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PollWhat should the government do about ailing financial institutions? Nothing, except to back off and get out—as any Objectivist knows, intervention is treating the disease with the disease 84% Intervene judiciously—enough to avert a catastrophe that is otherwise imminent 3% Intervene massively—as it's doing 3% Nationalize the whole economy and be done with it. Bring on the USSA! 1% Something else (specify) 9% Total votes: 76
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Free Speech's Fits and Starts Submitted by Lindsay Perigo on Thu, 2007-02-08 00:47.
[Reprised and modified from SOLOHQ in light of events at UCLA reported by the ARI below—Linz] "Freedom is the fundamental requirement of man's mind. ... A gun is not an argument."—Ayn Rand Walking home from the gym the day of the first anniversary of the beginning of the liberation of Iraq, I encountered several hundred smelly Saddamites marching towards Parliament to demand the reinstatement of their toppled idol (I exaggerate the letter, but not the spirit of their protest). The vicious irony of their using their freedom of expression to demand that Iraqis be deprived of it, so soon after acquiring it, was clearly lost on these caterwauling grotesqueries. I alternated between seething disgust at the vermin and curiosity as to whether any of them might be given pause by a moment’s reflection on free speech’s long, tortuous history. Those magnificent Greeks had more than an inkling of it—yet they infamously put Socrates to death. The Enlightenment resurrected it after centuries of heresy-hunts and burnings at the stake. John Milton’s celebrated speech to the English Parliament, later published as the Aeropagitica (in deference to the Greeks), was an attack on Imprimatur, the literal stamp of approval one had to obtain from state censors on documents one wished to publish. (One could not obtain Imprimatur on anything attacking the Church of England or the Government.) Censorship of ideas, Milton said, was “the greatest discouragement and affront that can be offered to learning and to learned men.” Unfortunately, Milton made an exception of Catholics, since they were supposedly in thrall to a foreign power (the Pope). Then came John Locke, who did brilliant, original work in developing the concept of rights, including freedom of expression—except for atheists! Freedom of religion, it seems, did not extend to freedom from religion! Locke did tumble to a vital distinction underpinning the case for free speech—the distinction between force and persuasion. Force he equated with governments; persuasion he equated with books. Persuasion cannot force, he argued; coercion cannot persuade. “Such is the nature of the understanding that it cannot be compelled to the belief of anything by outward force.” The use of government force as an instrument of persuasion, he believed, was wrong; for the Government to censor the content of books (except atheist ones) was improper. One hundred years later, the United States’ first Congress sent off to the states, for ratification, the following Amendment to the Constitution: “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.” What an achievement! From primordial slime through countless millennia of grunting evolution and brute force to such magnificent words as those! And of course, it would be remiss not to acknowledge the French playwright and anti-Catholic Church polemicist Voltaire, who in 1770 had penned the following in a letter to a priest: "Monsieur l'abbé, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write." This later became popularised as the classic affirmation, "I disagree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it." Then came John Stuart Mill, widely regarded as one of free speech’s foremost advocates: "If any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility." Note, though, his over-arching view of when government force is justified: “… the only purpose for which power can be rightly exercised over any member of a civilised community against his will is to prevent harm to others.” “Harm to others”? What does that cover? It could cover any number of things, speech being just one of them, whose forcible prevention by the state would be profoundly anti-freedom. It could cover, for instance, hurting the feelings of others. It could cover withholding one’s earnings from others (Mill himself said that failure to perform certain charitable “duties” constituted harm). Would the exercise of governmental power then be warranted to protect people’s feelings by banning certain types of speech and to force people to perform their charitable duties? The contemporary incarnation of primordial slime—university lecturers in politics, sociology and philosophy—gleefully answer “Yes!”—as they applaud politically correct “speech codes,” demand “hate crime” legislation, urge higher levels of taxation and so forth. (Thus the grotesquery of these Rawls-worshipping neo-Marxists claiming they are in the “classical liberal tradition.”) And there is nothing in Mill to justify one’s saying, “No!” This is the same Mill, after all, who believed that education should be compulsory. Clearly, this won’t do. It’s a short, barely discernible step from “harm to others” to “injurious to the public good”—the indefinable notion that in one form or another underlies censorship legislation around the world. The imprecision of Mill’s argument has contributed to the dead-end of post-modernism whose pin-up boys like Stanley Fish write books with titles such as There Is No such Thing as Free Speech—and It’s a Good Thing Too. Free speech, says Fish, is a contradiction in terms; all speech is coercive. This is what, three hundred years after Locke, two hundred years after the First Amendment, we have been reduced to—as though Locke’s crucial insight distinguishing force from persuasion, so admirably crystallised in the Ayn Rand quotation above, had never happened. But it did happen—and the pomo-wankers and the femi-nazis and the conservatives and the “liberals” and all the other wannabe censors know it. They also know that if they can sell persuasion as force, they can justify force as persuasion. That is exactly what they want to do. Unfortunately, they are succeeding. The only free speech the smelly Saddamites are concerned about is their own.
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Good closing their, Wilson
Of course if I was looking for a conspiracy I'd wonder why the party does have quite a few gay members who are well up the party hierarchy. Must be something in that surely!!
Because, as all the world knows, gays are alien to intrigue and strangers to the clandestine.
Ruth??
"I've noted that they seem to keep having to expel racist and violent yahoos from their midst"
Name one who has been expelled. There are a few violent yahoos, but none too serious - I've encountered the odd oddball, who gets quietly ignored, is never a candidate and pays membership dues.
"They are constantly being infiltrated by neo-Nazis, and many of their spinoff groups are riddled throughout with extremists and racists."
Constantly? Sheesh all those monthly meetings and not a single anti-semitic or totalitarian proposal. Those damned spinoff groups must be so underground that the party leadership knows nothing about it.
Ruth, produce evidence or take some pills. Presumably if you believe all this to be true you should email the current leader and president, both of who will be fascinated to hear of this.
Of course if I was looking for a conspiracy I'd wonder why the party does have quite a few gay members who are well up the party hierarchy. Must be something in that surely!!
sheesh
WSS
You are right that my reaction was a diffuse invective. I probably should not have responded in kind.
Wm
Islam insofar as it is directed by governments, and as a measure enforced from above by any government, is to be done away with.
Ruth!
As a former member of the NZ Libertarian Party ,I've noted that they seem to keep having to expel racist and violent yahoos from their midst. They are constantly being infiltrated by neo-Nazis, and many of their spinoff groups are riddled throughout with extremists and racists.
1) Huh?! I don't think we've ever expelled anybody.
2) I don't think we've ever had a racist in our midst, unless you mean the former Nazi, the pedo-pusher Peron, who is an anti-Semite. And he, thankfully, was never a member, though I confess that before I knew all this about him I encouraged him to become one.
3) "Violent yahoos"? Hell, we encourage them! Both Cresswell and I were Libz leaders, after all!
4) We have spin-off groups?! Jeez! What have I missed?!
Yours in yahooistic yokelism
Linz
Also I really like the title
Also I really like the title "Free Speech's Fits and Starts".
It's colorful but eloquently exact.
Thanks for the historical
Thanks for the historical summary, Linz. I enjoyed your essay.
It was very well done and the essentialization/condensation is valuable. I wasn't at all aware of the Imprimatur law, which is a telling insight into the times out of which the idea of freedom of speech emerged so I'm glad you included it.
And your brief summaries of Locke, Mill, etc. were refreshingly to the point. I'd like to see you write a short book on a topic in, say, intellectual history some day, if that interests you and if were basically non-polemical.
Jesus F. Christ. Linz posts
Jesus F. Christ. Linz posts a thoughtful and principled discussion of the history of free speech (and its ups and downs) and it immediately degenerates into the lowest common denominator personal attacks and concrete-boundedness about who is a racist and counter-accusations (the thing to do with one woman who uses a thread on another issue to only post to attack another is to ignore that person as a troll).
"The problem with politics
"The problem with politics is that it attracts power hungry second handers who want to impose their twisted ideology on others by using government force. People like Ruth W."
I'm confused. Are you saying that Ruth W. wants to impose ideology by force? I don't know anything about this person, but I didn't get that impression from their last post.
- Jason
Jason D. Quintana is not associated with the Ayn Rand Institute -- neither as a writer nor as a speaker.
Feeding The Troll - Once Only
She regularly posts bigoted filth about drowning Muslims in swimming pools and murdering one's political opponents all over the internet.
Perhaps my passion is much stronger than yours Ruth?
You exercise your freedom to speak, whilst I defend it.
You have the right to say what you desire and you are very welcome to fill yer boots.
However, as you resort to personal attacks with vicious, outrageous and slanderous lies, it is akin to throwing sticks and stones or any other weapon of mass unsophistication.
"You can only be free if I am free."
Clarence Darrow
A Senator's shame . . .
Thanks, William, for the note on West Virginia's Robert Byrd, who has been in the US Senate as long as I have been alive (49 years). It's fair to speculate he will die soon, and the generations will have changed with the Democrats. One of the last southern crackers (remember Strom Thurmond? Note Democrat Obama's love-in today; see a decent hack at Byrd's racialist past in the Washington Post's "A Senator's Shame"; decide where present Democratic racial policies lie).
Commonwealth members all, we Canucks, Aussies and Kiwis take a sometimes interest in each others' politics, but I don't reach hasty conclusions about New Zealand racialism issues.
Do we know enough about the issues in NZ (or the persons holding forth) to conclude that Ruth W is of the "power hungry second handers" with a "twisted ideology"?
What if she's right about racist blowhards finding a home on the political fringe, Wm -- and the slow, iffy, wracked attempts to make libertarian movements in NZ less attractive to bigoted mouth-breathers? What if Waitangi means there can be honest disagreement about what entails? What do you know about all this?
I am disappointed by your immediate turn into diffuse invective: if you know something more about Ruth W and the racialist fringes of New Zealand discourse, let us in on it, dude.
WSS
Where have all the racists gone?
Duplicate...
Wm
Islam insofar as it is directed by governments, and as a measure enforced from above by any government, is to be done away with.
Where have all the racists gone?
If NZ politics is anything like here in the colonies, the racists are never purged from the major parties. In fact, they are exalted to leadership positions. Take a look at Sen. Roberts "Sheets" Bird, Democrat West Virginia, formerly of the Klu Klux Klan. The problem with politics is that it attracts power hungry second handers who want to impose their twisted ideology on others by using government force. People like Ruth W.
Wm
Islam insofar as it is directed by governments, and as a measure enforced from above by any government, is to be done away with.
This is a typical comment
This is a typical comment from Sandi - Rebel Radius - and other handles. She regularly posts bigoted filth about drowning Muslims in swimming pools and murdering one's political opponents all over the internet. Along with fellow 'Libertarian' Kane Bunce.
As a former member of the NZ Libertarian Party ,I've noted that they seem to keep having to expel racist and violent yahoos from their midst. They are constantly being infiltrated by neo-Nazis, and many of their spinoff groups are riddled throughout with extremists and racists.
What nobody seems to ask, though, is why they have to "weed out the racists" in the first place. If the core of their appeal isn't racial in nature, then why do they draw so many people for whom it is?
Preserving "white culture" has always been the racist right's bailiwick.
In my fight against hate speech I see people coming from this site spewing bigoted filth all the time. I cant stop it, but I can embarrass the guilty and their enablers.
Exactly
THE TRUE MOTTO OF ISLAM
"When we are weak,
We appeal to you for "Liberty" and for "Freedom,"
Because these are Your principles.
When we are Strong,
We shall deny you these,
Because they are not OUR principles."