# Free speech **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 29, 2022, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-speech/965303 "2022-05-29T15:08:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-speech/965303/21 "2022-05-30T00:01:51Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > The case of George Floyd would be a good example of what you are talking about. People were given the impression that police killings were a common occurrence. Police killings _are_ a common occurrence. What is also common is that many people dislike that being said out loud. None of that has any relationship to free speech or proper debate. Unpopular truths have been suppressed by the majority throughout history. Almost always they needed to be said louder and more bluntly to be heard. Every advance in American culture has been made by rude speech. However, every advance in American culture has also been hindered and delayed for decades by very loud and rude speech telling the other side to shut up. If there is a way out of this dilemma it has not yet occurred to humanity. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-speech/965303/22 "2022-05-30T01:06:54Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Beyond that, things get complicated. Where do we draw the line between stating an opinion that a particular ethnic group is inferior, say, and harassment, intimidation and incitement to commit crimes? I would put people waving swastikas, using racial epithets and holding banners saying “jews must die” or whatever firmly on the latter side. I don’t know about ‘you must die’, which could be taken as a direct threat, but all the rest is completely protected. In fact, in the 1970’s the Illinois government tried to stop actual Nazis from marching, and were sued in court and lost. The ACLU defended thr Nazis and won, back when they still believed in free speech. So the Nazis got to march. It took the Bluesmobile to stop them. You don’t need protections for speech that everyone likes and agrees with. The speech that needs protection is the stuff that majorities don’t like. That’s why it’s in the bill of rights and put outside of the popular vote. People like Lenny Bruce and George Carlin were opposed by majorities in many states, and lots of people thought their material was highly offensive. Andres Serrano’s ‘Piss Christ’ was very offensive to many religious groups, but he was allowed to make and sell it. Pornography offends many people, but is completely allowed unless crimes are committed in making it (child porn, hidden camera nudity of unwilling people, revenge porn, etc.) Canada has a weak constitution, and now we are seeing our speech curtailed. Donate to the wrong group or talk with them on message boards and you may have your bank accounts frozen. Criticize the wrong group and you can wind up in front of a tribunal and have your right to speak and freely associate taken away from you. The majority appears to be perfectly okay with this, which is why you don’t allow fundamental rights to be voted on. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-speech/965303/23 "2022-05-30T01:32:33Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The ACLU defended thr Nazis and won, back when they still believed in free speech. Huh? The ACLU still does believe in free speech. Look at some of the various free-speech cases they’re litigating now, for example, such as [a suit against overbroad government censorship of publications by government employees.](https://www.aclu.org/cases/edgar-v-haines) Or [this current suit against a Tennessee law requiring businesses to post a government-approved sign if they choose to let transgender patrons use their preferred restroom.](https://www.aclu.org/cases/bongo-productions-llc-et-al-v-lawrence-et-al) they pointed out in a recent essayThe ACLU is doing a lot more than any internet “free speech warriors” to push back against unconstitutional government interference with freedom of expression. As , > [@](#): > > Since 2017, we have supported the constitutional rights of the NRA, the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity Foundation, anti-Semitic protesters, Trump supporters, Trump himself, Republican challengers to a Democratic gerrymander, right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, and conservative and anti-gay student groups, to name but a few. We have filed multiple Supreme Court briefs with the Cato Institute, the American Conservative Union, and the Institute for Justice. If you want to fight some ignorance about conservative whining about the ACLU “no longer believing in free speech”, take a look at some of the cases they’re fought recently for conservative, racist, homophobic, and other bigoted forms of freedom of expression: > [@](#): > > - We [challenged](https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/student-speech-and-privacy/when-colleges-confine-free-speech-zone-it-isnt-free) Arkansas State’s “free speech” zones as applied to a homophobic and racist student organization; […] > > - We won an appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ( _Koala v. Khosla_ ), on behalf of a conservative student magazine denied funding by the University of California at San Diego after they published a story mocking “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces”; […] > > - We [protested](https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-nra-has-a-right-to-exist-11598457143) New York Attorney General Letitia James’ effort to shut down the NRA based on the wrongdoing of some of its leaders as a violation of the right of association; […] > > - We filed a Supreme Court [brief](https://www.aclu.org/cases/americans-prosperity-foundation-v-xavier-becerra-attorney-general-california) supporting the conservative nonprofits Americans for Prosperity and the Thomas More Society in a challenge to California’s donor disclosure rule as violating the First Amendment; […] > > - We filed an amicus [brief](https://www.aclu.org/c1g-v-scott-siegfried-amicus-brief) in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit arguing that the First Amendment places limits on schools’ authority to punish students for expressing themselves outside of school, even when that expression includes highly offensive anti-semitic language. > > - We defended [New Jersey](https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/court-vacates-charges-roselle-park-resident-wrongly-cited-under-obscenity-ordinance) and [Kansas](https://www.aclukansas.org/en/city-blue-rapids-re-1st-amendment-prosecution) residents’ First Amendment right to hang up “Fuck Biden” signs outside their homes. The First Amendment protects our right to express our opinions on political issues without fear of punishment by the government. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-speech/965303/24 "2022-05-30T02:41:46Z")
There is a lot of commentary out there about the ACLU being internally divided now on free speech: > **[The ACLU Retreats From Free Expression](https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-aclu-retreats-from-free-expression-1529533065)** > > The organization declares that speech it doesn’t like can ‘inflict serious harms’ and ‘impede progress.’ > **[Once a Bastion of Free Speech, the A.C.L.U. Faces an Identity Crisis...](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html)** > > An organization that has defended the First Amendment rights of Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan is split by an internal debate over whether supporting progressive causes is more important. And a decent article on what’s happening to the ACLU, with commentary from IramGlasser, previous head of the ACLU during the 70’s: > **[‘The ACLU would not take the Skokie case today’](https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/02/14/the-aclu-would-not-take-the-skokie-case-today/)** > > Ira Glasser says the organisation he once led has retreated from the fight for free speech. > **[The ACLU is turning its back on free speech](https://www.spiked-online.com/2018/08/01/the-aclu-is-turning-its-back-on-free-speech/)** > > America’s premier civil-rights group gets cold feet about hate speech. But you are correct that they have recently taken on some first amendment cases on behalf of people they don’t like to protext speech they no doube find distasteful. So perhaps it’s more fair to say that the ACLU is becoming conflicted over speech due to a generational shift and increasing pushback from the left which has gotten stronger in the Trump years. Most of the changes and conflicts in the organozation are fairly recent. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-speech/965303/25 "2022-05-30T03:58:34Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > But you are correct that they have recently taken on some first amendment cases on behalf of people they don’t like to protext speech they no doube find distasteful. Yes, I can see how anybody relying primarily on articles as slanted as the spiked-online ones you cited might not have been aware of that. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > So perhaps it’s more fair to say that the ACLU is becoming conflicted over speech Meh, the ACLU was “conflicted over speech” back in the Skokie case days, too. IIRC, tens of thousands of ACLU members left the organization over their defense of the Nazis. The less dramatic and more realistic narrative, as opposed to some quasi-tragic story arc of “loss of principles” or “generational conflict”, is that conflicts between freedom of speech and other civil liberties have always caused controversy about principles, including in organizations like the ACLU. After such controversies are well over, they get enshrined into mythic narratives that make the conflict of principles look less messy than it was. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-speech/965303/26 "2022-05-30T06:41:33Z")
> [@echoreply](#): > > Because who gets to decide what is a lie? The critical word was “knowingly”. _Knowingly_ lie. So if a journalist confidently tells her audience that a box contains oranges, if later it is found that she had no idea what was in the box, or, worse, had seen there were _apples_ in the box, then she knowingly lied. Knowingly lying is unethical and not something society should make special protections for. Secondly we do of course grant the courts (with the aid of expert witnesses) the power to rule on objective fact. Why should it be any different saying “Eating McDonald’s cheeseburgers makes your testicles wither and fall off” (which could have you sued for defamation) than “The covid vaccine makes your testicles wither and fall off”? ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-speech/965303/27 "2022-05-30T06:49:24Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I don’t know about ‘you must die’, which could be taken as a direct threat, but all the rest is completely protected I’m aware of where the line is drawn in the US. I’m saying that disagreeing about exactly where the line is doesn’t make one person pro and another anti free speech. I do not believe that the US has set the line in the ideal place. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > You don’t need protections for speech that everyone likes and agrees with. The speech that needs protection is the stuff that majorities don’t like As I say, the thing that society needs is the protection to state any opinion. So; being able to state the opinion that Jews were responsible for 9/11: protected speech (though, as I say, if an organization styling themselves as a news agency says this, then they may need to point to some data they had for making this claim). A bunch of people with swastikas shouting racial epithets as people exit a synagogue? No societal value in protecting that. ---
**Author:** ![echoreply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/echoreply/32/3641_2.png) [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-speech/965303/28 "2022-05-30T13:44:54Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > The critical word was “knowingly”. > _Knowingly_ lie. And I stand by the same statement “who gets to decide what is a lie?” Right now we are in a society where the two primary political factions can’t even agree on basic facts. To pick an absurdist example, what if a journalist writes an article about birds, and the people who get to decide believe that birds aren’t real? A less absurdist example, what if the journalist writes an article, “The powers that be are corrupt, and here is proof.” Will the powers that be just let that slide? Or will they be able to come up with evidence showing it was a lie? In your post you suggest that the courts get to decide, but if the powers that be have packed the courts? Even if the courts are fair, the danger and expense of a trial will cause a chilling effect on journalists writing critical things of those in power, even if in the end they are likely to get exonerated. We already have slander and libel laws, which are an exception to free speech. In those cases (in the US) the burden is on the person suing to prove that what was said or written was a factual statement (not opinion), that it was wrong, (in many cases) that it was deliberate and with malice, and that it caused harm. Even with that high burden, the threat of slander and libel _still_ can cause a chilling effect on what people write or say. Look at SLAPP lawsuits. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-speech/965303/29 "2022-05-30T15:05:05Z")
> [@echoreply](#): > > And I stand by the same statement “who gets to decide what is a lie?” Essentially, the person that made the claim. That is to say, it’s not the truth or falsehood of the statement itself, but whether the person making the claim had grounds for saying it. If they cannot cite anything (or the data was actually in contradiction), then they knowingly lied. In terms of the courts, how shitty American courts are is another issue; we’re talking first about principles of free speech. And, if your position is that it’s fine to have laws against defamation and libel, but there should also be a “right to lie”, then your position – popular though it may be – is inconsistent. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-speech/965303/30 "2022-05-30T15:50:15Z")
I am starting to think the problem has very little to do with the speaker and a whole lot to do with the listener. I believe we have an entire civilization of people who really don’t know who they are. We simply lack identity and it doesn’t take much to suck someone in. Once you have tapped into someone’s identity you have them. Politicians are well aware of how powerful a force this is. I think we could solve a lot of the worlds problem by creating a framework of sorts that gave more opportunities for people to establish identities they are happy with… ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-speech/965303/31 "2022-05-30T16:41:15Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > I believe we have an entire civilization of people who really don’t know who they are. We simply lack identity and it doesn’t take much to suck someone in. Once you have tapped into someone’s identity you have them. Not disagreeing, just quibbling with the word civilization - while modern mass media, instant and targeted communications have made reaching out to people unspeakably more easy than at any prior point in history, it’s not like we were the ones who coined the term [demagogue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demagogue#:~:text=A%20demagogue%2C%20in%20the%20strict,'leader%20of%20the%20rabble'.&text=The%20word%20demagogue%2C%20originally%20meaning,occasionally%20arose%20in%20Athenian%20democracy.). We’ve just lowered the bar on the difficulty of any crazy shouting on a street corner to reaching a world-wide-audience. In a sense, it’s the ultimate expression of manner-less free speech. Not a value judgement on free speech, which I think we’ve all been trying to be careful about, but that rights and freedoms have consequences (often social in areas where the government is prohibited from interfering with speech). ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-speech/965303/32 "2022-05-30T16:57:51Z")
Well said. Taking a slightly different tack, we in the audience have responsibilities. If we’re all to be exposed to fully free speech, we cannot responsibly act as though all we hear is the truth or is the product of sound logic without actually going to the effort to verify that to at least some degree. We talk about shielding “impressionable young children” from certain malign influences. Which is benign to beneficial in and of itself unless carried to extremes. But … It becomes very dangerous to civilization when either: a. The majority of adults still act like impressionable children, believing any line of malarky that’s well-told with enthusiasm, or b. Some TPTB decide to treat actual discerning adults as little better than children, and feed them a line of carefully considered malarky. Which many of them duly absorb uncritically. There have been SF stories of all sorts over the decades about humanity finally inventing a technology too dangerous for us to control and it duly wrecks us. It would be tragicomic if it turns out we’ve already done so and the tech that wrecks us is simply the ability for all of us to be heard unfiltered by all the rest of us. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-speech/965303/33 "2022-05-30T17:51:16Z")
Free speech has never been freer than today. Read American history. Any time period from the colonial days on. Every decade had enormous battles over what can be said and what can’t ever be said and who can say what when and what the government would decide to do about it. Can we break away from the British? Is slavery legal? Are immigrants entitled to rights? Are free blacks entitled to rights? Are women entitled to rights? Are Communists entitled to rights? The House Un-American Activities Committee thought it should decide such matters long before Republicans controlled Congress in the 21st Century. The ACLU was founded in 1920 - i.e. post wartime censorship - in response to the [Palmer Raids](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Raids). **Nothing** about this generation is new and different. Even the fact that nobody knows anything about our true history was sadly just as prevalent a disease in 1920 and 1820 as well. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-speech/965303/34 "2022-05-30T19:45:58Z")
I remember the first time I heard Hilary Clinton say that there was something wrong with 45% of the population. I was shocked. Since that time, I hear it daily. Things like that really bother me. I have no suggestions as to how to remedy it. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-speech/965303/35 "2022-05-30T20:38:56Z")
See, there’s an example of what I mean. Clinton never said that: it’s a distortion of history. Yet people choose to believe it. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-speech/965303/36 "2022-05-30T23:04:05Z")
Without disagreeing with @Exapno_Mapcase , I’d argue that something is indeed wrong with a sizeable portion of our populace that does indeed fail to exercise adult skepticism and adult logic and does indeed buy transparent bullshit as if it were the truth. They are abjectly failing at doing their duty as citizens. And they are, IMO, abjectly failing at their duty to be civilized adults of any nation. Credulous inhalers of BS propaganda are not what the world, nor our country, needs right now. Or at any time. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-speech/965303/37 "2022-05-31T01:22:54Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > I remember the first time I heard Hilary Clinton say that there was something wrong with 45% of the population. …when did she say this? ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-speech/965303/38 "2022-05-31T02:29:46Z")
Could be he’s talking about the “[basket of deplorables](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basket_of_deplorables)” comment. Although there she said it was half, not 45%. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-speech/965303/39 "2022-05-31T02:36:52Z")
We all know he’s referring to the deplorables comment. It’s the part where he ignored the reality that she said _half_ that’s so important. If he’s really hearing the lie daily, that’s a statement about the bubble that 22.5% of the population lives in. How to remedy that? Get out of the bubble, stop believing lies, and never vote for anyone who repeats them. Pretty simple, really. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-speech/965303/40 "2022-05-31T04:39:56Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > It’s the part where he ignored the reality that she said _half_ that’s so important. You mean, where Clinton originally said (and the next day retracted) that half of Trump supporters were a “basket of deplorables”, whereas HoneyBadgerDC thinks she said nearly half of the total population? To be fair, that is a very common kind of misunderstanding. People remember (more or less) the stated percentage but forget what sub-population it was being applied to. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-speech/965303.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-speech/965303.md?page=3)