Our local Objectivist club is putting it on:
Unveiling the Danish Cartoons: A Discussion of Free Speech and World ResponseShould be an interesting program; I'm sorry that child care duties keep me away from it.
Misc Event on Friday, March 10, 2006 (7:00pm - 10:00pm)
UCLA Campus: Dodd 147
The Danish cartoons depicting Mohammed have sparked a worldwide controversy. Death threats and violent protests have sent the cartoonists into hiding and have had the intended effect of stifling freedom of expression. The reaction to these cartoons raises urgent questions whose significance goes far beyond a set of drawings.
* What is freedom of speech? Does it include the right to offend?
* What is the significance of the worldwide Islamic reaction to the cartoons?
* How should Western governments have responded to this incident?
* How should the Western media have responded? ...Please note that the cartoons in question will be displayed at the event....
[Panelists:]
Dr. Yaron Brook is the president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute.... He was an assistant professor for seven years at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, California ....
Kevin James began his professional career as a lawyer, spending three years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney and another ten years as a litigator in high-profile entertainment matters.... [Since 2004, he has been a radio talk show host and a television panelist and commentator.] ...
Avi Davis is a journalist, documentarian, and commentator on Israel, the Middle East, and the Arab world....
Khaleel Mohammed is an Assistant Professor of Religion and a Core Faculty Member of the Center for Islamic and Arabic Studies at San Diego State University. He holds a Ph.D. from McGill University in Islamic Law, and his specialties include Islam, Islamic Law, and Comparative religion....
[Moderator] Dr. Edwin Locke, Dean's Professor Emeritus of Leadership and Motivation at the University of Maryland, has published more than 230 articles, chapters, and books on subjects such as leadership, work motivation, goal setting, job satisfaction, incentives, and the philosophy of science....
"Avi Davis is a journalist, documentarian, and commentator on Israel, the Middle East, and the Arab world...."
Excuse my ignorance, but what the heck is a "documentarian"? Is it a field of study that looks at or shuffles documents? I'm 42 years beyond academia and I know things change, but even in the 21st century I don't think I'd put "documentarian" in my bio or CV.
Now there's a thought that past me by. In fact, Webster's on- line says just that: "one who makes a documentary" However my Websters unabridged says it is a "person who employs or advocates the stressing of documentary presentation". I think the second definition encompasses the paper shufflers :) I guess, as hard as I try, I'm still in a paper-age mindset rather than a digital,media one.
It used to be for the second part of that question, the default answer was "Yes"
But see obscene material, which is often referred to as "patently offensive" material.
And that, as well as "we have to protect the children," is a quick and dirty way to undo all critical freedom of speech.
If you can't engage in a serious political, intellectual, or cultural discussion without displaying female breasts or genitals, or engaging in a "prurient interest" discussion of sex, then I feel very sorry for you.
The first issue is not whether you can engage in "[a] serious political, intellectual, or cultural discussion....", but whether you can engage in "[every] serious political, intellectual, or cultural discussion ...."
And why is it that you consider only "serious" discussions the subject of constitutional protection? (I'm assuming that your omission of other sorts of discussions was intentional. Please correct me if I'm wrong.) Surely not all "critical freedom of speech" is "serious".
By serious, I mean that which has real value. Satire and humor can be "serious" by that definition. You might want to argue that the First Amendment should protect everything, but that is clearly only an ACLU position, not one based on historical fact.
That certainly clears everything up.
I don't know if that's what Great Unknown meant, and I agree with you that it's a ridiculous statment if he meant that removing obscenity protections "undo[es] all critical freedom of speech." Still, it seemed worth offering the benefit of the doubt. Doug Sunseth might note that the uncharitable reading of Great Unknown would mean that the claim that
would then be unfair.
On a similar note, the answer to Flydiveski's question is that there are many forms of non-offensive speech that require protection. Campaign finance laws are a good example of the regulation of speech that should have a boundary. If we do not protect some political speech, we begin to run into the "republican form of government" limits, too, but the First Amendment is the first defense. No reasonable formulation of "offensive speech" includes reasoned discussion of SEC regulations as part of an electoral manifesto, but they get regulated anyway.
Incidentally, for some informative and entertaining treatment of UK Free Speech (and free association) issues, this is a must read article.
It would help your argument if you understood the history in question. The Alien Act is irrelevant to this discussion--these are two completely separate laws.
The Sedition Act, as written, was not contrary to the First Amendment. It was how it was applied by judges and juries that put it beyond the pale. Once you reach that point, it doesn't much matter what the law says, if judges and juries are prepared to misapply it to the facts of the case.
As an example, if a judge and jury was prepared to convict someone for murder when they clearly acted in self-defense, it doesn't matter what the law says.