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The founding fathers enumerated rights like "free speech" because those were novel (not entirely new, but fairly novel) notions at the time. What many folks (o

The founding fathers enumerated rights like "free speech" because those were novel (not entirely new, but fairly novel) notions at the time. What many folks (often, seemingly willingly) fail to understand is that those rights were never intended to be parsed in a naive, simplistic way that supersedes the rights of others. The most obvious example would be speech that causes others to be killed: you have a right to free speech, but other people also have a right not to be killed. That's why you can't yell "FIRE!" in a crowded movie theater and cause a stampede that kills people, etc. There are many other examples of free speech that infringe on others' rights. Call free speech a "natural" right if you wish, whatever that means to you, but only a fool would think that either the Founding Fathers or basic human decency and sense dictate that free speech is meant to exist in some sort of vacuum independent from any and all other rights.

luxuryballs 7y ago
They were novel because they just came out of fighting for freedom against an oppressive empire who used all those things against them and they wanted to make sure that couldn’t happen again. Any argument otherwise should be met with harsh skepticism because you could be actively trying to oppress us again or accidentally enable some future people in power to be able to.
- JohnBooty 7y ago
  Any argument otherwise should be met with harsh skepticism because you could be actively trying to oppress us again or accidentally enable some future people in power to be able to It works both ways. Russia's social media operations utilized (and is surely still aiming to utilize) our relatively permissive climate of free speech to sow discord within America and deepen our divisions. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/17/us/politics/takeaways-russia-social-media-operations.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/17/us/politics/takeaways-rus... So, there you go - there's "people in power" using free speech to weaken/oppress us.
  - hanselot 7y ago
    And by Russia, you mean, the US Media machine? Honestly, social media is the thing that sows division, more than it brings people together.
jcranmer 7y ago
> The founding fathers enumerated rights like "free speech" because those were novel (not entirely new, but fairly novel) notions at the time. Uh, your history classes have really failed you. These rights weren't novel, they were explicitly enshrined in the English Bill of Rights in 1689. Some of the other rights (particularly debtors' rights) date back to the Magna Carta in 1215. > That's why you can't yell "FIRE!" in a crowded movie theater and cause a stampede that kills people, etc. For the record, you're citing a 1919 US Supreme Court case that has been overturned. The current standard for free speech in the US is Brandenburg v Ohio [1], which holds that it is constitutionally-protected free speech to advocate violent overthrow of the government. Only speech that amounts to incitement of "imminent lawless action" is prohibited. Note, of course, that the freedom of speech only applies to the government's ability to restrict speech for its content (which, in the US, is extremely limited); the ability of private parties to choose whether or not to provide a platform for speech is considered freedom of association and does not rely at all on any of these decisions. [1] For what it's worth, the actual speech given by Brandenburg is basically the same sort of speech you'll find in these manifestos.
- angus-prune 7y ago
  The English Bill of rights is not what you think it is. It wasn't about giving freedom to the people, but shifting power from the monarchy to parliment. The freedom of speech enshrined in the English bill of rights also isn't remotely comparable to the USA idea. It was about parlimentary priviledge - the ability for MPs to have freedom of speech while within parliment. It was about the freedom of parliment to debate and vote without interference from the monarchy. (Parliment can and does impose its own limits on freedom of speech within the chamber and MPs have been literally removed from the chamber for things they've said). The UK has never had freedom of speech. We even had an official censor (Lord Chamberlain's Office) until 1968. Blasphemy was illegal until 2008, and wasn't just a legacy law which had been forgotten, but there were convictions for it right the way through to the 1990s at least.
- JohnBooty 7y ago
  Wow, that's a rude and (more importantly) factually incorrect remark. Is HN becoming Reddit? Uh, your history classes have really failed you. These rights weren't novel, they were explicitly enshrined in the English Bill of Rights in 1689. Some of the other rights (particularly debtors' rights) date back to the Magna Carta in 1215. Sure. That's why I qualified my statement: "not entirely new" and "fairly novel" rather than "entirely novel" because I'm aware that the U.S. Constitution is not the first time these notions have appeared in law. It was specifically an attempt to head off a pedantic reply such as yours. For the record, you're citing a 1919 US Supreme Court case that has been overturned. The current standard for free speech in the US is Brandenburg v Ohio [1], which holds that it is constitutionally-protected free speech to advocate violent overthrow of the government You're simply incorrect. The justices' opinions in this case specifically agreed with this particular instance of prohibited speech, even referring to it directly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio#Concurrences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio#Concurrenc... Finally, Douglas dealt with the classic example of a man "falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic". In order to explain why someone could be legitimately prosecuted for this, Douglas called it an example in which "speech is brigaded with action". In the view of Douglas and Black, this was probably the only sort of case in which a person could be prosecuted for speech. More to the point, please understand: this ruling specifically addressed inflammatory (no pun presumably intended) speech. This was not a comprehensive ruling on speech in general. It was an influential ruling on speech specifically meant to rouse others to action. There are innumerable other types of speech this ruling did not address. Libel, threats, etc. Forget about folks' educations failing them; your misconceptions could have been avoided with a simple Wikipedia visit. On the bright side, this experience reminded me to make my annual donation to Wikipedia. Obviously it's a sorely-needed resource.

luxuryballs 7y ago

They were novel because they just came out of fighting for freedom against an oppressive empire who used all those things against them and they wanted to make sure that couldn’t happen again. Any argument otherwise should be met with harsh skepticism because you could be actively trying to oppress us again or accidentally enable some future people in power to be able to.

JohnBooty 7y ago
Any argument otherwise should be met with harsh skepticism because you could be actively trying to oppress us again or accidentally enable some future people in power to be able to It works both ways. Russia's social media operations utilized (and is surely still aiming to utilize) our relatively permissive climate of free speech to sow discord within America and deepen our divisions. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/17/us/politics/takeaways-russia-social-media-operations.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/17/us/politics/takeaways-rus... So, there you go - there's "people in power" using free speech to weaken/oppress us.
- hanselot 7y ago
  And by Russia, you mean, the US Media machine? Honestly, social media is the thing that sows division, more than it brings people together.

jcranmer 7y ago

> The founding fathers enumerated rights like "free speech" because those were novel (not entirely new, but fairly novel) notions at the time. Uh, your history classes have really failed you. These rights weren't novel, they were explicitly enshrined in the English Bill of Rights in 1689. Some of the other rights (particularly debtors' rights) date back to the Magna Carta in 1215. > That's why you can't yell "FIRE!" in a crowded movie theater and cause a stampede that kills people, etc. For the record, you're citing a 1919 US Supreme Court case that has been overturned. The current standard for free speech in the US is Brandenburg v Ohio [1], which holds that it is constitutionally-protected free speech to advocate violent overthrow of the government. Only speech that amounts to incitement of "imminent lawless action" is prohibited. Note, of course, that the freedom of speech only applies to the government's ability to restrict speech for its content (which, in the US, is extremely limited); the ability of private parties to choose whether or not to provide a platform for speech is considered freedom of association and does not rely at all on any of these decisions. [1] For what it's worth, the actual speech given by Brandenburg is basically the same sort of speech you'll find in these manifestos.

angus-prune 7y ago
The English Bill of rights is not what you think it is. It wasn't about giving freedom to the people, but shifting power from the monarchy to parliment. The freedom of speech enshrined in the English bill of rights also isn't remotely comparable to the USA idea. It was about parlimentary priviledge - the ability for MPs to have freedom of speech while within parliment. It was about the freedom of parliment to debate and vote without interference from the monarchy. (Parliment can and does impose its own limits on freedom of speech within the chamber and MPs have been literally removed from the chamber for things they've said). The UK has never had freedom of speech. We even had an official censor (Lord Chamberlain's Office) until 1968. Blasphemy was illegal until 2008, and wasn't just a legacy law which had been forgotten, but there were convictions for it right the way through to the 1990s at least.
JohnBooty 7y ago
Wow, that's a rude and (more importantly) factually incorrect remark. Is HN becoming Reddit? Uh, your history classes have really failed you. These rights weren't novel, they were explicitly enshrined in the English Bill of Rights in 1689. Some of the other rights (particularly debtors' rights) date back to the Magna Carta in 1215. Sure. That's why I qualified my statement: "not entirely new" and "fairly novel" rather than "entirely novel" because I'm aware that the U.S. Constitution is not the first time these notions have appeared in law. It was specifically an attempt to head off a pedantic reply such as yours. For the record, you're citing a 1919 US Supreme Court case that has been overturned. The current standard for free speech in the US is Brandenburg v Ohio [1], which holds that it is constitutionally-protected free speech to advocate violent overthrow of the government You're simply incorrect. The justices' opinions in this case specifically agreed with this particular instance of prohibited speech, even referring to it directly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio#Concurrences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio#Concurrenc... Finally, Douglas dealt with the classic example of a man "falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic". In order to explain why someone could be legitimately prosecuted for this, Douglas called it an example in which "speech is brigaded with action". In the view of Douglas and Black, this was probably the only sort of case in which a person could be prosecuted for speech. More to the point, please understand: this ruling specifically addressed inflammatory (no pun presumably intended) speech. This was not a comprehensive ruling on speech in general. It was an influential ruling on speech specifically meant to rouse others to action. There are innumerable other types of speech this ruling did not address. Libel, threats, etc. Forget about folks' educations failing them; your misconceptions could have been avoided with a simple Wikipedia visit. On the bright side, this experience reminded me to make my annual donation to Wikipedia. Obviously it's a sorely-needed resource.