What magnet seems to be arguing is how important are the rights of a minority? When does a minority become so bad it should be excluded by private actors from the square? Much of US law is protecting minority from majority rule in govt but only civil compact protects minority from majority Scarlet Letter etc. It’s a tricky social norm and very important. Trying to drive minority voices underground doesn’t always tend to work as people think.
What are the contours of the free speech right you are proposing? The China example seems to fit under “the government can’t punish you for speaking,” which seems pretty non-controversial to Americans.
Is Simon and Schuster obligated to publish Hawley’s book under your definition? Is it obligated to publish a terrible book by some rando on which it will lose money? If someone puts up an offensive sign on my lawn, am I allowed to take it down?
Sorry if you clarified upthread, but I did not see it.
When it affects the bottom line. It’s business. S&S isn’t going to lose market share because Hawley wants them to. To even suggest they should is inane. Hawley has limitless options, including self publishing these days. S&S can tell him or anyone else to pound sand. Hawley already enjoys far more “rights of minority” than 99.9999% of the population. He’s not a penniless homeless person, he’s a damned Senator! 100 Senators, 330+ million people. He’s the one of the most elite people on the entire planet.
Hey, you’re the one trying to make the argument. You have to come up with the terms. Freedom of speech is an inalienable human right recognized in the Constitution and protected by the First Amendment. If you want to talk about something else, you have to figure out the words on your own!
Honestly, I think the issue is more interesting when we talk about things like whether publicly funded libraries should include books by Holocaust deniers, or what kind of control the FCC has over the airwaves, or net neutrality. I couldn’t care less about whether the guy who draws the xkcd cartoon expresses the nuance of Constitutional law, much less whether some jackass from Missouri is butthurt about losing a book deal.
-Tom
Forget Hawley for a second. We’ve got a good example from last year, the Omegaverse thing (yeah, sorry). What if Google didn’t want to join the chorus of telling Addison Cain to pound sand on her legal antics and accepted blocking perfectly legal criticism and analysis, letting her feel no shame or consequences and kept harassing competition out of business?
I mean, I don’t think anything of value would be lost, but it would be a result anti-ethical to the values of free market, free speech, entrepreneurship, meritocracy and all that, no?
It’s not that I have an alternative for how things could be, other than forcing more platform competition.
I imagine that would become more of an anti-trust issue than anything, but I honestly don’t know much about any of it.
I regret having googled this.
Yeah, employment law around politics is a much better example. In Europe philosophical belief is protected from employment discrimination and there is some jurisprudence that extends this to politics, though it’s pretty hard to figure out where the line is.
Have I missed something in this thread that distinguishes a generic “freedom of speech”, vs. the US 1A in other than name, from a “freedom from consequences of my speech” (which is what the gentleman in the thread title is actually wailing about)?
I’d say that without some kind of enforceability (this could even be cultural or social–doesn’t have to be the government), those rights aren’t real. The universal declaration of human rights is aspirational. Without a framework for redress, it’s hard to claim that one has a right at all. We’ve had this discussion before:
Maybe, but that only works if you have money for a long suit and competent lawyers.
I could also think of a (hypothetical) book on effective unionizing and striking that wouldn’t be carried by Amazon, disappeared from Google, couldn’t be discussed on FB/TW and would be a major monetary loss due to the necessary research and what not. Unlikely, pigs flying unlikely, but it’s worth keeping in mind as things consolidate that it’s not impossible for a legal collusion to happen.
Americans in particular keep doing this. The First Amendment is not a synonym for Free Speech.
This. Most democracies have freedom of speech right there in their constitution. Not as an afterthought. Well, unless you were a woman, of course ;-)
If all that happened, you’d probably have a case. That’s pretty far afield from the Hawley/S&S situation, though.
I don’t think anyone is defending Hawley specifically (maybe Teiman? it’s been a while since he said anything), just vague principles and values. Wasn’t that why there’s a new topic?
Honestly, it’s a little hard to tell…even harder with someone constantly cross-posting other threads to this one.
I just assumed this was mainly about the Hawley contretemps because his name is in the title.
I think that’s Tom not wanting to give him the time of day, which, yeah… Or being enraged, which also, yeah…
I was just trying to be descriptive! Also, I will gladly inform anyone that it’s 12:38pm.
-Tom
To be fair, it’s not like the drafters of the U.S. Constitution were unaware. There was considerable debate over whether such rights should be explicitly enumerated or assumed. Here’s Hamilton:
I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power. They might urge with a semblance of reason, that the Constitution ought not to be charged with the absurdity of providing against the abuse of an authority which was not given, and that the provision against restraining the liberty of the press afforded a clear implication, that a power to prescribe proper regulations concerning it was intended to be vested in the national government. This may serve as a specimen of the numerous handles which would be given to the doctrine of constructive powers, by the indulgence of an injudicious zeal for bills of rights.
On the subject of the liberty of the press, as much as has been said, I cannot forbear adding a remark or two: in the first place, I observe, that there is not a syllable concerning it in the constitution of this State; in the next, I contend, that whatever has been said about it in that of any other State, amounts to nothing. What signifies a declaration, that “the liberty of the press shall be inviolably preserved”? What is the liberty of the press? Who can give it any definition which would not leave the utmost latitude for evasion? I hold it to be impracticable; and from this I infer, that its security, whatever fine declarations may be inserted in any constitution respecting it, must altogether depend on public opinion, and on the general spirit of the people and of the government. And here, after all, as is intimated upon another occasion, must we seek for the only solid basis of all our rights.
Simply not forcing another person to publish your speech is not in any way an infringement on your right to free speech.