From the start, this discussion was never intended to enter into legal issues. There are two forms of freedom of speech, the legal one guaranteed by the constitution (which is limited to the government) and the absolute one as a given human right. Whether or not what StopDrLaura is doing is illegal is not the question.
Let me try and boil it down:
StopDrLaura claims that Dr. Laura is intolerant.
StopDrLaura attempts to stop Dr. Laura from continuing on the air.
StopDrLaura is being intolerant of an opposing viewpoint and thus being hypocritcal.
In its attempts to prevent Dr. Laura from being on the air, they are trying to prevent her from speaking, and thus abridging her absolute freedom of speech.
I think the same standard applies pretty much to similar boycotts and anybody who tries to prevent someone from being heard via whatever method.
If someone is speaking in a room and a group of protesters assemble and scream at the top of their lungs while the speaker is presenting, are they not preventing him from speaking and thus, by exercising their freedom, abidging the speaker’s?
Skott, your analysis is incorrect. Here’s the accurate one.
StopDrLaura claims that Dr. Laura is intolerant.
StopDrLaura and its supporters do not what to aid Dr. Laura from spreading her message of intolerance.
Certain corporations were considering funding Dr. Laura and, therefore, her message.
These corporations’ money comes from purchasers of their goods and services.
Ergo, the money of the purchasers of these goods and services would be used to support Dr. Laura.
Certain purchasers of those goods and services (StopDrLaura, et. al.) decided that they could not, morally, provide money that would be used to pay for the spread of Dr. Laura’s message, and informed these corporations that they did not want any of their money being passed on by said corporations to Dr. Laura to aid in spreading her message of intolerance.
These purchasers said that, if the corporations insisted on paying for this message of intolerance, the purchasers would take their money and purchase goods and services from the corporations’ competitors.
The important thing here is money, Skott. If I purchase $1000 worth of goods from corporation X, and corporation X takes some of that money and purchases ad time on Dr. Laura’s show, I have become complicit in supporting Dr. Laura’s show. I don’t want to be complicit, so I spend my money elsewhere. You can’t stop someone from speaking, but you can’t make me pay for it.
Sua
BTW, there is no such thing as an absolute right to free speech. I can’t get arrested for cursing G-d in a church, but I sure as hell can get kicked out and ostracized by my community for doing it.
Sua
The only “attempt to prevent Dr. Laura from being on the air” is a group of people informing the consumer and the corporate sponsor of her history of hateful attitudes, something, if made public, might prevent them from wanting to listen to and/or financially support her. They’re not urging their congressman to pass a law to ban her from the airwaves, they’re just reminding people that not only is she a hatemonger, but that those people who do not care for hatemongers will not support those who support one. It’s a matter of economics, not abridging someone’s right to free speech. Money rules the airwaves.
Maybe some of you know the answer to this. Has protests and boycotts EVER gotton a show off the air? Doesn’t the controversy help the show? (no such thing as bad publicity)
There were threats of boycotts for UPN or WGN show a while back about a black butler for President Lincoln, but that was sacked because it just plain awful.
Spooje, for broadcast TV, my WAG is No, boycotts haven’t worked. OTOH, I do know that boycotts or threatened boycotts have prompted several local cable providers to pull the Playboy Channel or similar erotic-oriented channels.
Back to broadcast TV: I don’t think we have a good statistical sample yet. It’s only been the last 10 years in which broadcast TV has broken away from the strict hold of their internal censors and started producing shows that people would find offensive. 20 years ago, shocking and controversial television was “All in the Family”.
Sua
P.S. I’m not dissing AITF in any way; just saying that, compared to most of today’s shows, it is both intelligent and tame.
Anyone recall how long Rush’s show made it on the air? 30 minute show he had? Like, 20 episodes? I feel that if she doesn’t have good neilsen ratings, she’ll be back in radio faster than anything.
It would be interesting to see how the courts would rule on something like this. I imagine that it’s perfectly legal to boycott someone’s opinion you don’t like. Heck, it happens all the time with Donald Wildmon (there’s someone who needs to get out more) and his bunch. I haven’t seen too many sponsors who’ve shaken in fear from him. Seems like Disney is still in business regardless of the SBC’s misguided attempt to boycott them.
will stopdrlaura.com be effective? Probably not. What will work? Educating people and asking them not to watch the show. Low ratings are the kiss of death.
A popular radio talk show host in NYC (known as “Bob Grant”) was sacked by WABC (Disney) after black groups threatened to boycott/protest Disney. (He was promptly rehired by another station that did not have such a vulnerable parent company).
Saint Zero
There is no question concerning the legality of this.
Not really. it’s hard to get masses of people to modify their behaviour. Especially in this case, in that the show is not nearly as bad as these activists would like to have people think. And the people most likely to watch it are those who are likely to be symphathetic to her position.
What will work? To the extent that anything will, it is the boycott of the advertisers. They can always advertise somewhere else, and don’t need to get involved in controversy. If the show is a huge success, this will not harm it greatly, but if is borderline a tactic like this can be the added stone around its neck that can sink it.
Let me explain what I understand absolute free speech to be.
There are rights granted to human beings by the government and then there are rights that are innate to each human being, among them are the inalienable rights to life, liberty, etc.
The right to free speech is one of these innate rights. It is absolute; that is, even if a law does not govern it in what ever country, it is still a right.
The U.S. government may not have the power to stop someone from “muzzling” someone else, but this does not mean that the muzzlee’s rights are not being infringed upon.
Perhaps it would have been better to use the term “innate” or “unalienable”, but I chose “absolute” instead. My apologies for confusion.
There is a good point about this being an economic matter. In SuaSponte’s example about the bodega, it’s understandable that one would not want to continue patronage of a place they find offensive. However, the two situations are not exactly comparable: StopDrLaura is trying to get Dr. Laura off the air, as is implied in the name alone. I think would be more equivalent to standing outside the bodega and trying to bar customers from entering.
Which is, of course, perfectly legal. As long as I don’t manhandle any bodega patrons, I can stand outside the shop and shout, hurl abuse, and otherwise exercise my freedom of speech.
It’s what pro-life activists have a habit of doing smack in front of abortion clinics. Ironic how most of the people in favor of crushing the StopDrLaura activists believe that there should be no restraints placed on anti-abortion activists, to the extent that activists should be able to bar the entrance to clinics physically.
When the Supreme Court handed down a ruling forbidding such behavior, Dr. Laura’s defenders cried bloody murder.
Let’s take it from the horse’s mouth, shall we? From stopdrlaura.com:
No, they don’t want her on the air, not necessarily because she’s a bigot per se, but rather that the precedent is that out-and-out bigotry hasn’t been tolerated in the past, but seems to be tolerated (nay, rewarded) in her particular case. In addition, they realize that the only reasonable way to get her off the air is to target what keeps her there - money and ratings; let’s boycott her sponsors and inform the public what she’s really all about.
This is rediculous. No one (or very few people - I’ve never heard such sentiment) thinks that free speech requires that one be allowed to physically block the entrance to anything (which is not to say that no one has ever done it). What the Supreme Court ruled in the case of abortion clinics was that buffer zones could be instituted, requiring protesters to stand 50 feet or more away from the clinics, because of the supposed indimidation that would be inherent if they were closer. This is, as far as I know, a new finding invented for the purpose of protecting abortion clinics.
Is it so ridiculous that it made it all the way to the Supreme Court? So ridiculous that the decision was 6-3, with (predictably) judges Scalia, Thomas, and Rehnquist dissenting? So ridiculous that the Family Research Council thought that this decision represented a major limit to American freedom of speech?
Which two things are exactly the same. If protesters had not been physically blocking women from entering abortion clinics, this case would never have reached the supreme court. By lambasting the decision, anti-abortion activists are in effect saying that they have every right to intimidate people from entering the clinics. I don’t see your distinction.
I made no misleading statements and you corrected absolutely nothing. Do we really have to go over this again? Why are you trying to dodge my analysis?
I mentioned the recent Supreme Court decision, vociferously opposed by anti-abortion activists because it prevents them from employing their customary intimidation tactics. You replied:
That is precisely what activists were doing. Blocking clinics. Intimidating people, getting into their personal space, standing in front of the doors, etc. Apologists for the anti-abortion movement claimed that the activists were well within their first amendment rights. Do I really need to dig up a Janet Parshall quote for you?
I replied:
My response here is quite reasonable. I, not you, was doing the correcting.
To which you replied:
Ask yourself why were the buffer zones instituted in the first place. Because activists were blocking the entrances to clinics. Why was the establishment of buffer zones on trial before the Supreme Court? Because people thought they had the right to bar the doors to abortion clinics/ . Could this possibly be any clearer?
Nothing I said has been misleading, and your only “corrections” have been picayune attempts to undermine my reasoning without dealing with it. Now you realize that you were mistaken so we may continue the discussion.
I mentioned abortion clinics in the first place to point out the irony that Dr. Laura’s defenders were enraged by the Stop Dr. Laura campaign’s attempts to shut her down, but were equally enraged when the Supreme Court prevented them from interfering with a woman’s right to have an abortion. Hence I don’t think their freedom of speech arguments are anything more than rabble-rousing, partisan trash.
Now what? I suppose you have three choices. Admit that you are wrong, cease to continue the discussion, or somehow reconcile the incongruous behavior of Dr. Laura’s partisans.
Sorry for the tone of my previous post, which in retrospect seems a bit snippy. (Sometimes, when posting from work, there are actual tasks which need to be performed here, making things come out in a rush).
What I meant was that whatever may have triggered the case making it to the Sumpreme Court (and I am not conceding that it was just the physical blockage of the entries), the actual issues that were argued, and the decision from which three justices dissented, and which the “Family Research Council thought … represented a major limit to American freedom of speech”, and about which “Dr. Laura’s defenders cried bloody murder” was about the issue of having a buffer zone. Not about physically barring people from entering abortion clinics. It is wrong to suggest otherwise, which is what you did.
I am not offended by your tone. I post from work as well, and I understand.
To repeat. They objected to the buffer zone because they wanted to block clinics physically. They considered these zones an abridgement of freedom of speech because the believed the first amendment protected physical intimidation.
In other words, if they didn’t feel that their freedom of speech had been abridged, they would not have attacked the buffer zone legislation.
What kind of freedom of expression do buffer zones inhibit? They inhibit the ability of activists to enter the personal space of abortion candidates and intimidate them by blocking the clinics.
Ergo, the law that was on trial was the buffer zones, but the issue certainly was physical interference as a form of free expression.
It also inhibits the ability of these activists to get their message out. Having to stand far away is a limit on one’s ability to convey one’s opinion. (I also seem to recall that there have been limits placed on what kinds of message can be expressed as well. I have in my head the idea that some woman has been put on trial (or found guilty) for holding a sign larger than the officially allowed size. You seem to follow these issues more closely and might be more acquainted with the specifics.)
It’s always easier to win an argument if you get to make up the other side’s position, but it’s not as meaningful. Someone says “they’re limiting my ability to convey my opinion”. Response: “no, you don’t mean that - you really mean that they’re limiting your ability to physically intimidate them. Case dismissed”.
At any rate, you would apparently agree, at least, that someone who is genuinely interested only in being able to convey the message more effectively and not in physically blocking access, is not hypocritical if they oppose both the buffer zone ruling and the boycott of Dr Laura.