Fear and Loathing of the Right to Free Speech

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The United States Constitution; Amendment 1

The founders of the United States goofed. Then again, what do you expect when lawyers are involved? You see it, don’t you? The error? No? It’s at the very beginning: “Congress shall make no law…” CONGRESS. Everyone else, it seems, is free to do as they will. And they do.

Americans have long prided themselves of living in a land with a right such as freedom of speech (and those other pesky rights). But do we? Do we really? Let’s consider this video from Naomi Wolf that discusses how we’ve managed to cripple the idea. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qinPxSOBB5o (sorry for just the link, it wasn’t embeddable [and was taken down…just search on Naomi Wolf]).

It got me to thinking…perhaps we do still have a form of mass demonstration, just one that is catered to a 21st century sensibility. The mass-organized shout-down. You know the ones I’m talking about, we’ve been seeing them in town-halls and on cable “news” channels (I use that term generously and with tongue planted firmly-in-cheek).

To be fair, this is hardly new. Politicians have been facing the “lunatic” disruption at speeches, meetings, and hearings for years. The long-haired hippy liberal democrats/communists/socialists were famous for it. Their failing was that they’ve had a tradition of having a difficult time getting organized. It’s rather predictable, really, when you have a lot of people thinking and making their own reasoned choices, you’re bound to get so many points of view as to how something should be done that nothing effectively gets accomplished.

Say what you will about the far right (and I do), they understand how to weaponize. I can’t say that they aren’t stupid (maybe they aren’t…they just make a damn convincing argument for it), but they are very skilled in agreeing on a point and mobilizing the troops to shout it from the rooftops.

And boy, DO THEY EVER SHOUT!!!!

My goodness.

Maybe they are trying to be heard above the people on all those cable “news” shows (again, being very loose with the term “news”). You know the ones I’m talking about about. They have raised voices because, apparently: 1) their microphones are across the room; 2) their sound engineers don’t know how to turn up the gain. People, people, people. We have devices to receive and amply our voices for a reason. Stop shouting. Maybe if the din was less, there would be a little bit of listening.

I’m not seeing a lot of listening going on, either. Yeah, the poopyheads on the far right are being ridiculous (I mean, objecting to the President of the United States addressing school children…seriously?), but maybe at the core of their vituperative display is a very good reason. We need to listen to what they are saying. Conversely, the cries coming from the left need to also not fall on calcified ears. They have good reasons, too.

If BOTH sides can do that…then we can have a discussion.

But seriously, I know deaf people with better hearing than many on either side are demonstrating. Maybe it’s because that oft-neglected class of our population better appreciates how precious it is to be able to communicate. And communication isn’t just shouting at the top of your lungs. It’s about taking a breath and letting the other person have their say.

That’s what free speech is supposed to be about, Charlie Brown.

Naturally, many organizations and businesses hate it. From how they act, it seems their point of view is that if they can’t profit from it, then it must be costing them something. This past summer has seen sports organizations across the country formulating rules for “social networking”. Athletes, coaches, reporters, even the public seem to fall under this or that stricture. Some are pretty reasonable, while some have been truly draconian. What often gets lost in the shuffle is the fact the people have their own wacky ideas of what “free speech” means. They are willing to bend, but they push back pretty hard when someone tries to break them–just ask the RIAA.

Understand, I was raised in the 60s and 70s. You couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting free speech. It was wonderful. But I’ve also seen it erode, which hasn’t been so wonderful. Courts have ruled that businesses can restrict the speech of their employees. Similar rulings have come down on schools. As the video I linked to above shows, mass demonstrating has all but been regulated out of existence. (Something Ms Wolf didn’t mention in the clip was that unionization rules prevent Americans the sorts of policy-changing strikes that happen throughout the world.)

Then came the absurd paranoia in the wake of the events of September 11, 2001. While prudence was clearly necessary, laws such as the Patriot Act were allowed to be committed. Several of us, reading the tea leaves of history, knew this was a bad idea. We tried to speak up, but we weren’t even shouted down. No one was listening.

So yeah, that first Congress goofed. They permitted free speech, but they didn’t require listening.