Should Freedom of Speech Have Limits?
The short and easy answer to this is, yes, of course. The tired aphorism, "You can't yell 'fire' in a crowded theater" comes to mind.
Follow that on down a little, and you get to "speech that causes physical harm to another person should not be legal." That's a limit on freedom of speech that most people can agree to. Inciting a riot should be a crime, as should any speech involved in directing a crime. And they are, though often not prosecuted in the US .
But then you must ask this: is speech that supports the abuse of someone else a crime? There are two instances of this, and I personally feel differently about each case. One is pornography involving children. Almost everyone sees this as wrong (with the exceptions being in some – not even all – of people who engage in the transaction of child pornography). Taking the pictures is really documenting a crime against a child. And writing stories about it or creating fake pictures may encourage the depravity of child rape.
Disgusting as it is, I'm not certain the writing of stories or faked child porn pictures, if they're obviously faked, should be illegal. It verges on the prosecution of people for thought crime – for thinking aobut doing a bad action that they have not done yet. And though I most certainly would never want a child to be molested, unfortunately the child rapist is not a criminal until he actually touches a child. Sick and perverse, but not criminal.
Holocaust revisionism and hate speech falls into this same shady area. What harm, really, does the jackass who says that the Holocaust never happened do? About the same harm as the guys who say the 9/11 attacks were faked by the government – they both are angry, bitter, hateful speech, and they both hurt the survivors of these atrocities.
But are they really criminal? Have they really harmed someone? Until someone acts on it, has a crime been committed?
Not Illegal Yet
Lately, however, criminalized or socially criminalized speech has been creeping. Now we are being asked to protect groups from insult.
You know, I've been insulted hundreds of times. Sometimes the people insulting me were right, though more often they were wrong. But I've never felt the need to go burn down a convenient store over it.
In other words, in normal situations an insult should not lead to violence. This does not mean I think that depictions of Muhammad are right. It also does not mean I think that images of men in blackface are right, that "art" featuring a crucifix soaking in some man's urine is right, or that someone standing up at a speech to insult the speaker is right.
I think they're wrong.
I don't think they're criminal.
When you start protecting groups from insult, you start treading on dangerous ground: the prevention of free and rational, or even irrational, debate. This is the core of freedom of speech, the reason freedom of speech was protected so fiercely by the founding fathers of America , and quite possibly Benjamin Franklin's most valuable gift to us today.
How, for instance, can we have science without having free discussion of both the scientific principles and the ethical ramifications of that science? Science is, more than any other topic, grounded in provable truth. It does not take well to being spun, although this is happening now. (How? Read some of the more rabid environmentalism, and then go do research on why Africa wants to make DDT legal again.)
How do you understand another group's issues and needs if you cannot freely and openly share your prejudices so that they can be corrected? I compare this to kicking over a rock so the worms and beetles and corruption beneath can be exposed to sunlight. Leave the rock there, and the corruption continues. Kick the rock over, and the light of the sun quickly kills the things that don't belong there.
Another point, eloquently made by John Leo and others, is that if you make insulting another group illegal, who determines that you've insulted them? Your very strong opinion that homosexuality is bad (I don't hold this one, but I know those who do) can be construed as insulting to gays. This has happened in Norway , when a minister was brought up on criminal charges for saying these things.
Criminalizing hate speech does not make people like other people; it just sends the ugly truth down under the rock, where it festers and breeds. And it does get shared from there; the poison goes from rock to rock, and it's worse when you find it because you don't see it moving.
We forget: it's possible to just walk away. Others may listen, but until they are encouraged to harm you, anything they think is a thought crime. Besides which, they might be right. The Nazi resisters were right. If you're afraid of getting arrested, or if you're afraid of the violent reaction to the things you want to say, then you cannot have free and open debate.
That is what I fear. And why I would be willing to go to jail over my free speech beliefs.
Do the Crime, Do the Time
We seem to have forgotten something in this day and age. Gandhi knew it well, as did Martin Luther King. There are some things that, while perhaps they should remain illegal, are worth going to jail over. One of them is the freedom to speak your mind no matter what. Another – and I'll explain this – is my ongoing argument with my husband over torture.
Everyone remembers the old story about the guy in a snowstorm who needs medicine for his dying wife, but the pharmacy is closed – is it right to break in and steal it? And is it right for a starving man to steal bread?
We seem to have forgotten, however, the difference between "right" and "just." The starving man has done nothing overtly to earn the bread, yet he is going to take it. I would say he has done right. But if I were a police officer sworn to uphold the law, I would arrest him nevertheless. That's just, for the widow with six orphans, or the wealthy baker, he stole the bread from. It's not his bread.
Same with the pharmacy. I'd steal the medicine, then go turn myself in when I was certain my wife was better and I wasn't going to die in the snowstorm everyone else was smart enough to get out of.
That's part of what's going on in the argument over freedom of speech. People do what they consider "right." Others do not think it is "just." "Right," I think, is inherent. Every society holds certain things to be correct: bearing and caring for children, not murdering another, respect for personal space and privacy (however it's defined!). "Just" is defined by the laws of that society, and can be changed with pressure.
We need to remember this, if nothing else: if you want to change a law, it is often necessary to break it first, then hold yourself accountable. This, not rioting, is what lets you change the system. Using the fear of violence to change it will always backfire in the end. |
