Today's blog is a letter that I just wrote to the editors of The Nation, a news magazine that is firmly in the liberal camp, a magazine to which I subscribe (Shocker !). It is my response to something that was written in their "Noted" section in the July 12 issue. The author was attempting to paint the recent Supreme Court ruling in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project as something that will result in people being locked up simply for advocating peace. I wish I could post the whole thing here, but I think that doing so would go beyond what is considered "fair use". I also don't think I can post a link to the piece online since it is only supposed to be available to subscribers. I think the quotes from the piece that I included in my letter should make it pretty clear where this guy is coming from, though.
You may ask, why am I posting this letter in my blog (besides allowing me to post a blog that requires minimal effort) ? I do it for two reasons.
1) It's the kind of thing that would normally get my dander up enough to blog about. Certainly, it bothered me enough to write a letter to the editors of a magazine, only the second time I've done so. The first time was a few weeks back. I wrote a letter to the editors of The Hockey News letting them know of my disappointment at them for not just including the owner of the San Jose Sharks (an evolution denier) in their "Genius" issue, but presenting a comment from him in support of creationism in a way that seemed to me to suggest the author's support for his views.
2) I think it offers some evidence that despite what some people may think, and as I have said before, I am not a "bleeding heart" liberal who automatically skews way to the left on any issue.
So here it is :
While I share David Cole's desire to uphold the First Amendment and his outrage at the Citizens United decision, I have to take issue with his obvious attempt to distort the meaning of the ruling in this case. ("Noted", July 12)
Over and over, he implies that people are no longer allowed to advocate for peace, "Human rights activists can be sent to jail.....merely for advocating for peace and human rights", "Six justices ruled......that Congress can make it a crime to advocate for wholly lawful, nonviolent ends", "(The Court) reasoned that the mere possibility....that human rights advocacy might somehow advance a designated group's illegal ends was enough to justify prosecuting human rights advocates as "terrorists" for their speech", ".....a human rights activist can be sent to jail for pursuing peace".
Sounds pretty scary, right ? That is, as long as you ignore the fact that the ruling makes it clear that you can't advocate for a designated terrorist group or write or publish anything in support of them if you are doing so in conjunction with them or under their direction. In other words, Mr. Cole and others are still perfectly free to advocate for peace. They can still write articles, place ads on TV or the radio, hold rallies, have parades, etc, etc, promoting peace and advocating on behalf of any designated terrorist group they like. They simply can't do it in concert with or at the behest of those groups.
The First Amendment is arguably our most tenuous right. It needs to be constantly defended from those who attempt to chip away at it, but mounting that defense using a distortion of the facts is not the way to go about it.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Friday, June 4, 2010
Offensive speech
So this morning, I did something that I do occasionally even though I know it's just going to annoy me. While flipping through the channels on TV, I stopped on Fox "News". Steve Douchey (yes, I know that's not how it's spelled, but it should be) and the bubble-headed bleach blonde (tip of the cap to Don Henley) were talking to a curator of a museum in Oklahoma. Right now, the museum she works for is displaying paintings that show the Virgin Mary holding weapons. For instance, in one painting, she is holding what looks like a sub-machine gun. She isn't using the weapons or even pointing them at anyone, just holding them. Now I didn't find this particularly offensive, (I wasn't particularly impressed with the artwork, in my opinion, it was competent, but nothing special) but then again, I don't believe in the whole Virgin Mary story anyway, so that's not surprising. It also wasn't surprising that Fox actually considers this news or that the whole point of having this woman on was to give her grief (as opposed to taking a "Fair and Balanced" look at the situation)and get Fox viewers riled up about this awful thing that's going on, even though no one's forcing any of them to go to Oklahoma and look at this stuff.
But the point of this post isn't to point out what everyone knows, which is that Fox "News" is not a news organization. I just want to comment on something the BBB said. I don't remember the exact quote, but I think this is close enough to it to make the point, "I understand the whole free speech thing, but, still, a lot of people would probably find this offensive". The second half of that statement makes it clear that the first half of it isn't true. The whole point of freedom of speech is to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech, by its' very nature, doesn't need protecting. If I say something like, "Puppies and kittens are cute", I don't have to worry too much about upsetting people. But if I say something like, "I think if Christ did exist, he was just a guy with some good ideas, that's it, he certainly wasn't the son of God", there are quite a few people who would be ticked off. Does that mean I shouldn't have the right to say that ? Before you answer, think about this, would you want to live in Iran ? In that country, religion IS the law and woe on anyone who would dare to say anything against it. Some of the right wing nuts who think Obama's a nazi have drawn pictures of him with a Hitler mustache and Nazi uniform and displayed them at rallies. I personally find this offensive (and, frankly, I think most Jews or pretty much anybody who knows anything about history should). To compare anything Obama has done, no matter how much it has ticked you off, to what Hitler did is incredibly offensive and the people who do it just display how ignorant of history they are (and in general). Still, I would never say they weren't allowed to do it. Of course, during the Dubya administration (the Dark Years), any piece of artwork that made such an offensive implication about Dubya would have sparked outrage among these same people.
Bottom line, freedom of speech is not there to protect speech everybody likes. It's there to protect speech many people won't like, maybe even you. And like the right wingers who said that criticizing Dubya was disloyal and that we should always support our president no matter what who are now carrying those Obama is Hitler signs, the speech you find offensive today might be the kind of thing you want to say tomorrow. It's very easy for the tables to be turned. If you really love this country, like so many on the right claim to (and imply that those on the left don't), then you should support the First Amendment (and the rest of the Constitution) and just don't listen to, watch, etc. anything you don't like. Otherwise, one day you may find that you're the one being silenced.
But the point of this post isn't to point out what everyone knows, which is that Fox "News" is not a news organization. I just want to comment on something the BBB said. I don't remember the exact quote, but I think this is close enough to it to make the point, "I understand the whole free speech thing, but, still, a lot of people would probably find this offensive". The second half of that statement makes it clear that the first half of it isn't true. The whole point of freedom of speech is to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech, by its' very nature, doesn't need protecting. If I say something like, "Puppies and kittens are cute", I don't have to worry too much about upsetting people. But if I say something like, "I think if Christ did exist, he was just a guy with some good ideas, that's it, he certainly wasn't the son of God", there are quite a few people who would be ticked off. Does that mean I shouldn't have the right to say that ? Before you answer, think about this, would you want to live in Iran ? In that country, religion IS the law and woe on anyone who would dare to say anything against it. Some of the right wing nuts who think Obama's a nazi have drawn pictures of him with a Hitler mustache and Nazi uniform and displayed them at rallies. I personally find this offensive (and, frankly, I think most Jews or pretty much anybody who knows anything about history should). To compare anything Obama has done, no matter how much it has ticked you off, to what Hitler did is incredibly offensive and the people who do it just display how ignorant of history they are (and in general). Still, I would never say they weren't allowed to do it. Of course, during the Dubya administration (the Dark Years), any piece of artwork that made such an offensive implication about Dubya would have sparked outrage among these same people.
Bottom line, freedom of speech is not there to protect speech everybody likes. It's there to protect speech many people won't like, maybe even you. And like the right wingers who said that criticizing Dubya was disloyal and that we should always support our president no matter what who are now carrying those Obama is Hitler signs, the speech you find offensive today might be the kind of thing you want to say tomorrow. It's very easy for the tables to be turned. If you really love this country, like so many on the right claim to (and imply that those on the left don't), then you should support the First Amendment (and the rest of the Constitution) and just don't listen to, watch, etc. anything you don't like. Otherwise, one day you may find that you're the one being silenced.
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