Patient readers: I am in week two of a God-knows-how-long trial in San Diego. It’s a great city and if you have to be away from home in trial, this is one of the best places: walking a few blocks to the courthouse, enjoying mild weather, sampling the frankly pretentious array of craft beers and so forth. It does make long-form writing harder, though.
1. "Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences" (said in the context of government-imposed consequences, not social consequences)
2. FIRE's push to describe disruptive protests as a "heckler's veto" in order to confuse from the legal concept. (I suspect there is some concerted effort to prop this alternative usage up. Of note, the Wikipedia article for Heckler's Veto contains a section on "Outside of Law" which only contains examples from the last 15ish years)
Ken, the linked post does nothing to inform me on the best ways to make people shut up when they are annoying. Where's the loopholes on getting people who say things I don't like to "shut it, buster?"
I’m always irritated by the straw man argument that free speech advocates are supposedly claiming that free speech will cure society of all our bad or malignant ideas. This is related to the Kumbaya Straw Man, the claim that civility advocates are saying that if we just all hold hands with our enemies and sing Kumbaya, it will fix all our problems.
As a librarian going into year three of the actual censorship crisis in schools and libraries, pretty much all of the arguments there make me angry. From a legal commentary perspective, you might cover the misuse of legal terms (directly or by implication) such as "obscene", "obscene as to minors/harmful to minors", "pornography", &. Also the lack of acknowledgement that kids have rights, not just parents. And that "non-sexual nudity", "alternative gender ideologies", "critical race theory", and other such aren't outside the bounds of First Amendment protection but rather admissions of desiring content-based restrictions on protected speech.
I also want to know if, when a federal judge orders you to restore access to certain library materials by putting them back in the catalog so that people can find them and check them out and further ordering you to not take anything out of the library catalog while litigation is ongoing, voting to completely close the library would likely be a breach of that order.
Annoying trope: Social Media is a “town square” where everyone has a chance to voice their opinion and the best ideas will thrive! - says the person with a 500 decible megaphone and legions of followers who amplify their message.
I just heard Christopher Hitchens ז״צל [may his memory be a blessing, roughly) point out that the case regarding yelling fire in a theatre was Oliver Wendell Holmes upholding the conviction of Yiddish speaking socialists that were distributing pamphlets written in Yiddish opposing entrance into WWI; that not only was it a language few people spoke, but in fact from the pamphleteer’s viewpoint, WWI was a fire they tried to warn people about. Holmes analogy was more asinine than most people know.
In the mid-90s I ran an ISP. Back then the equivalent of Twitter/Reddit was USEnet, a hierarchical feed service. We carried it by satellite since bandwidth was precious. By far the biggest hog was the alt.* category specifically alt.sex and all the pictures and low quality video shorts. I removed that from my feed and you wouldn’t believe the howls of “censorship” as if Kroger *had* to carry Hustler so otherwise respectable people wouldn’t be seen going into the head shop or adult store to get it. Some of the biggest complaints were folks who shouldn’t be using that and they would try to back door “censorship!” without mentioning the specific thing they weren’t able to see. I always told them to take their money elsewhere if they didn’t feel satisfied, but that was never the “issue” for them.
The trope is censorship when they really mean they’re in some closet or another and want cover for their peccadilloes.
Either on its own or as an expansion of the hate speech entry, perhaps something about people invoking foreign comparisons. Canada or Scotland or whatever other countries ban hate speech and they're still more-or-less liberal democracies. Germany bans Nazis, etc. So why can't we? Both on the law why the First Amendment is different, but also why that's good and importing those kinds of laws wouldn't be. IOW, expounding some on that "In the United States," you start with.
Have someone work your writing on this topic into a poster like they do at https://thethinkingshop.org/ . You need to get into merch, Mr. White! Big sales and get your ideas into the heads of people who read stuff on walls in dorm rooms and offices and not Substack.
This is more of a culture of speech issue, rather than a government censorship issue... but I cannot stand “I am not allowed to say [x,y,z]” when the speaker is absolutely *allowed* to say [x,y,z].
I feel like it confuses non-lawyers into thinking their speech rights are more narrow than reality.
“Moreover, there's very good reason to doubt that the Supreme Court would ever approve a speech restriction that is content-based — that is, premised on dislike of the speech — no matter how strong the government's interest.”
What odds could I get at a bookmaker today, in 2023, that this would be true of SCOTUS scrutiny - by *this* SCOTUS - of state bans on dissemination of true, accurate information about abortion?
Least favorite new trope after yesterday: “[Media outlet] isn’t a news company, it’s an entertainment company.”
1. "Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences" (said in the context of government-imposed consequences, not social consequences)
2. FIRE's push to describe disruptive protests as a "heckler's veto" in order to confuse from the legal concept. (I suspect there is some concerted effort to prop this alternative usage up. Of note, the Wikipedia article for Heckler's Veto contains a section on "Outside of Law" which only contains examples from the last 15ish years)
Ken, the linked post does nothing to inform me on the best ways to make people shut up when they are annoying. Where's the loopholes on getting people who say things I don't like to "shut it, buster?"
I’m always irritated by the straw man argument that free speech advocates are supposedly claiming that free speech will cure society of all our bad or malignant ideas. This is related to the Kumbaya Straw Man, the claim that civility advocates are saying that if we just all hold hands with our enemies and sing Kumbaya, it will fix all our problems.
As a librarian going into year three of the actual censorship crisis in schools and libraries, pretty much all of the arguments there make me angry. From a legal commentary perspective, you might cover the misuse of legal terms (directly or by implication) such as "obscene", "obscene as to minors/harmful to minors", "pornography", &. Also the lack of acknowledgement that kids have rights, not just parents. And that "non-sexual nudity", "alternative gender ideologies", "critical race theory", and other such aren't outside the bounds of First Amendment protection but rather admissions of desiring content-based restrictions on protected speech.
I also want to know if, when a federal judge orders you to restore access to certain library materials by putting them back in the catalog so that people can find them and check them out and further ordering you to not take anything out of the library catalog while litigation is ongoing, voting to completely close the library would likely be a breach of that order.
The Fighting Words Doctrine, which (IMO) is second only to "fire in a crowded theater" as a "creatively misunderstood" legal doctrine
Annoying trope: Social Media is a “town square” where everyone has a chance to voice their opinion and the best ideas will thrive! - says the person with a 500 decible megaphone and legions of followers who amplify their message.
I just heard Christopher Hitchens ז״צל [may his memory be a blessing, roughly) point out that the case regarding yelling fire in a theatre was Oliver Wendell Holmes upholding the conviction of Yiddish speaking socialists that were distributing pamphlets written in Yiddish opposing entrance into WWI; that not only was it a language few people spoke, but in fact from the pamphleteer’s viewpoint, WWI was a fire they tried to warn people about. Holmes analogy was more asinine than most people know.
In the mid-90s I ran an ISP. Back then the equivalent of Twitter/Reddit was USEnet, a hierarchical feed service. We carried it by satellite since bandwidth was precious. By far the biggest hog was the alt.* category specifically alt.sex and all the pictures and low quality video shorts. I removed that from my feed and you wouldn’t believe the howls of “censorship” as if Kroger *had* to carry Hustler so otherwise respectable people wouldn’t be seen going into the head shop or adult store to get it. Some of the biggest complaints were folks who shouldn’t be using that and they would try to back door “censorship!” without mentioning the specific thing they weren’t able to see. I always told them to take their money elsewhere if they didn’t feel satisfied, but that was never the “issue” for them.
The trope is censorship when they really mean they’re in some closet or another and want cover for their peccadilloes.
"Country X had no problem banning hate speech so why can't the US do it?"
A close second would be any mention of the Fairness Doctrine.
Either on its own or as an expansion of the hate speech entry, perhaps something about people invoking foreign comparisons. Canada or Scotland or whatever other countries ban hate speech and they're still more-or-less liberal democracies. Germany bans Nazis, etc. So why can't we? Both on the law why the First Amendment is different, but also why that's good and importing those kinds of laws wouldn't be. IOW, expounding some on that "In the United States," you start with.
"Protecting their impressionable little minds." Then they go home and play video games and watch television...
Have someone work your writing on this topic into a poster like they do at https://thethinkingshop.org/ . You need to get into merch, Mr. White! Big sales and get your ideas into the heads of people who read stuff on walls in dorm rooms and offices and not Substack.
Welcome to San Diego! Enjoy the time here. We do have a lot of craft breweries.
This is more of a culture of speech issue, rather than a government censorship issue... but I cannot stand “I am not allowed to say [x,y,z]” when the speaker is absolutely *allowed* to say [x,y,z].
I feel like it confuses non-lawyers into thinking their speech rights are more narrow than reality.
“Moreover, there's very good reason to doubt that the Supreme Court would ever approve a speech restriction that is content-based — that is, premised on dislike of the speech — no matter how strong the government's interest.”
What odds could I get at a bookmaker today, in 2023, that this would be true of SCOTUS scrutiny - by *this* SCOTUS - of state bans on dissemination of true, accurate information about abortion?