Would you want to pursue the case?

[rigney]

I'll offer this up as something I neither believe or disbelieve in; but a thing all of us should keep in mind and think about. "Poor Lindsey Graham". Politicians should keep their mouths shut unless they find themselves roasting on a spit. Most of the narration is done by a sweet young thing I would have loved to meet before she went,???

Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xqtYkd2gCs

Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riSJcZC89Hc

Edited April 8, 2011 by rigney

[john5746]

this moron understands the constitution better than Graham, apparently.

[John Cuthber]

In my country burning a copy of the Koran would (probably) be viewed as "behaviour likely to lead to a breach of the peace" and,as such would be illegal.

There are already rules about free speech; not least, the ones about libel.

This has nothing to do with declaring the law subordinate to Islam, or to anything else.

So, it seems that the narrator of the video is making a simple mistake in saying that some politician who says " I wish we could stop people doing this" is rewriting the parts of the constitution that refer to religion.

[Marat]

In the U.S. the free speech protections are much stronger, since to be forbidden, any exercise of free speech has to threaten imminent and tangible harm, such as would arise from an anti-semitic speech in front of a Neo-Nazi crowd gathered before a synagogue, not any sort of speculative harm. Forbidden free speech thus has to be very close to the crime of inciting a criminal act, rather than just disrupting the social fabric in such a way as to disturb the public peace.

[lemur]

In the U.S. the free speech protections are much stronger, since to be forbidden, any exercise of free speech has to threaten imminent and tangible harm, such as would arise from an anti-semitic speech in front of a Neo-Nazi crowd gathered before a synagogue, not any sort of speculative harm. Forbidden free speech thus has to be very close to the crime of inciting a criminal act, rather than just disrupting the social fabric in such a way as to disturb the public peace.

It may be that the problem with US free speech is that it used to allow the balancing of its abuse as provocation with various rights to achieving satisfaction by violence, such as dueling. In a sense, pacifism has promoted the use of free speech as provocation by repressing effective responses to such speech. I don't think speech should be met with physical violence/aggression, but I do think there should be a way for people to challenge others to debates or something similar where the provocateur would be required to show up by subpoena or something like that. In this way, people would have the right to speak and express themselves freely but not without the responsibility to defend their ideas against response.

 

I doubt any law that censors speech to 'keep the peace' is effective since it would only serve to repress a conflict that would continue to simmer among those who self-censored to avoid punishment. The exception would be speech designed to rhetorically attack, provoke, and generally harass instead of constructively discuss. There would be no purpose of letting people subpoena someone to harass them publicly with rhetoric (unless they deserved it in which case it might be a reasonable form of retribution/punishment).

Edited April 10, 2011 by lemur

[CaptainPanic]

Freedom of speech ≠ Freedom to insult

 

Just because there is no law that enforces some tolerance doesn't mean you can behave like an asshole.

[Marat]

Probably the most severe public insult to the greatest number of people by the use of free speech was Martin Luther's nailing up his 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg in 1517. Not only did enormous pain and hatred flow from that act of free speech, but also the deaths of countless thousands in the religious wars that followed. And yet that public insult was also one of the milestones in the evolution of human consciousness, and many of its insights, which expressed a fundamental cultural shift to the creation of a sense of interior space, conscience, and full subjective consciousness in people who up until then had been rather superficial and lost in external forms and rituals, have gone even into forming the more modern version of the Roman Catholic Church which initially opposed them.

 

So assuming you wouldn't want to forbid that cultural development which was dependent on free speech being permitted to insult and even harm others, where would you draw the line? American law draws it at immediate and unquestionable incitement to physical danger to persons nearby, such as 'shouting fire in a crowded theater.'

[mooeypoo]

!

Moderator Note

Rigney, you're not a new member here, you already know that this demeaning attitude is absolutely not accepted here. You can explain your opinions without being offensive.

 

I have edited out the title of this thread, but since people already answered you, I didn't touch the actual text of your post.

 

Don't do this again.

[John Cuthber]

"American law draws it at immediate and unquestionable incitement to physical danger to persons nearby, such as 'shouting fire in a crowded theater.' "

This planet is crowded, and lots of people keep shouting "fire!".

[CaptainPanic]

Probably the most severe public insult to the greatest number of people by the use of free speech was Martin Luther's nailing up his 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg in 1517. Not only did enormous pain and hatred flow from that act of free speech, but also the deaths of countless thousands in the religious wars that followed. And yet that public insult was also one of the milestones in the evolution of human consciousness, and many of its insights, which expressed a fundamental cultural shift to the creation of a sense of interior space, conscience, and full subjective consciousness in people who up until then had been rather superficial and lost in external forms and rituals, have gone even into forming the more modern version of the Roman Catholic Church which initially opposed them.

 

So assuming you wouldn't want to forbid that cultural development which was dependent on free speech being permitted to insult and even harm others, where would you draw the line? American law draws it at immediate and unquestionable incitement to physical danger to persons nearby, such as 'shouting fire in a crowded theater.'

Although free speech in itself is a good thing, I think your argument is wrong.

 

Firstly, there was no such thing as free speech in 1517. The RC church determined what was allowed and what not... and they excommunicated Luther for his actions. That means he was not protected by the law, he enjoyed no such thing as free speech, but he still wrote his text.

 

Secondly, there are many revolutions which started because some inspiring people broke the law. A black woman refuses to sit in the back of the bus. Is this a good argument for anarchy? Breaking the law apparently makes society more advanced, why shouldn't breaking the law be allowed then? See, your single example is not an argument for free speech.

 

Thirdly, you suggest that we would advance through free speech... then why is it that in 2011 we seem to have gotten absolutely nowhere? The discussion is still at the level of 1517, if not worse. People still debate which religion is right and which is wrong... and it's not even a critical movement within a specific religion, but it's just the religious factions criticizing each other.

 

Fourthly (don't worry, I won't go up to 95), the formation of Protestantism was not the milestone... but the coinciding Age of Enlightenment was the milestone. And that Age happened not only in the Protestant regions, although Protestant regions were the birthgrounds of some of the oldest universities in the world.

 

And finally, there have also been many pointless wars which were started because of (free) speech. Hitler exercised his free speech by writing Mein Kampf, which is one of the reasons that WWII went the way it went. And that resulted in many technological breakthroughs. Good argument for free speech? I somehow don't think so...

 

 

Free speech is only meant to prevent governments from repressing a population, but free speech should be used by a population with care. Before you know it, the free speech of one person represses the freedom of another. For example, in my own country (the Netherlands), there are politicians who constantly exercise their freedom of speech, but they use it to suggest that we ban (make illegal) the Quran... in summary, that's using your freedom of speech to make sure that others don't. That's not what the freedom of speech is meant for.

[Marat]

1) There wasn't LEGAL free speech in 1517, beyond the limited right to post notices asking for theological clarification from superior authority on the Wittenberg church door, but there was was always the potential for and the human capacity of exercising free speech anyway, not only then but in every historical period. That is what I meant.

 

2) To advocate breaking a law denying free speech is not to advocate breaking every law.

 

3) Free speech gives people and society the potential to grow or relapse, but at least it makes us more intelletually empowered and significant beings. Since thought grows by its interaction in the public sphere with other thinkers, as long as we believe in rationality we implicitly have to accept that free speech is a net good.

 

4) There are of course many milestones in the history of human development. The Renaissance (1200), Humanism (1400), the Reformation (1500), the Enlightenment (1700), Existentialism (1900), etc., and certainly each stage has made its contribution. What they all have in common is that they tend to augment our interior space for reflection, criticism, doubt, and individual autonomy and ground us more firmly in thought and less in an external, unthinking, communal identity. In this sense the Reformation might well have been the greatest contribution to human development of all these stages.

 

5) Answered in 3).

[ewmon]

In my country burning a copy of the Koran would (probably) be viewed as "behaviour likely to lead to a breach of the peace" and,as such would be illegal.

In the U.S. the free speech protections are much stronger, since to be forbidden, any exercise of free speech has to threaten imminent and tangible harm

It may be that the problem with US free speech is that it used to allow the balancing of its abuse as provocation with various rights to achieving satisfaction by violence, such as dueling.

We're almost talking apples and oranges here. The British "rights" are what its ancient government granted to the people (ie, a list of "do's" for the people). The American "rights" arose from what naturally originates with the people that the government cannot touch (ie, a list of "don'ts" for the government). When one grows up in an environment that allows near perfect free speech, one either learns not to fly off the handle, or gets into a lot of trouble. Opposites also exist between Britain and America regarding defamation.

 

Under UK libel law, the defendant is presumed guilty and must prove innocence, a reversal of the tired cliché that one is "innocent until proved guilty." Additionally, under UK law there is no duty to show that the defendant acted "with malice," as there is in the US.

British Libel Law – Suppression of Truth in the US and UK?

Edited April 12, 2011 by ewmon

[Marat]

Although Britain often poses as 'the cradle of liberties' because it was the first society to establish liberty rights for its citizens (Magna Carta 1215; the conditions of coming to the throne imposed on William and Mary, 1689), in fact it has now slipped below the standard of liberty accepted as essential in many other Western nations. For this reason it often finds itself in the dock under the European human rights system. Part of the problem may lie in the fact that the protections offered by the basic principle of the common law, that everything not specifically forbidden by statute is permitted, and that statutes must be construed by the courts to favor individual liberty, were for too long taken as fully adequate protections of freedom, which they are not, since a clearly-worded statute can destroy freedom. Another part of the problem is the strange notion, dating from the time when the monarch was the executive, that Parliament significantly defends liberty by restraining the executive. But in modern times, when the executive has become just an elected central committe of Parliament, there is really no gulf between them so Parliament really cannot protect liberty. Becoming too complacent with these minimal protections of liberty, Britain eventually fell below the liberty standard of countries with constitutionalized rights protections. Even the European system of rights doesn't help much, since it is crafted to be deliberately weak so that a wide variety of jurisdictions could sign onto it.

[JohnB]

I presume that we'll see further videos from this woman where she burns a Christian Bible?

 

I didn't think so.

[John Cuthber]

UK libel law is complicated but the essence of it is quite simple.

If I say something bad about someone they have the right to object.

If I cannot show that what I said was true or that I had valid reasons to believe that it was true then the court will find against me and I will be held to account for my actions.

 

There are other defences but in simple terms, if I don't want to get sued for libel, all I have to do is ensure that I don't tell lies.

Is that such a problem?

The difference between the US and UK is that in the UK it is sufficient that someone defamed me for me to sue them. In the US I would need to prove that the defamation actually caused me some sort of harm and I could claim compensation for that harm.

 

Proving that my reputation has suffered is very difficult because it doesn't physically exist. Putting a value on that reputation is even harder.

 

The UK system serves to keep people honest because, even if they choose to make derogatory comments about some poor beggar on the street, that beggar still has the right to justice (which he won't get because the government decided that libel laws are not covered by legal aid.)

 

The problem that may happen with the law is that the courts come to the wrong conclusion.

For example, in the case of Singh vs the chiropractors, the law found in favour of the latter. In my opinion that's just plain wrong.

What he said was substantially true and was backed up by evidence.

[Marat]

The only good line in the New Testament comes when Pontius Pilate says to Christ, "What is truth?" A liberal society has to begin with the presumption that the truth is unknown, and that is why we all have liberty rights to pursue our own vision of the good, and also why we have a democratic system of governance, since the truth is not known in advance for all times, but constantly has to be reinvestigated and reinvented. So to limit what people can say by requiring their statements to be 'true' or by requiring that they demonstrate what a court thinks are 'good reasons' for their statement is contrary to the spirit of a liberal society.

 

A better defense is having to show that the statements were made in good faith, since that properly subjectivizes the standard and avoids the communal majority from determining what people can say and what they can't.

 

But in the current legal environment, where there are so many 'hate speech,' 'false news,' and 'Holocaust denial' laws, all of which assume that the state knows what is true and that individuals do not, the basic liberal foundation of the state is under threat. Essentially these laws simply recreate the old blasphemy legislation, only it has now been modernized to forbid insults to the new religion of political correctness.