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The thread is not about First Amendment, as a specific legal protection, but about general societal principle of freedom of speech.
by zajio1am 6y ago
The thread is not about First Amendment, as a specific legal protection, but about general societal principle of freedom of speech.
- gamblor956 6y agoWhich has its foundations in the First Amendment... Before then, "free speech" as a concept did not exist. (The closest was the freedom of religious practice, which is not the same thing.)
- throwaway829 6y agoAs an ex-Scientologist it saddens me that I have to tell HN readers this, but please read "On liberty" which explains why censorship is a flawed approach.
- flyingfences 6y ago> Before then, "free speech" as a concept did not exist. Now that is a heavy claim to be making. Do you have anything to back it up?
- gamblor956 6y agoHistory itself? Before the U.S., nobody even thought free speech was possible. England was the closest, but their version of free speech was still subject to government censorship. It was the writings of the Founding Fathers, and the Bill of Rights in particular, that established the doctrine that is today known as "freedom of speech."
- zajio1am 6y agoFrench Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen expressed freedom of speech at roughly the same time as american Bill of Rights, and used formulation that is more general and does not restrict just the government: "The free communication of thoughts and of opinions is one of the most precious rights of man: any citizen thus may speak, write, print freely, except to respond to the abuse of this liberty, in the cases determined by the law."
- hertzrat 6y agoNo, it does not. Free speech is a principle of political philosophy. The United States founders did not invent it