The SBC who flooded to OK to show support for someone so monumentally stupid that she thinks my gay friends are a bigger threat than terrorism. One further who says that this is a free speech issue.
Thanks, Streak, for making our day a little darker!:-). Can someone define the " "homosexual agenda"? I'm sure there's some organizations with agendas, but most of the gays I've known have pretty similar agendas as most of the heterosexuals I know. Unless.... maybe the people I think are hetero are really gay. I'm going to have to ask people to identify themselves right up front from now on so I'll know who is agenda-ing me and who isn't.
Tit for tat- I emailed you a nice webpage produced by one of your favorite tools. Later BB
Yeah, I have talked to my gay friends about the "gay agenda" and they seem rather puzzled too. But then again, if the religious right couldn't focus on the gays, they might have to look at poverty, environmental destruction, corporate policies that are harming everyone, 50 million people without health insurance, etc.
So much easier to focus on the gays. And then claim victimhood because people disagree. After all, Jesus said we would be hated for ......
Right--because free speech means other people shouldn't be free to speak critically of them.
I don't want to defend the death threats--as I mentioned on Greg's blog, I've gotten a few of those myself, and they're not fun. But they're also not vindication that I (or anyone else) am somehow right about any matter of principle. Angry people often say really stupid things, little of which they mean, and they won't follow through on most of the things they do mean once they've blown off some steam. It's just so childish to play the martyr in those circumstances.
Though not as childish as saying "Our rights are under attack" and meaning "We can't attack other people's rights!"
Good point Leighton. I haven't seen any indication that any of the people that don't like Kern wanting to legislate. Contrast that with several campus groups in my area that wanted Michigan State to ban certain speakers from campus. This followed a nasty protest where several people were hurt. One group claimed that free speech ended if the speech was "offensive".
I was still in law school when the whole Dixie Chicks "controversy" was going on. We discussed it in one of my classes and there were (supposedly) advanced law students that claimed it was a free speech issue because the critics were creating a hostile environment and that legislation might be passed.
steve, are you saying some of your fellow students saw it as reason to limit free speech? they claimed it was a hostile environment for whom? public figures in a public forum or private individuals who might agree? i'm harried and hurried but intrigued
Some, including several student groups, said that speech that was racist or 'offensive' should not be protected. I had a professor that believed hate speech and other forms of 'violent speech', including violent video games, should be classified as obscenity and not be protected speech.
Steve- In a setting like you describe, how do these persons see the excluded speech being defined and by whom? Since this is law school and a law professor I'm assuming there was some kind of idea of how they would go about determining what is obscene and what isn't.
I'm curious about the whole "excluded speech" topic. Is there some precedence for this? It makes me pretty uncomfortable, personally. I'm more apt to tolerate some pretty hateful stuff than to start letting government officials or juries start deciding what is ok and what's not. I remember a case (Metzger?) a while back where a white aryan publication was found in a civil suit to have encouraged violence and held liable, but I'm hazy on cases that involved "offensive" speech. Curious BB
BB, that is the difficult question. Content based restrictions have a huge Constitutional barrier to overcome. According to Brandenberg, a law may only punish speech that advocates the use of force to "incite imminent lawless action."
There are certain categories that are outside of protected speech. Obscenity is not protected. I don't recall the test, but I believe it is soemthing that appeals to the prurient (sp?) interests and has not redeemeing artistic value.
So called 'fighting words' are also not protected. They are words that are directed at an individual to provoke anger. Seomething that is merely offensive to some people would not fall under this category.
I am not sure if some of my fellow students were arguing for an expansion of the obscenity category or the fighting words category. I think there is a danger that any law or policy to restrict offensive speech would end up being overbroad. I am also concerned that opens the door for sedition laws and I am not willing to go there. There is certainly an ugly aspect to free speech, but I am willing to tolerate it for the safe of liberty.
I had to look up Metzger. He lost a civil case for wrongful death when several of his group's members killed someone at his behest. I am just guessing here, but the court must have believed there was a sufficient causal nexus between Metzger's racist rants and the murder.
Steve Thanks for the response. I hadn't had that concise of an explanation before.
Here's an article on Metzger. I think it was significant in that they were held responsible for inciting violence even though they were not directly involved physically or even in the same area (I think). It came to mind because I watched a PBS special on it years ago. Anyway, interesting to consider what is and isn't protected speech. BB
The obscenity is one of the harder ones to define, right? Who was the justice who said that he couldn't define it, but "knew it when he saw it."
And of course, we have the famous restriction on free speech involving darkened theaters.
I well remember the Dixie Chick incident and remember that Natalie said she was embarrassed by the President, and then the entire American South made us all embarrassed. But they had every right, just as Sally Kern does, to say stupid stuff. But so, without defending the death threats, do the people who think that Sally Kern is an idiot and that the conservative critics of the Dixie Chicks never understood dissent or patriotism.
The inciting to violence has to be imminent or pretty close. It isn't enough to say that all ______ are bad and should be killed. OTOH, if a person is speaking at some kind of event and says, "let's go get the ______," and people run out the door and do that, the speaker will be in trouble.
There is more to it. Free speech is not my area of expertise and covers a significan portion of case law on the Bill of Rights.
Obscenity is hard to define. I think it was Hugo Black who said, "I'll know it when I see it." The problem is that it uses some kind of average person test.
No, according to this, it was Potter Stewart, a name that came to mind when I was writing my comment, but couldn't recall confidently.
Just curious. When a person hires another to kill for him, the line is not even blurred, right? Is that because there is then a conspiracy in place?
This may be disconnected, (and I am sure I will regret this digression) but I have always thought of that when Mitch McConnell talks about campaign finance always being "free speech." It certainly can be. Certainly when I give money to Obama, I do so as an exercise in "voting" for him, but without expecting anything in return. If I give a thousand dollars to a candidate with a full expectation that I will get a job or government grant headed my way, that is very different use of money, isn't it?
Streak- I think the freedom of speech aspect of campaign finance is fairly complicated. This is definitely out of my area but a quick example could be "in-kind" contributions. These are limited as well as cash. So, if you are a radio jock and you use some time to speak for or against a candidate or issue, you have given equivalent to the radio air time price for however long you spoke. So, by limiting the amount you are allowed to contribute can actually literally limit your speech. I didn't make the example up out of thin air- there was a case in the Washington supreme court a while back.
Also, what if Streak wants to pay for an advertisement supporting SOF for president. SOF doesn't pay for it - Streak does. It can't go over the limit, either. So Streak's freedom of speech is impeded.
All that to say I think campaign finance and free speech is much more complicated that just how big a check you're allowed to write and what you expect back. We spend so much regulating this stuff it's probably better to just turn it loose and let the money fly! Later BB
Thanks for the correction. For some reason, I though it was from the Roth case in the 1950's. Obscenity prosecutions aren't very common anymore, with the exception being child porn.
I don't like the campaign finance laws. As unsavory as it sounds, I would just prefer to let people give whatever they want. This scheme just encourages creative ways of getting around the rules. I do support transparency. I think all contributions over a certain amount should be public.
Hey you guys been busy! One problem with fighting words and related exceptions in my experience has been with the tests used. For example, the US Dept of Ed's Office for Civil Rights uses a "reasonable person similarly situated" test, but ignores the fact that reasonableness, like fighting words, is culturally constructed.
It seems that it would be more balanced if a more nuanced approach was used wherein the court would ascertain how the words would be received in the 'target's' cultural context. From there, it might be worthwhile to consider whether the speaker knew or should have known the level of insult the words would provoke.
If one course in school law in a dangerous thing, then I'm a complete bad-ass.
Transparency sounds good. I am simply arguing that there is a fundamental difference between me giving 100 dollars to the Obama campaign (and in fact, a huge amount of his contributors are like me) and someone who is essentially buying legislation or a job.
And as for the obscenity and wanton carnality, I will have you guys know that I ran a web app that scanned this blog for obscenities and it registered as very low.
Of course, that was before this last round of fucking comments.
21 comments:
Thanks, Streak, for making our day a little darker!:-). Can someone define the " "homosexual agenda"? I'm sure there's some organizations with agendas, but most of the gays I've known have pretty similar agendas as most of the heterosexuals I know. Unless.... maybe the people I think are hetero are really gay. I'm going to have to ask people to identify themselves right up front from now on so I'll know who is agenda-ing me and who isn't.
Tit for tat- I emailed you a nice webpage produced by one of your favorite tools.
Later
BB
Yeah, I have talked to my gay friends about the "gay agenda" and they seem rather puzzled too. But then again, if the religious right couldn't focus on the gays, they might have to look at poverty, environmental destruction, corporate policies that are harming everyone, 50 million people without health insurance, etc.
So much easier to focus on the gays. And then claim victimhood because people disagree. After all, Jesus said we would be hated for ......
Sigh.
Right--because free speech means other people shouldn't be free to speak critically of them.
I don't want to defend the death threats--as I mentioned on Greg's blog, I've gotten a few of those myself, and they're not fun. But they're also not vindication that I (or anyone else) am somehow right about any matter of principle. Angry people often say really stupid things, little of which they mean, and they won't follow through on most of the things they do mean once they've blown off some steam. It's just so childish to play the martyr in those circumstances.
Though not as childish as saying "Our rights are under attack" and meaning "We can't attack other people's rights!"
Good point Leighton. I haven't seen any indication that any of the people that don't like Kern wanting to legislate. Contrast that with several campus groups in my area that wanted Michigan State to ban certain speakers from campus. This followed a nasty protest where several people were hurt. One group claimed that free speech ended if the speech was "offensive".
I was still in law school when the whole Dixie Chicks "controversy" was going on. We discussed it in one of my classes and there were (supposedly) advanced law students that claimed it was a free speech issue because the critics were creating a hostile environment and that legislation might be passed.
steve, are you saying some of your fellow students saw it as reason to limit free speech? they claimed it was a hostile environment for whom? public figures in a public forum or private individuals who might agree? i'm harried and hurried but intrigued
Some, including several student groups, said that speech that was racist or 'offensive' should not be protected. I had a professor that believed hate speech and other forms of 'violent speech', including violent video games, should be classified as obscenity and not be protected speech.
Steve- In a setting like you describe, how do these persons see the excluded speech being defined and by whom? Since this is law school and a law professor I'm assuming there was some kind of idea of how they would go about determining what is obscene and what isn't.
I'm curious about the whole "excluded speech" topic. Is there some precedence for this? It makes me pretty uncomfortable, personally. I'm more apt to tolerate some pretty hateful stuff than to start letting government officials or juries start deciding what is ok and what's not. I remember a case (Metzger?) a while back where a white aryan publication was found in a civil suit to have encouraged violence and held liable, but I'm hazy on cases that involved "offensive" speech.
Curious
BB
BB, that is the difficult question. Content based restrictions have a huge Constitutional barrier to overcome. According to Brandenberg, a law may only punish speech that advocates the use of force to "incite imminent lawless action."
There are certain categories that are outside of protected speech. Obscenity is not protected. I don't recall the test, but I believe it is soemthing that appeals to the prurient (sp?) interests and has not redeemeing artistic value.
So called 'fighting words' are also not protected. They are words that are directed at an individual to provoke anger. Seomething that is merely offensive to some people would not fall under this category.
I am not sure if some of my fellow students were arguing for an expansion of the obscenity category or the fighting words category. I think there is a danger that any law or policy to restrict offensive speech would end up being overbroad. I am also concerned that opens the door for sedition laws and I am not willing to go there. There is certainly an ugly aspect to free speech, but I am willing to tolerate it for the safe of liberty.
I had to look up Metzger. He lost a civil case for wrongful death when several of his group's members killed someone at his behest. I am just guessing here, but the court must have believed there was a sufficient causal nexus between Metzger's racist rants and the murder.
Steve
Thanks for the response. I hadn't had that concise of an explanation before.
Here's an article on Metzger. I think it was significant in that they were held responsible for inciting violence even though they were not directly involved physically or even in the same area (I think). It came to mind because I watched a PBS special on it years ago. Anyway, interesting to consider what is and isn't protected speech.
BB
The obscenity is one of the harder ones to define, right? Who was the justice who said that he couldn't define it, but "knew it when he saw it."
And of course, we have the famous restriction on free speech involving darkened theaters.
I well remember the Dixie Chick incident and remember that Natalie said she was embarrassed by the President, and then the entire American South made us all embarrassed. But they had every right, just as Sally Kern does, to say stupid stuff. But so, without defending the death threats, do the people who think that Sally Kern is an idiot and that the conservative critics of the Dixie Chicks never understood dissent or patriotism.
But I suspect we are all in agreement here.
The inciting to violence has to be imminent or pretty close. It isn't enough to say that all ______ are bad and should be killed. OTOH, if a person is speaking at some kind of event and says, "let's go get the ______," and people run out the door and do that, the speaker will be in trouble.
There is more to it. Free speech is not my area of expertise and covers a significan portion of case law on the Bill of Rights.
Obscenity is hard to define. I think it was Hugo Black who said, "I'll know it when I see it." The problem is that it uses some kind of average person test.
No, according to this, it was Potter Stewart, a name that came to mind when I was writing my comment, but couldn't recall confidently.
Just curious. When a person hires another to kill for him, the line is not even blurred, right? Is that because there is then a conspiracy in place?
This may be disconnected, (and I am sure I will regret this digression) but I have always thought of that when Mitch McConnell talks about campaign finance always being "free speech." It certainly can be. Certainly when I give money to Obama, I do so as an exercise in "voting" for him, but without expecting anything in return. If I give a thousand dollars to a candidate with a full expectation that I will get a job or government grant headed my way, that is very different use of money, isn't it?
Streak- I think the freedom of speech aspect of campaign finance is fairly complicated. This is definitely out of my area but a quick example could be "in-kind" contributions. These are limited as well as cash. So, if you are a radio jock and you use some time to speak for or against a candidate or issue, you have given equivalent to the radio air time price for however long you spoke. So, by limiting the amount you are allowed to contribute can actually literally limit your speech. I didn't make the example up out of thin air- there was a case in the Washington supreme court a while back.
Also, what if Streak wants to pay for an advertisement supporting SOF for president. SOF doesn't pay for it - Streak does. It can't go over the limit, either. So Streak's freedom of speech is impeded.
All that to say I think campaign finance and free speech is much more complicated that just how big a check you're allowed to write and what you expect back. We spend so much regulating this stuff it's probably better to just turn it loose and let the money fly!
Later
BB
Thanks for the correction. For some reason, I though it was from the Roth case in the 1950's. Obscenity prosecutions aren't very common anymore, with the exception being child porn.
I don't like the campaign finance laws. As unsavory as it sounds, I would just prefer to let people give whatever they want. This scheme just encourages creative ways of getting around the rules. I do support transparency. I think all contributions over a certain amount should be public.
Hey you guys been busy! One problem with fighting words and related exceptions in my experience has been with the tests used. For example, the US Dept of Ed's Office for Civil Rights uses a "reasonable person similarly situated" test, but ignores the fact that reasonableness, like fighting words, is culturally constructed.
It seems that it would be more balanced if a more nuanced approach was used wherein the court would ascertain how the words would be received in the 'target's' cultural context. From there, it might be worthwhile to consider whether the speaker knew or should have known the level of insult the words would provoke.
If one course in school law in a dangerous thing, then I'm a complete bad-ass.
Does anyone else find it somehow comfortingly appropriate that we're talking about sex and obscenity on Streak's blog?
Later
BB
BB, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Stop interrupting my wanton carnality.
Transparency sounds good. I am simply arguing that there is a fundamental difference between me giving 100 dollars to the Obama campaign (and in fact, a huge amount of his contributors are like me) and someone who is essentially buying legislation or a job.
And as for the obscenity and wanton carnality, I will have you guys know that I ran a web app that scanned this blog for obscenities and it registered as very low.
Of course, that was before this last round of fucking comments.
:)
Dammit, if you keep this up I am going to have to demand a NSFW designation.
Don't you censor me, you jack booted thug!
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