I don’t think so myself, but I came across this article about a video game about rape/abortion:
The game is skeevey but it skeeves me way more to think that human rights groups are concerned with this. No human rights are being violated here. I don’t see any reason to ban it or create laws against it.
But that made me wonder–obviously a lot people are uncomfortable with it. And it made me wonder if people who normally support free speech struggle with this–is there ever a situation where it’s just too terrible and something must be suppressed? Outside of situations like inciting people to violence or screaming “fire” in a crowded building–I’m talking about forms of entertainment, like a video game or movies or books.
Nope. By definition, free speech does - and MUST - include whatever skeeves me off, and whatever I find abhorrent. Anything short of that, and it’s not free speech ; and then it’s anyone’s guess which will be the next unspeakable item.
That pretty much sums up what I feel. I’ve talked to others who have said that stuff like this (rape video games) are hate speech, etc. But that argument scares me because I don’t like the idea of banning anything we don’t like just because we decide it falls into some kind of speech. Anyway. I’m glad to know I’m not insane for defending this game.
What of books or films (or any form of entertainment, really) that don’t explicitly advocate violence, but inspire it nonetheless? I’m thinking something like The Turner Diaries, only worse, more pervasive, more affecting. At what point does a work of art become something else? How far are you willing to extend the courtesy of freedom of expression?
Okay, what’s your take on it? Should *The Turner Diaries *be suppressed? How about Rush Limbaugh, or Ward Churchill?
And why stop with political material? How about A Clockwork Orange, The Silence of the Lambs, or Dawn of the Dead? What about violent video games? Gangster rap? The Insane Clown Posse? Marilyn Manson? Comic books about crime and horror?
At one time or another, all of these have been accused of causing violence.
All the way. Manson believed the Beatles told him to slaughter people, should we ban the Beatles because, quite demonstrably, some people act criminally upon their speech, however innocuous it may be ?
Speech is speech. It doesn’t hurt anyone. It can inspire, it can condone, it can suggest, it can even encourage the commission of crimes - but it isn’t crime. The individual following the speech bears the responsibility for his (or her) actions.
In fact, I’d go as far as saying hate speech should be… well, maybe not encouraged, but it should certainly not be censored : it needs to be out in the open, so that it can be analyzed, debated and proven wrong on all counts. Which is why UK & French laws banning Holocaust denial are so misguided IMO. Out in the open, these ideas whither and die. Underground, they fester and multiply in their little samizdat-fueled echo chambers.
And some fairly non-violent books have incited violent individuals–Catcher in the Rye isn’t violent, though it has been banned for other reasons. Individuals can take innocuous things (Charles Manson as mentioned) and use them, indicating that they were already damaged individuals well before they encountered this material. The material isn’t to blame–it’s their twisted take on it. We can’t ban texts that show how to do lobotomies because Dahmer may have consulted them.
Should it be legal to threaten someone with bodily harm? That’s a crime (assault) now, but you could argue that threats are speech that don’t actually hurt anybody.
Should we get rid of the concept of “fighting words”?
I personally do think we should get rid of the concept of “fighting words”. The responsibility for someone responding to speech with physical violence ought to be on the person who initiated the physical violence. I don’t think threats should be protected speech, though.
I think content like the game mentioned in the OP should be labeled as having sexually explicit and offensive content, so that people who know they would be offended by it can avoid it if they want to.
Note that this also suggests the question of what qualifies as speech. Aside from my personal leanings, I submit that there is room to debate whether a video game or waggling boobies are indeed forms of speech, or whether or not obscenity (definition?) is speech.
Addressing the OP, wholeheartedly agree with the above sentiments that freedom of expression is sacrosanct and that the marketplace of ideas will weed out and test otherwise objectionable opinions.
But I’m a big fat liar. If I were to step into a time vortex and find myself with the only copy of the Protocols or Mein Kamph on its way to a printer, I probably wouldn’t deliver it. (I’d be punished for it by forever wondering what good books of significance (the Magna Carter II? The real Constitution with a clearly punctuated 2nd Amendment and no pesky slavery business?) were also destroyed. But even knowing that, I don’t think I could bring myself to let the former two enter society’s consciousness. Big, fat, hypocritical liar, that’s me.
I’m not so big on outright suppression of most things, but restriction certainly is applicable at times. I think all of us are fine with the right to protest and similarly fine with laws (found to be constitutional in the Supreme Court) that say you cannot protest outside a school in such a way as to interfere with instruction.
I realize this is a restriction of the assembly right and not the speech right, but as all First Amendment rights are closely linked, I trust most of you will consider it a fair example, just as mention of publication of certain items are fair to mention even though technically speaking these are press rights and not speech rights.
What UK laws are you referring to? I know there are laws against Holocaust denial speech in Germany and Austria (which I don’t support), but as far as I know, Holocaust denial is not forbidden in England. David Irving, at any rate, is free and prancing around with his hateful speech at such places as the Oxford Union.
In any case, I think free speech is pretty close to absolute. Threats are speech, but in a sense the crime of threat is not restricted to the speech act itself. I think generally only ‘credible’ threats are prosecuted, though I could be wrong about that. The credibility tends to come from factors beyond the spoken threat itself.
The test case for me is where the line between ‘expression’ and ‘incitement’ is blurry. The case of Buju Banton being denied entry into Canada for a performance because of the encouragement in his song(s) for homosexuals to be beaten and burnt to death is a good example. No specific homosexuals were mentioned, but I think an argument can be made that calling for the violent death of a class of people is incitement to violence and thus not covered by free speech laws (I don’t know what the actual laws are in Canada though). It appears to include lyrics that say straight out ‘shoot [homosexuals]’ which to me is not protected speech.
I don’t think so, actually. Censoring speech and not actively making sure all speech is preserved are different. Say I go up to my attic, which is full of books, and do some cleaning, which includes getting rid of some books I don’t want any more. Should I have to make sure that I don’t throw out the last copy of some out-of-print book?
I doubt I’d be all that upset if that happened either. I think for me it’s more the idea than the book itself, though. Like, if it just so happened that there was no more Mein Kampf and I’d never get to read it, I wouldn’t care THAT much for myself because I doubt I’ll ever read it. It’s more the idea that these books are going to be judged as being inappropriate and censored by some higher power that gets to me. Like, maybe today it’ll be some video game I don’t care about but then tomorrow it’ll be the Satanic Verses.
I’m sorry, I may be misremembering, but wasn’t he fined recently-ish (he was indeed the guy I was thinking of when I wrote that bit) ? Ah, my bad, I checked and apparently he was indeed fined… in Austria. So, I apologize, my statement was indeed incorrect re. UK laws. My point stands : these laws are at best idiotic, at worst actually harmful.
If a rock star asked the audience to trash an SUV on the way home, would their right to ‘free speech’ be sacrosanct, or should they be arrested? If the latter, why shouldn’t someone stating in public that Muslims, for example, are less deserving of ‘human rights’ than any other group, not be arrested? Or someone saying that the Poles are stealing all our jobs and they should be driven out of the country?
There is a difference, both legal and philosophical, between speech that incites a crowd to immediate violence, and speech which suggests disagreement with the law and a change in the law.
In every circumstances in which the cure for a particular type of speech is more speech - the law should not forbid it.
Free speech which is an simply an expression of ideas, however retarded, should be unrestricted. A pamphlet on “Why we should kill and eat nigger babies” is going to get about the attention it deserves. There is a larger good served by not trying to regulate the expression of ideas. Among other things, outlawing words and ideas simply weaponizes them. Ignore flag burning–it goes away with the peanut minds expressing themselves. Outlaw flag burning and you give the same boobs a stage upon which to make their statement with their newly weaponized behaviour. It is not the law which protects us from the idea that raping women is wrong. It is a common consensus of propriety. If all ideas are protected equally, I am confident that a consensus proscribing rape will prevail.
Free speech which incites action directly “Fire in the theater!”, or violates laws intended to protect privacy, or the like deserves no special protection.