How can one "prevent" someone else from speaking?
So, I can yell fire in a crowded theater without consequence.
The slow death of free speech
- Thread starter Locutus
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How can one "prevent" someone else from speaking?
So, I can yell fire in a crowded theater without consequence.
The right wants to declare the death of free speech because they don't want opposition while
trying to kill it. The left rambles on about some perfect world in harmony that never existed
and won't no matter how hard people try.
I am not for people spewing hateful statements in public about others not in the least. But if
people were making violent and radical statements we would be able to witness the threat to
our society.
Why is it is we make a great deal out of the verbal sewage spewed and we never seem to
address the real problems that caused the statements to be made
personally I have trouble hating people I don't know, I am cautious about the intentions of some
that is formed by the statements that come out of their mouth and the violent actions they
inflict on others.
trying to kill it. The left rambles on about some perfect world in harmony that never existed
and won't no matter how hard people try.
I am not for people spewing hateful statements in public about others not in the least. But if
people were making violent and radical statements we would be able to witness the threat to
our society.
Why is it is we make a great deal out of the verbal sewage spewed and we never seem to
address the real problems that caused the statements to be made
personally I have trouble hating people I don't know, I am cautious about the intentions of some
that is formed by the statements that come out of their mouth and the violent actions they
inflict on others.
Quite easily, nowadays:
Galway | BDS | Video | Israel student referendum
No, yelling FIRE is not free speech, in fact it is the test of free speech. Anything SHORT of yelling "FIRE" in a crowded theatre is free speech.
If it causes direct, immediate, and intended physical harm, it is not protected.
That is the same as inciting violence is not free speech. I can call Islam the new Naziism, I can slam Muslims for any number of despicable acts, I can call anyone scum.....I can NOT say "You need to go to your local mosque and open fire on these subhumans", as that is incitement to violence, and is beyond free speech.
Didn't see a problem, in the one video that would play. If the mouth piece in the back was too disruptive or started to threaten anyone then security should have been called and he get taken care of. The room, however, was pretty much empty, so obviously, that particular speaker did not have much of a following. Try again with another example.
So, in otherwords, there are restrictions on "free speech", correct?
Yes, there are.
But shouting down other people aren't legitimate restrictions, whether it's a college crowd shouting down a conservative speaker, or a teabagger crowd disrupting a liberal Congresscritter's town hall meeting.
There are laws to take care of anyone that is illegally disrupting a lawful gathering. We also have laws that allow counter demonstrations.
Whether the speaker had "much of a following", or none at all is irrelevant.
And constitutional rights exist as a defense against gov't interference.........so I would list the SCOC's Whatcott decision as a blatant violation of the right to free speech.
That said, I find the tendency to prevent speech by shouting down the opposite side to be very disturbing. Yes, security should have dragged the moron out, but we don't do that anymore. Same as when Christie Blatchford went to speak at Waterloo.....
Waterloo protesters silence Blatchford | J-source.ca
We now tolerate those who would disrupt debate. We should not.
Yes speech has limits.
Exactly.
But we no longer enforce them
Michael Strickland, assistant director of media relations, “We also had no interest in providing a photo op of our security dragging three people off the stage.”
This isn't about free speech being limited, it is about the law not being followed and not being enforced. The blame belongs to the University for shutting down the speaker and not calling in security.
Another word for "teabagger" is constituent in relation to elected officials.
But there is a cost, always.
You can freely say whatever you want to me and depending on what you say, I can stop talking to you, ignore/block your posts, deny you a service from my privately owned/run business, not vote for you in an election, boycott your business or refuse to use or buy your products... and I can freely ask others to do the same.
You can freely call me a potato eating, ginger freckled nation hopper.... but that doesn't mean I have to accept what you said and provide you with the same good demeanor afterwards as if nothing was ever said. Your freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom of consequence from others based on what you said.
The consequences of freedom of speech is that others may change their views and opinions of you (which happens every single day) and thus, affect future dealings with those people, such as cooperation, trade/sales, help & assistance, etc.
Freedom of speech is to prevent persecution from the state for speaking out and not being jailed or executed for speaking your mind.... more of less, but:
Freedom of Speech has never been absolute and can come with costs depending on the situation.
How about the police shutting down free speech??
Toronto Police Shut Down Draw Mohammed Day 2014 | BlogWrath - Thoughts on politics and common sense
Toronto Police Shut Down Draw Mohammed Day 2014 | BlogWrath - Thoughts on politics and common sense
I gave you a greenie to atone for the red****s ****ing ignorance.
Carry on Cliffy.
THAT is real bad !
I would have fined him for disturbing the peace.
And drawing isn't freedom of speech, it's freedom of expression.... And he wasn't drawing any expressions, he was trying to get others to do it for him. He was purposely trying to create conflict where everybody was trying to mind their own business and go about their day peacefully. Again, disturbing the peace & they were right to shut him down.
He was trying to be an attention seeking sh*t disturber more than anything.
Many Americans seem to think that free speech and the First Amendment are synonymous. They're not: the former is a larger and more primal concept. But one consequence of that confusion is that, whenever free-speech questions arise, you always get a ton of emails droning, "There's no First Amendment issue here, Steyn. Mozilla/Brandeis/A&E/whoever is not the government. It's a private entity and is perfectly free to can its chief exec/disinvite Ayaan Hirsi Ali/suspend 'Duck Dynasty'/whatever if it wants to."
Which is true as far as it goes, but doesn't address the core question of ugly thuggish identity-group enforcers remorselessly narrowing the bounds of permissible public discourse.
Still, for all those First Amendment pedants out there, consider this story from Houston, Texas:
~Meanwhile, in Kentucky, a Lexington T-shirt company has fallen afoul of the local "human rights commission" for declining to print T-shirts for the gay pride parade that it found offensive. As part of his ruling, the "human rights" commisssar, Greg Munson, has sentenced the T-shirt refuseniks to re-education camp:
~Insofar as either of these stories gets any traction, they'll be presented in the mainstream media as haters vs gays. That's another example of how the left has conquered the cultural space: after being marinated in narratives of racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, transphobia et al since kindergarten, fewer and fewer people even pay lip service to ideas of "free speech". Why, if free speech is being used to attack transgendered bathrooms, then it's part of the problem and has to go. And note that these stories are not from blue-state la-la lands like Massachusetts and California, but from supposed red-meat red states. How red do you suppose they'll be looking by, say, 2030?
Celebrate Conformity (cont) :: SteynOnline
And if this is going on in Texas, where they actually have constitutional protection of free speech, what chance do we have in Canada??
Which is true as far as it goes, but doesn't address the core question of ugly thuggish identity-group enforcers remorselessly narrowing the bounds of permissible public discourse.
Still, for all those First Amendment pedants out there, consider this story from Houston, Texas:
The city of Houston has issued subpoenas demanding a group of pastors turn over any sermons dealing with homosexuality, gender identity or Annise Parker, the city's first openly lesbian mayor. And those ministers who fail to comply could be held in contempt of court.
That's to say, the government is using the law to harass religious institutions critical of a political figure. Which sounds like First Amendment 101. I had to read it through a couple of times to check that I hadn't missed some crucial element. But on a close reading it gets even better. The government is demanding the right to inspect not merely sermons, which are texts written for public consumption, but private speech, too:
Among those slapped with a subpoena is Steve Riggle, the senior pastor of Grace Community Church. He was ordered to produce all speeches and sermons related to Mayor Annise Parker, homosexuality and gender identity.
The mega-church pastor was also ordered to hand over "all communications with members of your congregation" regarding the non-discrimination law.
The impetus for all this is a municipal ordinance:The mega-church pastor was also ordered to hand over "all communications with members of your congregation" regarding the non-discrimination law.
The subpoenas are just the latest twist in an ongoing saga over the Houston's new non-discrimination ordinance. The law, among other things, would allow men to use the ladies room and vice versa.
When Rush Limbaugh interviewed me the other day, I airily used "transgendered bathrooms" as an all-purpose shorthand for the kind of peripheral cultural issues that cumulatively add up to far more profound societal changes than anything most conservative politicians fuss over. And so in Houston it has proved: When the transgendered bathroom ordinance runs up against the First Amendment, it's the First Amendment that gets left for roadkill.
~Meanwhile, in Kentucky, a Lexington T-shirt company has fallen afoul of the local "human rights commission" for declining to print T-shirts for the gay pride parade that it found offensive. As part of his ruling, the "human rights" commisssar, Greg Munson, has sentenced the T-shirt refuseniks to re-education camp:
The second demand is that Hands on Originals — a company with around 30 employees — would need to participate in diversity training within the next 12 months.
Or, as Laura Rosen Cohen says, "Off to Diversity Gulag": The more we celebrate diversity, the more we have to enforce it with ruthless conformity. Big Gay has won most of its battles, and could surely afford to be magnanimous in victory. But it has a totalitarian urge to hunt down the last holdouts: Nobody cares if the T-shirt guy really has a change of heart; all that's necessary is to force him to pretend to believe and to drone the mandated pabulum in public.
~Insofar as either of these stories gets any traction, they'll be presented in the mainstream media as haters vs gays. That's another example of how the left has conquered the cultural space: after being marinated in narratives of racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, transphobia et al since kindergarten, fewer and fewer people even pay lip service to ideas of "free speech". Why, if free speech is being used to attack transgendered bathrooms, then it's part of the problem and has to go. And note that these stories are not from blue-state la-la lands like Massachusetts and California, but from supposed red-meat red states. How red do you suppose they'll be looking by, say, 2030?
Celebrate Conformity (cont) :: SteynOnline
And if this is going on in Texas, where they actually have constitutional protection of free speech, what chance do we have in Canada??
