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.

Friday, April 13, 2012

The Muzzles of 2012

From the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression comes this year's list of particularly ham-fisted censorship with its Muzzle awards.  This makes a nice pairing with the list of under- & unreported stories compiled by Project Censored.  As I've often said, when it comes to permitted expression, everyone seems to have a line which should not be crossed.  For our amusement -- and alarm -- may of those lines have irony written all over them.
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