You speak as if there were no existing restrictions on freedom of speech. In fact, there are plenty. Crank calling 911 is not a valid exercise of your right to free expression. If you decide to scream “BOMB!” on an aeroplane, you can’t hide behind the first amendment afterwards. Slander and libel laws exist for a very good reason. In short, your right to free speech is not, and never has been, completely unequivocal. This is as it should be.
The restriction prohibiting merchants from telling egregious lies about their goods and services is particularly telling. People selling a product are forbidden from attributing to it any false properties. If, for instance, you were to use your freedom of speech to convince me that you ran a charity, and that money I donated would go to a worthy cause, you would be indictable if the charity turned out to be a scam. Mediums are a little bit like phony fundraisers. In both cases, the con-artist preys on the gullibility of his mark. In both cases, the dupe is tricked into giving money to someone in exchange for nothing more than a few comforting lies. In both cases, the dupe receives in return some reassurance that he is supporting a valuable and much needed service. In both cases, the only real winner is the conman. I recognise that there are some distinctions between mediums and lying merchants. In moral terms, however, they’re not all that different. They both use their freedom of speech to hurt and take advantage of people.
All right thinking people know that mediums who claim to contact the dead are either (a) deluded, (b) merciless frauds, or © both. Enacting laws prohibiting the predatory practises of these nutcases and grifters should be a no-brainer, especially when you consider the vulnerability of their clientele. Unfortunately, as Skald The Rhymer noted, when you take mainstream religion into account there arises a constitutional complication.
There is no empirical evidence to support the existence of God. None whatsoever. In evidentiary terms, the faith-healer who claims he can cure cancer via the television (the example I gave of the woman in Cincinatti was a real one) and the medium who claims he can delve into the ether and contact great-aunt Mabel are on an equal footing. Any laws aimed at restricting the practise of mediums on evidentiary grounds can be equally applied to those select religious practitioners who invoke God to take advantage of people in similar ways.
Unfortunately, the Constitution specifically states that Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or abridging the free exercise thereof. Cultural reverence for mainstream religion has prevented certain pre-existing restrictions on freedom of speech from being applied to obvious religious frauds. That’s why I can’t go on TV and sell bottled water as a cancer cure, but someone like Peter Popoff can.
Widespread acceptance of mainstream religion makes it very difficult to enact any laws targeting mediums, not because of the harm done to the pocketbooks of the mediums themselves, but because of the risk of such a law infringing on the Constitutional clause protecting the free exercise of religion. Of course, if certain preachers weren’t so similar to mediums in their ruthless, mercenary, and entirely profit-driven manipulation of vulnerable people, this wouldn’t be a problem.
I have suggested two solutions. We can either revise the first amendment or we can draw a line between faith-healers and mediums and argue that mediums don’t qualify for first amendment protections in the same way. Your argument implies issues with the first solution. To this, I would simply say that I am not advocating anything particularly new. I’m just advocating a restriction on the freedom of speech of certain individuals which, in the spirit of our existing restrictions, aims to prevent people using their freedom of speech maliciously and for personal gain.
In this context, “laboratory” is just another way of saying “scientific and impartial”. There are numerous, clearly defined guidelines for ensuring impartiality in the laboratory. Tests would be run by reputable scientists, and checked by other, unaffiliated, reputable scientists.
That would depend entirely on the discipline under discussion. If you give me some examples I could try to elaborate.
Please don’t try and make this about me. Every day, innumerable people hop onto their pedestals and spend all the live long day saying things that I don’t approve of. I’m not, and never will be, at all interested in legislating against them. My concern is restricted to mediums, where a case can be made that they are using their freedom of speech to directly hurt people. And, I remind you, I am entirely opposed to making so-called psychic communication illegal. I would just require practising mediums to acquire a license first. Under laboratory conditions. Which would present absolutely no problems to any genuine medium.
Again, it’s not about me. But, as in all legal matters, the buck would stop with legislators.