Person X makes an effort to restrict the free expression of ideas; person Z criticizes X, and says this is a violation of free speech; Person Z pipes up, and says that it has nothing to do with free speech, because after all, X is not the government.
Person Z is wrong, and has conflated two different ideas that are too often used interchangeably.
“Free Speech” is a philosophical/ethical notion that includes the idea that the government should not restrict speech, but goes well beyond that. “The First Amendment” is the specific legal provision by which the concept of Free Speech is encoded into American government.
[ul]
[li]If X is an employer who will not permit staff to voice dissent or criticisms, it is not a meaningless statement to say that “X does not see the value of free speech.” [/li]
[li]If X is the leader of a religion that forbids its adherents from questioning dogma, it is accurate to say that “X’s religion does not encourage free speech.” [/li]
[li]If X is a private institution that does not allow members to express some ideas, it is fair to say that “X is not fully committed to the idea of free speech.”[/li][/ul]
Note that employers, religious leaders and others may have plenty of perfectly good reasons for limiting free speech; it does not always trump all other ideals, any more than “freedom of assembly” entitles me to hold a pep rally in your living room. Parents tell their nine-year-olds what words may or may not be spoken in the house, Admirals tell ensigns to bite their tongues, and authority figures of various kinds, in both public and private institutions, assess the trade-offs involved in speech restrictions.
Free speech is an ideal, one that different people value more or less, and one that competes with other ideals (e.g. unanimity/sensitivity/truthfulness/etc.). The First Amendement and subsequent caselaw makes it plain that the US government values it very highly (but not absolutely). Not everyone everywhere agrees; nor should they, as different organizations have different purposes and different objectives.
Attempting to eliminate discussion of free-speech issues within these other contexts under the grounds that “the government isn’t involved here” shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept.
Yes, but people usually bring it up in the context of a “violation of so and so’s free speech rights.” The only*** right*** to free speech is (in the US) from the first amendment.
Yeah, I agree with Procrustus. Do you (furt) have examples of this Person Y (I assume you meant Y in the OP) complaining about being a violation of free speech, without reference to free speech rights or the First Amendment?
What the OP says is technically true. But it overlooks the fact that employers, churches, and other private institutions do not have police powers and that association with them is voluntary.
I used to be a FedEx field sales rep – quite literally the face and voice of the company to the businesses in my territory. I don’t think it was unreasonable of the company to require that I refrain from publicly criticizing it for, say its anti-union policies during that time. My job was to support FedEx.
If a church or club uses or threatens force to prevent its members from speaking their minds, it is committing a crime and should be prosecuted. If it simply makes toeing the organizational line a condition of membership, they are doing nothing wrong. I know a young woman who runs a rape victims’ advocacy group non-profit. She has to refrain from endorsing or criticizing political candidates because of her group’s tax-exempt status; the group’s board will remove her if she breaks that rule. That, too, is reasonable.
In my experience it’s much more common for people confuse the limitation on the government as some sort of general societal right to say whatever one wants.
I’m not saying it isn’t. In fact, I specifically said it is. (See the paragraph after the bullets).
It would not, however, be reasonable for FedEx to say “we are committed to allowing our employees freedom of expression on the job.” They aren’t (and probably shouldn’t be).
I obviously agree with furt because I said the same thing in this current thread. My take on it is that there are many groups that both do not understand and do not desire free speech to be a realized ideal for the masses so they try to dishonestly limit its scope as much as possible by repeatedly pointing out that the 1st Amendment only applies to the government. That is technically true but is also disingenuous because that applies to everything else in it as well. The fact that the Constitutional recognizes free speech as a natural right supports the claim that is a widely applicable ideal.
Okay, stated a little more precisely, the US Constitution prohibits the government from infringing on the right to free speech (with certain limited exceptions). So, although you may have the “right” to free speech without Constitutional protection, it might be difficult to enforce such a right.
As this thread lays out, there are many other situations where there are limits (sometimes significant limits) on my free speech rights.
Agreed…but even these other cases involve the government peripherally.
If you sign a contract with your employer not to say something bad about the company, you’ve involved in contract law, and the government has the power to enforce the terms of the contract.
If bully-boys come along and lean on you for having said something bad about Don “Pliers” Coppiente, they aren’t violating the First Amendment…but they are engaging in criminal activity, and can be prosecuted by the government.
If your mama says, “Don’t talk like that or you don’t get any dinner tonight” – the government probably isn’t going to get involved.
I am one of those who constantly upholds a rather absolutist regard for free speech, and the lazy, all-too-common refrain from the (liberal) responders is that SDMB censoring certain speech is not a curtailing of free speech because the SDMB isn’t run by the government.
A lazy, half-assed position that forsakes the historical moral tenets of liberalism.
I’ve posted similar sentiments before. Conflating the two is a rather parochial argument, especially when they’re telling this to non-Americans. You could probably make the case that in the modern era free speech is most under assault by private groups, industry standards, and the various boycotts, petition/letter drives, and mass movements of morally righteous pearl clutchers. Both left and right.
That one XKCD free speech comic doesn’t help, either.
The big problem is it’s hard to draw boundaries because one man’s free speech infringement is another man’s competition in the marketplace of ideas. A lot of people also seem to think speech is binary. Either you can say anything you want or you’re being repressed. They act like they’re in the French resistance when they get modded for insulting someone on an internet forum. Oh, the humanity.
I agree, but I would add that the term free speech, like most words, refers to a vague concept with no canonical definition. With the First Amendment, there is the actual text, plus the generations of legally established Supreme Court interpretations to point to. But if you and I disagree on what free speech is, we have no basis for rational argument and are reduced to making nostalgic references to inspirational heroes of the past, or accusing one another of evil motives. We have entered the realm of pure opinion, where debates go to die.
The OP’s point is not only not correct but is also sterile.
**Stringbean **and **Shagnasty **would disagree, apparently, but I align with Skald. Privately associated groups may have all kinds of rules (see HOA agreements) that appear to run counter to a human being’s natural rights (i.e. rights based on the nature of humans and principles such as Kant’s Categorical Imperative (just an example, please let’s not debate that)).
However, they don’t actually contradict those rights because the associations are voluntary (as Skald pointed out). “Rights” is really only a political concept. They exist independent of government, but it is usually the job of good governments to adjudicate and enforce them. Outside that context, rights have little meaning. And anyone may (within limits) accept the necessity to limit their actions or speech in order to achieve some other end, such as keeping their job or maintaining their club membership.
To use the HOA example, as a property owner I have certain rights to make changes to my property as I see fit. By joining an HOA I voluntarily give up some of the options within those rights. To say that HOAs are not in favor of property rights is not correct; what HOAs are in favor of is property rights as amended by legal contractual agreements.
So all three of the OP’s bulleted points are not correct. Those entities are (or at least may be) in favor of free speech rights but if you want to stay within those entities you must abide by their rules. You are therefore voluntarily suspending your option to say certain things while you are within the entity. Your rights have not changed, as long as force is not involved.
I can’t imagine a world where everyone feels perfectly free to say whatever they want, to anyone, at any time. Suppose you hold an opinion that would shock and outrage most of your friends. Do you feel free to express it? Probably not, because you don’t want to be shunned. Assuming that your friends would shun you for expressing such an opinion, does that mean your friends are against free speech?
I disagree. The “violation” alluded to by Z only makes sense in the context of the government and the laws and rights they are supposed to guarantee. The basis of the complaint is hypocrisy, and that almost certainly doesn’t apply to private entities because they never guarantee freedom of speech. More specifically, they don’t guarantee freedom from the consequences of one’s speech. That is the real issue you seem to be glossing over. I can say pretty much whatever I want, but I cannot prevent someone from responding to my speech in a punitive way unless that person is the government. And even in the case of the government, there is plenty of speech that can result in punishment from the state (eg. death threats, obstruction of justice).
No, not really. There has never really been a time when there was a real expectation from private entities and individuals that speech be free from judgment, retribution, or consequences. Go back far enough, and speech could result in someone killing you without much consequence. For almost all of human existence, one man walking up to another man and insulting him would result in a swift, physical response to the insult, not a measured appreciation for the right to speak freely in any and every context. That’s why you idea that this is some deeply held inalienable right understood by all to exist doesn’t even pass the smell test.
This is not really illustrative of the point you seem to want to make. Saying someone “doesn’t value free speech” is different from alleging a response to given speech is a “violation”. The latter is what most people are getting called on. For example, a workplace that demands formal business attire could be said to not value casual work attire, but it would be nonsensical to argue their negetive response to someone wearing a wife beater to work is a violation of his or her rights despite the fact that there exists a general right for one to dress however one chooses. The other examples have the same issue among others.
Free speech is an ideal, but violations are typically understood to be transgressions of codified rights and established norms. Speech without consequences is not an established norm for private individuals by and large except in limited circumstances like whistle blowing.
Wrong. There is no free speech issue as one can say whatever they want even in private matters. The issue is that punitive measures and judgement can be exercised by private individuals generally without issue.