8 ms·

Its funny I had a similar argument with someone last week (2 weeks ago?) when the Westboro Baptist's won their supreme court case [1]. Speech is free, period.

Its funny I had a similar argument with someone last week (2 weeks ago?) when the Westboro Baptist's won their supreme court case [1]. Speech is free, period. Once you try to put any restrictions on then the whole thing isn't even a slippery slope, its a frictionless cliff. [1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/02/AR2011030202548.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03...

thaumaturgy 16y ago
So what, then, is the difference between my calling your phone number multiple times and leaving harassing messages ("You're going to hell! Fag!"), and what the WBC does at semi-private gatherings, like funerals? I don't disagree with the justifications behind protecting speech, even (and especially) things that I find reprehensible. However, I think it's a bit of a lie to say that law doesn't have fine lines or distinctions.
- lwat 16y ago
  Funerals are public, or at least the WBC is on public ground when they protest at funerals.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  The lines in law, where they exist, tend to be fuzzy, rather than fine. Now with that said freedom of speech is a special law. And obviously one that cuts both ways. But a key reason why the law should largely exist untampered is that even if you say something I think is offensive, I can rely on a few things: 1) If it's absurd it will be discarded by most people. 2) If it's absurd those people it would convince, probably already believe it. 3) With freedom of speech I can argue the point prior to irreversible damage. Now there are some cases where freedom of speech don't apply and those are generally cases where the three points above don't apply. For example, the classic of yelling "Fire" in a crowded room. Someone else yelling, "there is no fire" is not likely to be heard and even if "Fire" is seemingly absurd, most people may not discard due to potential harm. Yada yada. But outside of cases that violate the above, the law should stand. Otherwise the consequences, shutting down opposing speech, will almost certainly be worse.
  - alanh 16y ago
    > If it's absurd it will be discarded by most people. And yet the various flavors of creationism (all equally absurd by measures of science) have convinced half of the U.S. of their validity.
    - mostly_harmless 16y ago
      but that is their right to believe what they wish. If they want to believe whole-heartedly in Norse mythology, that is their right to do so. It only becomes an issue once they impose their beliefs on others. It can even be thought that atheism is a religious belief in itself. It explains all the things religion does in a unique way.
    - kenjackson 16y ago
      I generally don't find creationism offensive. While I don't believe it, I'm not offended by it. And I think that's true for most people. It's certainly not the type of thing that ever comes up in free speech arguments. I can't think of any atheist I know (although I'm sure some exist) who want creationism banned in speech or writing.
      - barefoot 16y ago
        Agreed. I'm a fairly strong minded atheist and I find creationism offensive. At the same time I would defend to the death the right for creationists to have free speech.
        eftpotrm 16y ago
        I could understand why one might find the teaching of creationism offensive, but what is offensive about other people holding wrong opinions? I'm sure we each think the other holds several; I'm not offended by the error I perceive you might be making.
  - Zak 16y ago
    I think the main reason yelling "fire" and the like are illegal is that such speech is intended to and does cause action on the part of others. Solicitation to commit murder, inciting a riot, making a false report of a crime, uttering a forged instrument and making (credible) verbal threats are illegal for the same reason. None of these are illegal because of the lack of opportunity for analysis or debate, but because of the direct link between speech and action.
- VladRussian 16y ago
  WBC does it on public property.
  - praptak 16y ago
    True. But I don't think the crux of the matter is in the ownership of the piece of ground they happen to stand on. There is a strong argument against exercising the freedom of speech the way they do. The right to speak freely should not trump the right to stop listening. This is not the case here. Whoever attends the funeral has their right to stop listening seriously limited.
    - waterhouse 16y ago
      Actually, that is the crux of the matter. If you're at a party and making an obnoxious ass of yourself, the other partygoers can't kick you out. What they can do is go to the host and ask that he kick you out, which he can do if he so decides. If the host happens to be you (or someone sympathetic to you), then their only recourse (beyond attempting to persuade you to cut it out) is to leave themselves. The avenues of legal recourse are entirely determined by ownership of the piece of ground they are standing on.
- waqf 16y ago
  Well, the difference is that you're expressing your opinion, which is fine, and also harassing the guy, which is a crime. Just as if you announced "mikeryan is going to hell! the Fag!" while chainsawing live babies you're committing a crime. The expressing of your opinion is not a crime, but the fact that you're expressing your opinion doesn't exempt you from other criminal liabilities.
  - thaumaturgy 16y ago
    Thank you for being the only person that responded to the point (might've been my fault, maybe I wasn't clear). I think most people would say that what the WBC does is harassment; so, other than the fine legal difference between whether the harassment occurs on public grounds or private property, how is one form of harassment protected as free speech and another form of harassment not?
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    - VladRussian 16y ago
      >what the WBC does is harassment no. I'm not a lawyer, yet i'm pretty sure that what WBC does wouldn't fit harassment criteria. I suppose for the harassment the specific action needs to be targeted at the person being harassed. Without specific targeting, they just express their opinion, wrong opinion at the wrong time and place, yet not illegal.
    - waqf 16y ago
      Heh, I had an unfair advantage: I didn't trouble to familiarize myself with the WBC. But by my reasoning, the difference would be legal precedents stating that pickets are legal (irrespective of what you use them to promote) and repeated unsolicited telephone calls are not (irrespective of what you say).
      - jules 16y ago
        That's not entirely true. You can't write "God Hates Blacks" (per the Racial Hatred Act) but you can write "God Hates Fags". There seems to be no logical basis for this difference.
- Duff 16y ago
  It is more about the "how" and less about the "what". If I called you 500 times and simply said "Hello, hello, hello", that is still harassment. The WBC people apply for permits and protest on public property. What they say isn't relevant. In general, your actions and intent are more germane than the content of your speech. That's a concept critical to free speech -- controversial or offensive is far more important to protect than typical conversation.
- iamdave 16y ago
  The difference? The difference is a small, but visible and under appreciated line between free speech and verbal assault.
calpaterson 16y ago
Well, it's hardly ever a "frictionless cliff". Lots of countries (plenty of them in the EU) have restrictions on free speech, but they haven't yet turned into autocracies.
VladRussian 16y ago
>Speech is free, period. There is situations when one fundamental right conflicts with another fundamental right. Your statement is that the fundamental right of free speech must always take precedence. I see how fundamental right of a child for the privacy of his/her body [ note: a child can't give an informed consent to waive the right ] can be given priority over somebody else's fundamental right for free speech. Unfortunately, in the case of fetish animal torture videos the Supreme Court took the side of the scum.
- jules 16y ago
  Comics don't violate a fundamental right.
- enjo 16y ago
  You could also argue that the "speech" in that case was that of the child, and it was most definitely not freely given.
- AngryParsley 16y ago
  note: a child can't give an informed consent to waive the right I don't think the consent argument holds water. We force children to do things without their consent all the time. We make kids go to school. Corporal punishment of children is legal in most states, both by parents and teachers. Children usually don't consent to such things, but we do it them anyway. Sorry for nitpicking one thing out of your comment, but the "children can't consent" argument really gets to me.
  - shpxnvz 16y ago
    It's not an argument, it's a fact of law. There are certain activities that, by various state and local laws, require consent. Entering into a contract or getting married, for instance. A minor legally cannot consent to these things. That doesn't extend to everything a child may do or be forced to do.
- vacri 16y ago
  How does this relate to what Gaiman is talking about? How does the drawing of manga violate a child's privacy? There are no children involved, unless they're reading the manga, and the pictures aren't going to leap off the page and violate the child's physical privacy.
jwb119 16y ago
Not really. Speech is far from free, period. The law recognizes a wide variety of restrictions. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_United_States#Special_exceptions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_United... for a few. For a view that "There is no such thing as free speech" see Stanley Fish, etc.. http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-February-1998/fish.html http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-Febr...
- vacri 16y ago
  There's also the good ol' Free Speech Zones http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone "You can say what you want, but we tell you where to say it." EDIT: That being said, the US still has a very high bar for freedom of speech.
- sliverstorm 16y ago
  Speech is far from free, period. As it should be. All sorts of things that don't deserve to be protected by Freedom of Speech. For example, treason often takes the form of selling out your country with information- which is just Speech after all.
  - waterhouse 16y ago
    If it involves, say, a high-ranking general giving loads of top-secret military information to the enemy, it's likely that not giving away such information is part of his job description, and that he is in breach of contract. Now, the law might not like punishing breach of contract with long-term imprisonment (or whatever the penalty for treason is), but you could probably work something out--e.g. if he breaks contract, then he retroactively loses all access privileges, and all those times he accessed top-secret data are now considered trespass. (This seems in fact quite appropriate to me, because then the punishment is proportional to the extent to which the general misused the privileges given to him. If he was new to the job and they didn't show him much of anything, then they have little to complain about him breaking their trust; if he's spent ten years getting his fingers in all their data with their conditional permission, and now they realize they shouldn't have allowed him, then they have a lot to complain about.) The case of shouting "fire" in a crowded theater can be handled similarly: Customers agree not to do that sort of thing as a condition of being allowed into the theater, and if they break that, then they are guilty of trespass. You might complain that the customers didn't agree to any such thing, and that implicit contracts are bad. Fine, then the theater can put up a sign that says "You are not allowed to falsely shout 'fire'". As a matter of fact, I have seen many fire alarms in large buildings with a sign that says something like "$NNN fine for spurious triggering of this alarm". The point is, there is no need to count any of these situations as cases where freedom of speech breaks down. These things can be illegal without allowing any chinks into your free-speech armor; they can be punished, not because they're an illegal form of speech, but because of something else.

thaumaturgy 16y ago

So what, then, is the difference between my calling your phone number multiple times and leaving harassing messages ("You're going to hell! Fag!"), and what the WBC does at semi-private gatherings, like funerals? I don't disagree with the justifications behind protecting speech, even (and especially) things that I find reprehensible. However, I think it's a bit of a lie to say that law doesn't have fine lines or distinctions.

lwat 16y ago
Funerals are public, or at least the WBC is on public ground when they protest at funerals.
kenjackson 16y ago
The lines in law, where they exist, tend to be fuzzy, rather than fine. Now with that said freedom of speech is a special law. And obviously one that cuts both ways. But a key reason why the law should largely exist untampered is that even if you say something I think is offensive, I can rely on a few things: 1) If it's absurd it will be discarded by most people. 2) If it's absurd those people it would convince, probably already believe it. 3) With freedom of speech I can argue the point prior to irreversible damage. Now there are some cases where freedom of speech don't apply and those are generally cases where the three points above don't apply. For example, the classic of yelling "Fire" in a crowded room. Someone else yelling, "there is no fire" is not likely to be heard and even if "Fire" is seemingly absurd, most people may not discard due to potential harm. Yada yada. But outside of cases that violate the above, the law should stand. Otherwise the consequences, shutting down opposing speech, will almost certainly be worse.
- alanh 16y ago
  > If it's absurd it will be discarded by most people. And yet the various flavors of creationism (all equally absurd by measures of science) have convinced half of the U.S. of their validity.
  - mostly_harmless 16y ago
    but that is their right to believe what they wish. If they want to believe whole-heartedly in Norse mythology, that is their right to do so. It only becomes an issue once they impose their beliefs on others. It can even be thought that atheism is a religious belief in itself. It explains all the things religion does in a unique way.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    I generally don't find creationism offensive. While I don't believe it, I'm not offended by it. And I think that's true for most people. It's certainly not the type of thing that ever comes up in free speech arguments. I can't think of any atheist I know (although I'm sure some exist) who want creationism banned in speech or writing.
    - barefoot 16y ago
      Agreed. I'm a fairly strong minded atheist and I find creationism offensive. At the same time I would defend to the death the right for creationists to have free speech.
      - eftpotrm 16y ago
        I could understand why one might find the teaching of creationism offensive, but what is offensive about other people holding wrong opinions? I'm sure we each think the other holds several; I'm not offended by the error I perceive you might be making.
- Zak 16y ago
  I think the main reason yelling "fire" and the like are illegal is that such speech is intended to and does cause action on the part of others. Solicitation to commit murder, inciting a riot, making a false report of a crime, uttering a forged instrument and making (credible) verbal threats are illegal for the same reason. None of these are illegal because of the lack of opportunity for analysis or debate, but because of the direct link between speech and action.
VladRussian 16y ago
WBC does it on public property.
- praptak 16y ago
  True. But I don't think the crux of the matter is in the ownership of the piece of ground they happen to stand on. There is a strong argument against exercising the freedom of speech the way they do. The right to speak freely should not trump the right to stop listening. This is not the case here. Whoever attends the funeral has their right to stop listening seriously limited.
  - waterhouse 16y ago
    Actually, that is the crux of the matter. If you're at a party and making an obnoxious ass of yourself, the other partygoers can't kick you out. What they can do is go to the host and ask that he kick you out, which he can do if he so decides. If the host happens to be you (or someone sympathetic to you), then their only recourse (beyond attempting to persuade you to cut it out) is to leave themselves. The avenues of legal recourse are entirely determined by ownership of the piece of ground they are standing on.
waqf 16y ago
Well, the difference is that you're expressing your opinion, which is fine, and also harassing the guy, which is a crime. Just as if you announced "mikeryan is going to hell! the Fag!" while chainsawing live babies you're committing a crime. The expressing of your opinion is not a crime, but the fact that you're expressing your opinion doesn't exempt you from other criminal liabilities.
- thaumaturgy 16y ago
  Thank you for being the only person that responded to the point (might've been my fault, maybe I wasn't clear). I think most people would say that what the WBC does is harassment; so, other than the fine legal difference between whether the harassment occurs on public grounds or private property, how is one form of harassment protected as free speech and another form of harassment not?
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - VladRussian 16y ago
    >what the WBC does is harassment no. I'm not a lawyer, yet i'm pretty sure that what WBC does wouldn't fit harassment criteria. I suppose for the harassment the specific action needs to be targeted at the person being harassed. Without specific targeting, they just express their opinion, wrong opinion at the wrong time and place, yet not illegal.
  - waqf 16y ago
    Heh, I had an unfair advantage: I didn't trouble to familiarize myself with the WBC. But by my reasoning, the difference would be legal precedents stating that pickets are legal (irrespective of what you use them to promote) and repeated unsolicited telephone calls are not (irrespective of what you say).
    - jules 16y ago
      That's not entirely true. You can't write "God Hates Blacks" (per the Racial Hatred Act) but you can write "God Hates Fags". There seems to be no logical basis for this difference.
Duff 16y ago
It is more about the "how" and less about the "what". If I called you 500 times and simply said "Hello, hello, hello", that is still harassment. The WBC people apply for permits and protest on public property. What they say isn't relevant. In general, your actions and intent are more germane than the content of your speech. That's a concept critical to free speech -- controversial or offensive is far more important to protect than typical conversation.
iamdave 16y ago
The difference? The difference is a small, but visible and under appreciated line between free speech and verbal assault.

calpaterson 16y ago

Well, it's hardly ever a "frictionless cliff". Lots of countries (plenty of them in the EU) have restrictions on free speech, but they haven't yet turned into autocracies.

VladRussian 16y ago

>Speech is free, period. There is situations when one fundamental right conflicts with another fundamental right. Your statement is that the fundamental right of free speech must always take precedence. I see how fundamental right of a child for the privacy of his/her body [ note: a child can't give an informed consent to waive the right ] can be given priority over somebody else's fundamental right for free speech. Unfortunately, in the case of fetish animal torture videos the Supreme Court took the side of the scum.

jules 16y ago
Comics don't violate a fundamental right.
enjo 16y ago
You could also argue that the "speech" in that case was that of the child, and it was most definitely not freely given.
AngryParsley 16y ago
note: a child can't give an informed consent to waive the right I don't think the consent argument holds water. We force children to do things without their consent all the time. We make kids go to school. Corporal punishment of children is legal in most states, both by parents and teachers. Children usually don't consent to such things, but we do it them anyway. Sorry for nitpicking one thing out of your comment, but the "children can't consent" argument really gets to me.
- shpxnvz 16y ago
  It's not an argument, it's a fact of law. There are certain activities that, by various state and local laws, require consent. Entering into a contract or getting married, for instance. A minor legally cannot consent to these things. That doesn't extend to everything a child may do or be forced to do.
vacri 16y ago
How does this relate to what Gaiman is talking about? How does the drawing of manga violate a child's privacy? There are no children involved, unless they're reading the manga, and the pictures aren't going to leap off the page and violate the child's physical privacy.

jwb119 16y ago

Not really. Speech is far from free, period. The law recognizes a wide variety of restrictions. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_United_States#Special_exceptions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_United... for a few. For a view that "There is no such thing as free speech" see Stanley Fish, etc.. http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-February-1998/fish.html http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-Febr...

vacri 16y ago
There's also the good ol' Free Speech Zones http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone "You can say what you want, but we tell you where to say it." EDIT: That being said, the US still has a very high bar for freedom of speech.
sliverstorm 16y ago
Speech is far from free, period. As it should be. All sorts of things that don't deserve to be protected by Freedom of Speech. For example, treason often takes the form of selling out your country with information- which is just Speech after all.
- waterhouse 16y ago
  If it involves, say, a high-ranking general giving loads of top-secret military information to the enemy, it's likely that not giving away such information is part of his job description, and that he is in breach of contract. Now, the law might not like punishing breach of contract with long-term imprisonment (or whatever the penalty for treason is), but you could probably work something out--e.g. if he breaks contract, then he retroactively loses all access privileges, and all those times he accessed top-secret data are now considered trespass. (This seems in fact quite appropriate to me, because then the punishment is proportional to the extent to which the general misused the privileges given to him. If he was new to the job and they didn't show him much of anything, then they have little to complain about him breaking their trust; if he's spent ten years getting his fingers in all their data with their conditional permission, and now they realize they shouldn't have allowed him, then they have a lot to complain about.) The case of shouting "fire" in a crowded theater can be handled similarly: Customers agree not to do that sort of thing as a condition of being allowed into the theater, and if they break that, then they are guilty of trespass. You might complain that the customers didn't agree to any such thing, and that implicit contracts are bad. Fine, then the theater can put up a sign that says "You are not allowed to falsely shout 'fire'". As a matter of fact, I have seen many fire alarms in large buildings with a sign that says something like "$NNN fine for spurious triggering of this alarm". The point is, there is no need to count any of these situations as cases where freedom of speech breaks down. These things can be illegal without allowing any chinks into your free-speech armor; they can be punished, not because they're an illegal form of speech, but because of something else.