Why does it seem that defenders of the right to free speech are sometimes the same people who enjoy verbal and written attacks on people? What makes public commentators so vengeful, ugly and vile in their statements against fellow human beings?
What is this obvious preoccupation with wanting to be the winner at all costs? I’ve never understood hatred. Not even as a child. And not even as a child growing up with severe, painful, life altering situations. There is always a choice – continue the pattern of smashing another human-soul to pieces or acting with love and a generous heart.
Freedom of speech seems to give people the go ahead to say whatever they want about someone and claim it to be the truth, while offering no credible proof. And people pay to read this stuff. Where I live, some stores cover up issues of Cosmo magazine to hide the bodies of the cover models, but they leave in full view “US”, “People”, “Star” and other publications that promote rumor, half-truths and made-up stories to sell ad space. Blogs do the same thing. A blog can publish any content, true and factual, scraped and stolen or one-sided and unproven, and earn money from their affiliate and paid ads.
The underlying poison in using freedom of speech as a free pass to say and write anything, regardless of the truth or proof, is the judgment of character by the person having the free for all. Commentators write and talk about people they’ve never met and think they have the freedom and right to not only pass judgment on them, but can write and say anything they wish and be backed by the Constitution of the USA.
Personal attacks are judgment calls and one person’s view. There are always many sides of an experience. Does Freedom of Speech give everyone the right to pass judgment and spread their agenda? Does the law make it right to purposely lie? Since we know that many people will never fact check or look at a story from a 360 degree perspective, is taking advantage of those people the loving to do?
Do Truth, Accuracy and Peaceful Co-existence matter at all anymore?
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{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Here’s another example…the policy at FriendFeed is “who cares!” Anyone can post whatever they want, true or lie or fantasy, and its perfectly ok.
“What should I do if someone is saying negative things about me on FriendFeed?
This is certainly unfortunate. In this case, your best option is to block the user so that you no longer see this content. Our service is comprised of both user-generated and automatically-generated content, and we are not in the practice of removing such content unless it reveals personally identifying information, such as addresses, phone numbers, credit card information, etc.”
I should disclosure that I am a most-feverent defender of the right of others to free speech, even when those rights may include personal attacks on others. My support of someone’s rights is not an endorsement of the content of the speech or the manner in which they express it; it is simply about what is the essence of free speech – supporting the same rights of those you DON’T agree with or care for, and not just the ones you do happen to.
It’s a separate issue on the nature of why some people abuse a public forum to throw out hateful and purposely hurtful statements against others. Some will say they have the own reasons, and others may even lack the courage to come out from anonymity while doing it. The downside of any empowering medium of communication (like blogging) is that with the ease of publication and dissemination of free expression, people tend to throw consideration to the wind, or even give themselves a reminder that there’s a real other person who they’re attacking with vitriol.
It is a huge problem by many people on throughout the political and social spectrum for making character assassinations and baseless accusations without properly looking into the available facts. It happens a lot with political punditry today, because emotion and yelling tends to win out with the public for entertainment value, over logic and reason.
So now to answer your question: “Does Freedom of Speech give everyone the right to pass judgment and spread their agenda? Does the law make it right to purposely lie? Since we know that many people will never fact check or look at a story from a 360 degree perspective, is taking advantage of those people the loving to do?”
Yes, it is taking advantage of people (both the audience and the target of the attack) when people lie (i.e., purposefully spread false information to create malice for their target, and attention and undeserved sympathy for themselves). But free speech does not encourage lying. That is because we all have the right to counter such lies with our own same rights to free speech. The law also does not allow for defamation (including libel or slander, which now in some state courts are one and the same), if you are able to prove that the statements were 1) False, and 2) reckless behavior by the issuer, and 3) Meant to cause the recipient harm. (Now you are a private figure, you don’t have to prove damages. But if you put yourself out in the public eye with your profession or like this blog, then your privacy rights may be less, based on how the defamatory content may or may not relate to your public life.)
Nobody has the right to NOT be offended. If that was the case, blogs like this wouldn’t exist. (Just by the nature of expressing an opinion, ANY opinion, you’re going to be offending someone.) Just like you have genuine issues with some people in your life, those people will likely argue they have genuine issues with you. They may choose to express what should be a private matter in a public forum because they want attention and sympathy, even though their behavior may be so irrational and erratic by their choice of words and expression, that it only makes them look bad to others. And that is exactly why free speech for everyone WORKS. You see, if you tried to suppress their opinions by say, going to their web host or filing charges, without them meeting the criteria for defamation, then you would achieve the opposite result of what you intended. You would get them a larger audience, and some of that audience may feel sympathy and support for them that they would not have before – and get them more attention and validation to continue doing what they’re doing, because now they feel more justified.
Free speech is not supposed to always be nice or productive on every instance it’s being used by someone. Its not supposed to be allowed on the basis of what you or I consider the quality of the expression, or the choice of opinion or words, or the choice of medium. Its especially not about what and who you like; it’s about what and who you dislike, even detest. When you can stick with the principle, you actually are better able to take personal and wrongful attacks against you, well, less personally.
You want to promote truth, accuracy, and peaceful co-existence? Those are all great goals. So continue to do what you’re doing now, and win people over with influence, and continue to be honest with your best knowledge of the facts, and be transparent with your own opinions. Believing in the inherent good in enough people in this country is exactly what brought about our Consititution. It protects you to do here just as much as anyone else.
And if the people who are attacking you never actually have made the attempt to either meet you or even try for reconciliation? Say they hide behind a blog or video? Well, they’re cowards who lack the courage to stand up for their convictions. Look at these people as ones who are simply exposing their bad qualities to others. Supporting their rights makes you look good, and above their petty, personal attacks that are eventually seen for what they are. (Which is why they get scared of what they’ve done sometimes and remove them once they are forced to take a hard look at themselves. It may not stick forever, but eventually it even becomes rather amusing, and make you more confident in you own fortitude for handling such attacks, and even laughing them off.)
Remember this: Freedom of speech is truly great, because gives us all the right to be wrong. Let others be wrong, and you’ll be in the right.
I meant to say, “3) Meant to cause the recipient harm.” Harm! See, free speech allows me to correct myself, too.
One of the thin gs I remember hearing as a child and repeatedly growing up is that with freedom comes responsibility. Today, we seem to have a gorwing list of freedoms and the part about responsibility has been forgotten.
On another note, this blog is seriosuly distorted in IE8. It is scrunched up in a narrow band in the middle of the browser with a font so tiny it’s unreadable except in a feed reader (which alters the fonts). To read it in IE8, I havfe to increase the font to 150% or 200%.
Just remember also, the responsibility is also on us to protect the freedom of speech of those who we disagree with for their beliefs and even their actions. That is when you can also make a strong message of influence by leading by example.
@dj…thanks for the alert. I have it narrowed the cause down to being a different version of thesis but haven’t found the fix. I got it look better in IE but have to find the correct soluition. Your feedback is MUCH appreciated
@Grant, I agree with you on everything and have learned more, thanks to you. Being responsible is a critical factor when living with the freedom of speech. Sadly, that freedom and sense of responsibility is twisted to fit one’s own beliefs and perspectives on the world, can be manipulated by mental illness or hormones or out right abused out of malice. So here we are, protecting the right to be slandered because its the law.
“So here we are, protecting the right to be slandered because its the law.”
Exactly – just as we have become so worried about protecting the rights of criminals that we’ve forgotten about protecting the rights of victims.
Freedom of speech does not and should not convey absolute or unlimited freedom. For example, we have hate crime laws which limit the right to freedom of speech or even freedom of the press. And defending such freedoms is not compromised by recognizing that those freedoms do have limits.
I have to correct you there, djbaxter. Hate crime laws do not limit freedom of speech or the press. Hate crime laws are about punishing actions against classes of groups for what is already against the law. (That include terroristic threatening.)
Kim, I’m very glad I could share some of my own background and experiences here with you and your audience. I have been slandered before myself, including against someone who suffers from mental illness, so I can certainly relate. What we find in our personal and professional lives to be slander is a standard for ourselves and how we deal with others. What counts in the courts as meeting the legal definition of slander, requires a much higher standard of criteria, not to mention the effort of pursuing legal action (and a court case). There are plusses and minuses of that for people who find themselves to be on the receiving end. From my own experience I find that to me much more of a positive than a negative in the long run, because we all now have the means to let our truth be told, and enough level-headed people who will listen (and share).
Grant Crowell (February 27, 2010 at 1:42 pm) wrote, “I have to correct you there, djbaxter. Hate crime laws do not limit freedom of speech or the press. Hate crime laws are about punishing actions against classes of groups for what is already against the law. (That include terroristic threatening.) ”
That’s not a correction. I;m not sure it’s even a disagreement. If there are laws saying that I do not have the write to verbally state certain opinions or to publish certain opinions, that is a limitation of free speech.
And that is as it should be. As I stated above, “Freedom of speech does not and should not convey absolute or unlimited freedom…. And defending such freedoms is not compromised by recognizing that those freedoms do have limits.”
You misclassified terroristic threatening as stating an opinion. Terroristic threatening is showing intent to commit a crime. If I said that any group of people should be killed, or even if one person should have harm done to them, whether or not it was classified as hate speech, it would still be within my First Amendment right.
Again, you’re confusing speech with action, along with intent to commit such action. Just stating an opinion is not in itself an intent to commit such action.
No, I am not confusing speech with action.
The example of terrorist threatening was yours. My example was hate crime laws, i.e., public statements or publications which are negative toward certain societal groups and which might be reasonably expected to incite hatred toward that group. The person making the statement or publishing the comment does not have to have any intent to commit actions against that group, but it is still illegal if it is deemed to be likely to incite hatred toward that group, whether or not it actually results in physical crimes against that group.
Of course, I’m referring to Canadian law. How that may be interpreted in the US, UK, or elsewhere may be different.
But it doesn’t matter, since the principle I am trying to cite is a societal recognition of limits to free speech and limits to the press. Such limits exist, I think, in all nations, to one degree or another. If you don’t like the example of hate crimes, consider libel laws and the like.
You hadn’t made the distinction that you weren’t referring to U.S. law. I am aware that hate crime laws in Canada are different in the U.S., just as they are in Canada and the UK.
We can agree that free speech has limits. But you aren’t making the distinction between freedom of speech and freedom of the press. In the First Amendment to the U.S. Consitutiton, there are 5 tenants: Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and right to petition the government for redress of greviances.
I consider myself most fortunate to live in the U.S. and have the full ability to these rights, which I find are better and more realistic than in Canada and the U.S. I do remember when Andrea Dworkin and Catherine McKinnon were successful in having some kinds of pornography banned in Canada for getting that deemed as hate speech, only to have the lesbian porn shops and strip clubs hit the hardest by the law. All in the name of protecting the historically oppressed and disadvantaged, which has shown to backfire.
And in the U.S., hate crimes also apply to targeting white males, too.
Hate laws in Canada aren’t specific to color or gender or religion. They apply to evrryone, at least potentially.
But perhaps the disctinction between freedom of speech and freedom of the press is greater in the US. I’m not sure it matters here whether you say it publicly, or write and publish it, other than that slander laws apply to speech and libel to writing.