Showing posts with label free speech. Show all posts
Showing posts with label free speech. Show all posts
Wednesday
Just listened to Lincoln Caplan, visiting law lecturer at Yale law school, talk about the future of the Supreme Court under Clinton or Trump presidency on Marty Moss Coane's Radio Times show on NPR. The current Robert's court is overwhelmingly favorable to corporations and moneyed interests. Something most of us know and dislike. Since Citizen's United case was decided, money is regarded by SCOTUS as free speech. Interestingly, Caplan states there should be a Constitutional Amendment to restrict SCOTUS appointments to 18 years, not life. I agree fully with that. No SCOTUS Justice should have a life time appointment. It's just wrong as well as undemocratic, given SCOTUS is political.
Monday
Excuse me! Don't we we live in a democracy?
I am amused by the outcry against Iran's Ahmadinejad speaking today at Columbia University after his speech at the United Nations.
No one sane agrees with this man's views, in relation to his idiotic denial of the Holocaust, to his call to wipe Israel of the map, to his appalling record on human rights and development of nuclear weapons.
However, we live in a democracy and the principle of democracy is that all people have a right to be heard and a right to be grilled and heckled and castigated by others about their positions. And people not wanting him to speak have a right to protest, but they do not have the right to veto what others can hear. That is what happens in a vibrant democracy.
I have the right to hear Ahmadinejad discuss his positions and to hear others question him about them. Ahmadinejad has the right to be heard in America. Columbia University has the right to invite him to speak and I applaud their decision to do so. Their doing so shows free speech and academic freedom are alive and vibrant in the United States.
Are we so afraid of Ahmadinejad that we cannot give him a forum to express his views no matter how odious they may be? (He certainly is charismatic, witty and smart, but is this a reason to fear him to the extent of denying him the right to speak in public?) Are we so beholden to interest groups and their lobbies who're offended by his views in a matter of interest to them that we must accede to their demands and refuse him that forum?
I think not. America is comprised of many cultures and creeds and no one culture or creed can hijack our right to hear another voice. 60 Minutes gave him a forum last night and there was NO protesting that. Why pick on Columbia University?
No one sane agrees with this man's views, in relation to his idiotic denial of the Holocaust, to his call to wipe Israel of the map, to his appalling record on human rights and development of nuclear weapons.
However, we live in a democracy and the principle of democracy is that all people have a right to be heard and a right to be grilled and heckled and castigated by others about their positions. And people not wanting him to speak have a right to protest, but they do not have the right to veto what others can hear. That is what happens in a vibrant democracy.
I have the right to hear Ahmadinejad discuss his positions and to hear others question him about them. Ahmadinejad has the right to be heard in America. Columbia University has the right to invite him to speak and I applaud their decision to do so. Their doing so shows free speech and academic freedom are alive and vibrant in the United States.
Are we so afraid of Ahmadinejad that we cannot give him a forum to express his views no matter how odious they may be? (He certainly is charismatic, witty and smart, but is this a reason to fear him to the extent of denying him the right to speak in public?) Are we so beholden to interest groups and their lobbies who're offended by his views in a matter of interest to them that we must accede to their demands and refuse him that forum?
I think not. America is comprised of many cultures and creeds and no one culture or creed can hijack our right to hear another voice. 60 Minutes gave him a forum last night and there was NO protesting that. Why pick on Columbia University?
Friday
Is hate speech also free speech?
It was 'Survivor' night last night and we have this thing going with our neighbors for a couple of seasons whereby we go to their house or their come to ours beforehand. Last night was at our place and the conversation got around to Don Imus's firing for calling the Rutgers ladies basketball team a racial slur, namely "nappy-headed hors". I don't care that that is part of the 'rap' vernacular and thus invented and used by black rappers everyday. That is not a defense.
To be honest, when I first heard it, I got that 'hors' alluded to whores but I did not get that 'nappy' means kinked hair.
Anyway, our neighbors both thought that Imus had a right to free speech that was protected by the Constitution. Jessica said that people who hate have a right to make hate speech, to say something she does not like or agree with because hate speech is also part of the right to free speech. She said she was Jewish and there are many people who say hateful things about Jewish people that she does not like, but the right to free speech must be protected. Larry and Scott seemed to agree, Larry even saying that many people in America say horrible racist things about Puerto Ricans and he just ignores it or laughs it off. Their argument also followed the line of 'let the market decide', that if people don't like it, they can switch off the radio or TV or not buy the magazine or newspaper, etc.
I could see their point, but in the end I concluded that free speech must indeed be protected but there are some forms of speech that is so abhorrent, so derogatory, so destructive that it is not true speech at all. It is hate or prejudice, uttered to incite a targeted audience, and thus it is dangerous because, when received by that audience who may have the power to take action against the victims of the diatribe, it can lead to bloodshed and even murder. Moreover, the fiction or analogy of people being subjected to hate speech as being people operating in an open market is not applicable. Not everything in our society can be reduced to a question of market forces.
In my mind, the state has a compelling reason to prevent hate speech from occurring and can take all action available to it to remove the speech from the airways. I would even go further and add that the government should take action to remove such speech from private airways, such as those streaming cable TV, satellite radio, etc. into our houses.
I believe we, humans, are in a constant struggle to evolve, to become better, to reach higher levels of justice and compassion for our fellow human beings and hatred, discrimination and bigotry have no place in the evolutionary cycle. Neither does Don Imus's 'jokes.' He went to the trough one time too many and it is just that he pay a price and his time at CBS and MSNBC is now over.
Of course, politicians and other leaders in society should take a look at themselves and ask why they were prepared to overlook his jibes at African-Americans, gays and lesbians, and women in order to appear on his show and get their own messages out in the past yet stated they wouldn't again appear on his program before it was actually canceled. I'd say that is hypocrisy.
Can we hope Rush Limbaugh and others of this ilk are next?
To be honest, when I first heard it, I got that 'hors' alluded to whores but I did not get that 'nappy' means kinked hair.
Anyway, our neighbors both thought that Imus had a right to free speech that was protected by the Constitution. Jessica said that people who hate have a right to make hate speech, to say something she does not like or agree with because hate speech is also part of the right to free speech. She said she was Jewish and there are many people who say hateful things about Jewish people that she does not like, but the right to free speech must be protected. Larry and Scott seemed to agree, Larry even saying that many people in America say horrible racist things about Puerto Ricans and he just ignores it or laughs it off. Their argument also followed the line of 'let the market decide', that if people don't like it, they can switch off the radio or TV or not buy the magazine or newspaper, etc.
I could see their point, but in the end I concluded that free speech must indeed be protected but there are some forms of speech that is so abhorrent, so derogatory, so destructive that it is not true speech at all. It is hate or prejudice, uttered to incite a targeted audience, and thus it is dangerous because, when received by that audience who may have the power to take action against the victims of the diatribe, it can lead to bloodshed and even murder. Moreover, the fiction or analogy of people being subjected to hate speech as being people operating in an open market is not applicable. Not everything in our society can be reduced to a question of market forces.
In my mind, the state has a compelling reason to prevent hate speech from occurring and can take all action available to it to remove the speech from the airways. I would even go further and add that the government should take action to remove such speech from private airways, such as those streaming cable TV, satellite radio, etc. into our houses.
I believe we, humans, are in a constant struggle to evolve, to become better, to reach higher levels of justice and compassion for our fellow human beings and hatred, discrimination and bigotry have no place in the evolutionary cycle. Neither does Don Imus's 'jokes.' He went to the trough one time too many and it is just that he pay a price and his time at CBS and MSNBC is now over.
Of course, politicians and other leaders in society should take a look at themselves and ask why they were prepared to overlook his jibes at African-Americans, gays and lesbians, and women in order to appear on his show and get their own messages out in the past yet stated they wouldn't again appear on his program before it was actually canceled. I'd say that is hypocrisy.
Can we hope Rush Limbaugh and others of this ilk are next?
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