watershed; but the gub'nor's reaction to it is a symptom.

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

I have grown up with political correctness and I've gotten to the point where I can hardly open my mouth to speak or put my fingers to the keyboard to express an opinion about anything for fear of being jumped for being politicaly incorrect. It is coming to the point where I hardly dare think.

I want to feel free to express my freedom of speech right.

[radarrider.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say you have a right not to be offended. If you don't like what I have to say, don't listen, or come up with a well-reasoned argument to counter it. Just don't try to shut me up. For so many people, it's a case of "for thee but not for me." But the law doesn't work that way. As you say, any limits will apply to everyone.

[jilara.livejournal.com]

I've been politically incorrect to someone for virtually my entire life, back to when I quoted Thomas Jefferson to my second grade teacher, who was punishing the entire class for the actions of two, and was given detention. (This was a pattern of my early school years--getting detention or sent to the principal's office for being too outspoken, usually in defense of someone's rights.)

I kind of think of the line from B5 about the guy who was the freedom fighter type that was someone's grandfather, and "what happened to him?" "oh, he was killed, but what he accomplished!" (Yeah, it's been a while since I saw that episode, but I recall the gist of it.)

I used to make comments "1984 was x years ago," a propos of erosion of American freedoms. Nowadays, we have a society that is out to do things like destroy historic landmarks because they have a religious background (e.g. the cross in South San Francisco) in the name of freedom from religion. (SF is even-handed. They also bulldozed out a rock monolith in Golden Gate Park when they found that the Hindu community was making pillgrimages to it and leaving flowers.)

Wasn't it in A Wrinkle in Time where the Orwellian society stated "We're all equal here, because everyone is exactly alike"? And had means of making you alike...

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Nowadays, we have a society that is out to do things like destroy historic landmarks because they have a religious background (e.g. the cross in South San Francisco) in the name of freedom from religion. (SF is even-handed. They also bulldozed out a rock monolith in Golden Gate Park when they found that the Hindu community was making pillgrimages to it and leaving flowers.)

Good grief. In San Francisco?!?

Is this Newsom's doing, or was it on Slick Willie's beat?

They've lost it. All hail the Crazy Years.

[jilara.livejournal.com]

The "sacred rock" was (mind blanks), before Willie Brown. The historical cross was saved by transfering ownership to a preservation society, but now there's a suit against them by "outraged citizens", to try to still have it torn down, because "this group was only formed as a desperation move to keep us from getting rid of it." Well, duh. Historical context counts nothing to these folks.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

has anyone pointed out to these people that they're behaving just like the Taliban?

Yo, shit-for-brains, there's a difference between "Freedom from religion" and "Suppression of religion". What comes next, the purges and fatwas?