When does Free Speach cross the line?

[Forrest_Gump]

Though I would like to hear what members from other countries have to say, this question is aimed more at members from the US.

When does "Free Speach" end, and Sedition begin?

 

[bulldogg]

Excellent question FG.

In 1798 when the federal government of the US was in the midst of an impending possible conflict with France the Federalist congress passed the first Alien and Sedition act. No aliens and no French agents were ever discovered or arrested. The act was used however to silence Thomas Jefferson and followers of his Republican party from being critical of what Adam's government was saying. In essence the Federalists were whipping up fears of French agents and possible war and the Republicans under Jefferson's leadership were being critical and opposing the Federalists' assertions. The sedition act was then used to silence the opposition, hence ending the myth of free speech though millions of Americans still vehemently believe they have this "right". One must remember that "rights" granted by a government are at the sole discretion of that government and they can take them away or modify them as they see fit.

The only free speech that exists in ANY government is that which the government allows. Hence it matters not what we, the citizens, think but in point of fact at any point we are deemed to be too critical we may suddenly find ourselves facing charges of sedition. Unlike treason, which requires an ACT, sedition is merely words and the determination is a highly subjective definition of "malicious criticism of the government". What one person considers malicious another may not because it goes towards the intent of the author and until we develop the ability to read minds what one person may or may not intend is between him and his maker unless he decides to share with the rest of us.

It is the decision of the government itself as to what it considers to be malicious criticism of itself. Hardly the stuff of fair play in any realm. It is my own personal opinion that the Alien and Sedition acts themselves are unconstitutional and should be challenged as violating the First Amendment to the consitution. I am aware that in times of war such things curbing free speech may in deed be necessary BUT according to the system of government in the United States of America Congress shall pass no law which violates the Constitution. If it is necessary to alter the Constitution you MUST pass an amendment. Full stop.

The concept of Freedom of Speech and sedition according to the Acts passed by congress cannot co-exist. If combined they would present an oxymoron of monumental proportions. It would be best if the Constitution were amended and the First Amendment was more clearly delineated according to its original intent, to tolerate dissent and the rights of those who dissent, and limiting it in scope. As it stands its worth is limited to merely fueling a myth but as most people never have the courage to push the envelope and are content to go along with the crowd they never learn that there are glass walls all around them.

Rant over.

 

[Whispering Death]

I really am not as worried about freedom of speach as it pertains to wartime goings-on as much as I am concerned about what speach the media places on the highest mountaintop to be shouted with the weight of god behind it.

 

[Ted]

Last year we had a good look at this issue due to the fact the a filmmaker was butchered by a Muslim. He had offended the islamic faith on many more then 20 occasion and payed the price.
The whole debate on free speach sprang to life and to what extend can you plead "free speech". And of course the question who'll judge whether or not you crossed the line. If you are interested let me know and I'll look up some english url's on the matter.

 

[Mohmar Deathstrike]

Though I would like to hear what members from other countries have to say, this question is aimed more at members from the US.

When does "Free Speach" end, and Sedition begin?

Whenever the speech disagrees with me

No seriously, I think it crosses the line when the speech consists in orders and instructions to kill people.

 

[bulldogg]

I am interested Ted if you would be so kind.

 

[Italian Guy]

Ted is talking about Van Gogh but I leave him the honor to find some urls in English eh eh.

 

[Ted]

In short it boiled down to this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3974179.stm

It resulted in an outcry of the people saying that free speech was in danger. My point of view is different. Theo van Gogh was also a columnist and wrote very provocative if not degrading and insulting. On television he would call muslim (close your eyes Mods) "goat-****ers", "retards" and many many more things. He would call the islam a backward and retarded faith and crossed the lines of decency on many occasions.

Imo he hid behind the right on free speech to publicly insult many people varying from politicians to fellow journalists to many religions. Nowadays many people have forgotten how to argue solidly and soundly and start calling eachother names. This is not speech but abuse and is therefor not incorporated under the protection of free speech.
Erasmus, Hugo Grotius, Galileo Galilei etc. were persecuted and were protagonists of free speech. When this was given by kings and governments I bet they didn't meant it to protect flaming, insulting, name calling and other verbal filth. He pissed off so many people and this insane guy decided to take the law in his own hands. He motivated this as an act for the twisted vision of Islam he proclaims. End of the matter is that he is locked up for the rest of his miserable life, and that will be many many years to come!

 

[godofthunder9010]

As a general rule, Your right to swing your fist around ends when it hits the end of my nose. Free speech is exactly that: Free. So long as there is nothing involved that takes away the rights of another, its is up to the individual.

 

[localgrizzly]

In short it boiled down to this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3974179.stm

It resulted in an outcry of the people saying that free speech was in danger. My point of view is different. Theo van Gogh was also a columnist and wrote very provocative if not degrading and insulting. On television he would call muslim (close your eyes Mods) "goat-****ers", "retards" and many many more things. He would call the islam a backward and retarded faith and crossed the lines of decency on many occasions.

Imo he hid behind the right on free speech to publicly insult many people varying from politicians to fellow journalists to many religions. Nowadays many people have forgotten how to argue solidly and soundly and start calling eachother names. This is not speech but abuse and is therefor not incorporated under the protection of free speech.
Erasmus, Hugo Grotius, Galileo Galilei etc. were persecuted and were protagonists of free speech. When this was given by kings and governments I bet they didn't meant it to protect flaming, insulting, name calling and other verbal filth. He pissed off so many people and this insane guy decided to take the law in his own hands. He motivated this as an act for the twisted vision of Islam he proclaims. End of the matter is that he is locked up for the rest of his miserable life, and that will be many many years to come!

Ted, it sure sounds like you're a muslim. In the U.S. free speech means just that. FREE SPEECH!

You can say anyhing you wish to about me, and I can respond in kind. You seem to be sympathetic to this butcher that murderded the journalist in cold bood. No amount of verbal insult justifies cold blooded murder.

According to the news reports that I read, the overwhelming majority of the Dutch people were outraged, and rightfully so. For crimes like this, it's a shame you don't have the death penalty.

 

[Italian Guy]

Yes Ted it really sounded like you justify that murderer's action.

 

[MontyB]

Yes Ted it really sounded like you justify that murderer's action.

How the hell do you come to that conclusion?

From what I read of Ted's post it sounded like the guy that was murdered had made enemies and was killed nowhere does he justify what happened he just pointed out what happened with some background.

 

[Marinerhodes]

Last year we had a good look at this issue due to the fact the a filmmaker was butchered by a Muslim. He had offended the islamic faith on many more then 20 occasion and payed the price.
The whole debate on free speach sprang to life and to what extend can you plead "free speech". And of course the question who'll judge whether or not you crossed the line. If you are interested let me know and I'll look up some english url's on the matter.

When that comment was made, whatever the intent, is where some (myself included) would think he is sympathetic towards the person(s) that did the butchering.

Paying for your comments, assertions, opinions, etc etc with your life is not "paying the price". It is an unjust price. You are now going back to when kings ruled with an iron fist and said "You can not say this because it offends me and I will have your head for it". That is not free speech at all. That the person was in the wrong (no idea what exactly was said, written, or broadcast, is clear. But He did not deserve to pay for his comments with his life.

I am offended whenever someone says "<insert favorite political figure> is a complete moron! He/She does this and this and they are so stupid". I don't care who you are or what your political leanings are. That is not freedom of speech that is insulting. Freedom of speech (to me) consists of being able to voice your opinion, concerns, complaints etc without insults and innuendos or slandering someone's good name. It is being able to say what you wish to say within reason and the constraints of society.

Insulting or demeaning any "Elected Official" is in my opinion disrespectful and uncalled for. Especially since most of them are unable or unwilling to respond due to public opinion. Yet Joe Schmoe can walk by or near the Vice President and say "F*** you Mr. Cheney, F*** You!" and so many thinks it is funny. THAT is not free speech.

 

[bulldogg]

It seems that my fellow Americans are perhaps either naive or lack a knowledge of the history of the incidents whereby the Alien and Sedition Acts have been used. Free Speech does not mean "free" in any sense of universal freedom but rather it means your speech is free and protected as long as the government deems it is acceptable. As soon as you cross that gray line your "right" instantly vanishes under charges of sedition.

I agree with Marine Rhodes that calling some elected official a name or insulting them is rude, uncalled for and not a proper thing but I would hardly call it sedition. Such was the case of a Democrat arrested during the American Civil War for calling Lincoln "a damned fool". Is that sedition? I hardly think so.

Equally ridiculous were the charges of sedition levelled against Luther Baldwin for the following exchange...

Following the adjournment of Congress in July 1798, President Adams and his wife were traveling through Newark on their way to their home in Quincy, Massachusetts. Residents lined the streets as church bells rang, and ceremonial cannon fire greeted the party. As the procession made its way past a local tavern owned by John Burnet, one of the patrons remarked, "There goes the President and they are firing at his a__." According to the Newark Centinel of Freedom, Baldwin added that, "he did not care if they fired thro' his a__." Burnet overheard the exchange and exclaimed, "That is seditious." Baldwin was arrested and later convicted of speaking "seditious words tending to defame the President and Government of the United States." He was fined $150, assessed court costs and expenses, and sent to jail until he paid the fine and fees.

http://americanhistory.about.com/library/prm/blordervliberty2.htm

During WWI Eugene Debs was arrested and imprisoned for giving an anti-war speech. You may not agree with his politics or position but he certainly has a right to voice his opinion if you believe in the First Amendment. He did not advocate the overthrow of the government nor any harmful acts, he simply made his argument against the war. Such was also the case of Charles T Schenk who was arrested for distributing anti-war leaflets. It was during his appeal that Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr came up with the "clear and present danger" theory.

Organizations were founded in response to what was perceived as a broad assault on civil liberties. The National Civil Liberties Bureau (later, the American Civil Liberties Union) was founded in October 1917 to combat repression and defend the “war’s heretics.” Its broad following included supporters of the war, like one pro-war lawyer who explained, “My law-abiding neck gets very warm under its law-abiding collar these days at the astounding violation of fundamental laws which are being put over.” And in 1919, the New School for Social Research was founded in New York as a place where “free thought and intellectual integrity” could flourish in spite of the repressive atmosphere.

http://americanhistory.about.com/library/prm/blfreedomsundersiege2.htm

Benjamin Franklin that there are no “acceptable” limits on liberty: “They that can give up essential liberties to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

And writer Tunis Wortman said at the passage of the Sedition Act of 1798, “Finding criminality in the tendency of words is an effort to erect public tranquility…upon the ruins of civil liberty.”

Edmund Randolph argued that parchment guarantees offered no real protection from the abuse of authority.

From our founding fathers... some very strong words that have indeed been forgotten. But I am also enough of a realist to see the wisdom in the Roman phrase...

The Romans had a phrase for it: “inter arma silent leges”—“in times of war, the laws are silent,”

In other words, during a time of war you have no rights. There is both wisdom and tyranny in that and I am not sure where the government should draw the line. I do think though it is time for our government to air this out and put it up for debate and draft an amendment.

Four lessons are clear from our history as I would agree with the author's following statement.

First, our federal and state governments have suppressed political dissent most virulently when there was a collective sense of wartime threats to national security.

Second, with the acuity of hindsight, thoughtful persons have seen that public officials, the media, and private citizens typically overreacted: Real free-speech dangers were not as great as anticipated, and legitimate civic dissent paid an unacceptable price.

Third, in the worst of these periods, public leaders intentionally fueled the fires of speech repression rather than tamping them down, often to serve their own partisan or personal interests.

And fourth, to keep the First Amendment from turning cyclically into a dysfunctional myth in wartime, Americans must steel the national cultural psyche in advance.

http://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/stone_peri_legaltimes.html

As an additional note, you in fact cannot say anything you want about someone. There is the concept of the "fighting words doctrine" which has been upheld by the supreme court as constitutional and in effect. It is as follows...
Legal definition of 'fighting words'

Fighting words doctrine. The First Amendment doctrine that holds that certain utterances are not constitutionally protected as free speech if they are inherently likely to provoke a violent response from the audience. N.A.A.C.P. v. Clairborne Hardware Co., Miss., 458 U.S. 886, 102 S.Ct. 3409, 73 L.Ed.2d 1215 (1982). Words which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace, having direct tendency to cause acts of violence by the persons to whom, individually, remark is addressed. The test is what persons of common intelligence would understand to be words likely to cause an average addressee to fight. City of Seattle v. Camby, 104 Wash.2d 49, 701 P.2d 499, 500.

The "freedom of speech" protected by the Constitution is not absolute at all times and under all circumstances and there are well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which does not raise any constitutional problem, including the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or "fighting words" which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 62 S.Ct. 766, 86 L.Ed. 1031.

SOURCE: Black's Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition

http://americandefenseleague.com/fightwds.htm

 

[Marinerhodes]

Nice bulldogg. Good research. I particularly like the quote from: Black's Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition

Words which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace, having direct tendency to cause acts of violence by the persons to whom, individually, remark is addressed.

Of course persons of "common intelligence" is a matter of perspective. Many cases hinge on what others view as "reasonable" as well. Do I think it reasonable that someone calls me a Motherfu**er and take no offense? Sure to me it is reasonable, because I am a Motherfu**er. I would not put it in so crude of terms but it is the truth afterall. I have two beautiful children by my ex-wife. Would myself or a reasonable person take offense at the intent of the slur? Sure we would.

 

[bulldogg]

I think that would be the point where a jury of your peers would come into play. You make an excellent point though as to the subjectivity of this whole venture.

 

[Blackwatch]

Free speech isn't free, the price is the responsibility for what you say and do....that pertains to ALL of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights....which is why the media and liberals and other politicians only say the first part "FREE SPEECH' but forget the second part "RESPONSIBLITY"....'your' right of free speech ends when 'your' fist hits 'my' nose.....

 

[FutureDevilDog]

It crosses the line when you reveal that the CIA has prison camps in other countries. Does the world really need to know that? I sure don't.

 

[Ted]

Ted, it sure sounds like you're a muslim. In the U.S. free speech means just that. FREE SPEECH!

You can say anyhing you wish to about me, and I can respond in kind. You seem to be sympathetic to this butcher that murderded the journalist in cold bood. No amount of verbal insult justifies cold blooded murder.

According to the news reports that I read, the overwhelming majority of the Dutch people were outraged, and rightfully so. For crimes like this, it's a shame you don't have the death penalty.

I don't think I sounded like a muslim at all. I would object to any of such shows of disrespect aimed at: islam, buddism, hinduism, homosexuality, ethnicity or whatever.
I was outraged too and this guy does deserve the death penalty (other discussion). But what Van Gogh did is imo not included in free speech. He specifically and intentionally targeted a total group because he didn't like a few of them. These fanatics aren't liked by other muslims as well!

Words which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace, having direct tendency to cause acts of violence by the persons to whom, individually, remark is addressed.

This is what he did on many occasions and the masses misinterpret and are getting more and more biased because of him. He knew he was playing with fire and got burned. The murderer is not a representative of the mainstream Muslim. He is a bloody freak and forfeited his life because he is so twisted that he can't be untwisted. Just like you have so many twisted assassins in the US we have a few overhere too, irrespective of his believes.

So no: I am not sympathetic to who did this! But I am most certainly not sympathetic to Van Gogh's abuse of journalistic power either! The instigator attracted the psycopath. The first lost his life and tho latter his freedom for the rest of his miserable life. And this was all avoidable, so I see it as a tragic waste of human life!

 

[Italian Guy]

So no: I am not sympathetic to who did this! But I am most certainly not sympathetic to Van Gogh's abuse of journalistic power either! The instigator attracted the psycopath. The first lost his life and tho latter his freedom for the rest of his miserable life. And this was all avoidable, so I see it as a tragic waste of human life!

So was it the provocative journalist's fault or the murderer's fault?