I'm not in favor of censorship, but...: June 2012

When I began following free speech controversies, I was a First Amendment absolutist. Now I’m something less comfortable. I still think free speech is a good idea, certainly better than alternatives I’ve come across, but I’ve learned that everyone has a line that can’t be crossed, a word that sticks in the craw, an image that feels like a kick to the gut. The First Amendment, bless its little heart, always eventually lets us down (self-protection is innate, tolerance an acquired taste), so how can I not be bothered by its limitations?

This is a running log of arguments over free speech – some silly, some funny, some hard -- because free speech is all about argument. Being able to speak our mind makes us feel good and it's essential to real democracy and fairness. Yet, in the end, one of the best reasons to keep our speech rights intact is that we miss them when they’re gone.

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Supreme sanity

It got pretty much buried by the June surprise from the Supreme Court, upholding the essence of the only health care plan to make it through Congress since Medicare, but sanity did prevail when the court struck down the Stolen Valor Act, which had made it a crime to lay claim to military honors you never got. Frankly, this wasn't even one of the hard free speech puzzles; as the court ruled, it's a bad idea to empower the government to make a list of things you can't lie about. So, good for you guys and girls (please, no feminist outrage; I honor the women on the court sufficiently) -- or at least the 6 justices who got it right. Not a valiant act, exactly, but a sensible one.