Freedom Of Speech Is Not A Board Game

Flanders

ARCHCONSERVATIVE
Sep 23, 2010
7,628
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The very definition of monopoly was written for a free press:

monopoly (noun)
plural monopolies

1. Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service.

2. Law. A right granted by a government giving exclusive control over a specified commercial activity to a single party.

3. a. A company or group having exclusive control over a commercial activity. b. A commodity or service so controlled.

4. a. Exclusive possession or control: arrogantly claims to have a monopoly on the truth. b. Something that is exclusively possessed or controlled: showed that scientific achievement is not a male monopoly.

They even have schools protecting their monopoly:

DeWayne Hickham, the dean of Morgan State’s J-school, isn’t demanding a “Mohammed exception” to the First Amendment. He’s demanding an exception for all speech that would make the audience so angry that they might react violently — exactly the sort of slippery slope on censorship that people like you and me worry about when images of Mohammed are suppressed. Actual line from this op-ed, regarding the new cover of Charlie Hebdo: “The once little-known French satirical news weekly crossed the line that separates free speech from toxic talk.”​

Media income always depended upon controlling whatever the public hears. A free press monopoly over free speech enriching press barons worked suitably from the day the country was founded. Indeed, the monopoly got stronger, and wealthier, when television came along. In truth, media moguls saw Charlie Hebdo as a moral stick they could use to beat free speech to death.

NOTE: Media moralists and priests are the only ones looking for an excuse to diminish free speech for everybody else. Anyone with a lick of sense give not a rat’s ass about giving moralists of any stripe an exemption from criticism.

Bottom line: Wealthy tax dollar propagandists are not building responsible barricades because fringe publications poke fun at Islam, or any religion for that matter. The Internet broke the media’s freedom of speech monopoly. That is why media mouths and the government are sweating bullets.

Look who else is stomping on freedom of speech:


Pope Francis has said of the magazine, “You cannot make fun of the faith of others.”…​

The pope can exercise his own free speech in any way he chooses, but his opposition to freedom of speech in America carry’s no weight in our law or culture. My only regret is that absolute freedom of speech might silence every priest.

The crux of the matter

In 1919, the Supreme Court ruled speech that presents a “clear and present danger” is not protected by the First Amendment. Crying “fire” in a quiet, uninhabited place is one thing, the court said. But “the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic.”

Twenty-two years later, the Supreme Court ruled that forms of expression that “inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace” are fighting words that are not protected by the First Amendment.

Journalism school dean: The First Amendment ends at insulting Mohammed
posted at 8:01 pm on January 21, 2015 by Allahpundit

Journalism school dean The First Amendment ends at insulting Mohammed Hot Air

In the real world it is offensive speech that requires the most protection, not kissy-kissy, touchy-feely, sermons.

The things you cannot say, and the things you must say, is clearly an evolutionary step in America’s culture. In bygone decades the opponents of free speech confined their attacks to silencing speech for average Americans. The long-running debate used to be about the government shutting up people. Now, go back to Oliver Wendell Holmes’ often misquoted opinion: "Falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater.”, and come forward. You’ll see that before the Fairness Doctrine (1949 - 1987) was implemented no one was required to listen. Nowadays, freedom of speech is still as much as about making people listen as much as it is about shutting them up.

Parenthetically, Justice Holmes never told us how freedom of speech traveled from the year 1791 to the year 1919 without his opinion guiding the country. To me, “political freedom of speech” is absolute, or at least it should be. If an individual’s constitutional Rights are not as absolute as the government’s Rights the individual has no Rights at all. At best, individual’s constitutional Rights become nothing more than lawyers’ laws dressed up to look prettier than they actually are.

Fire!

It is a bit of a stretch to say that falsely yelling Fire! in a crowded theater would cause thinking humans trampling one another in a rush to the exits. Since the Fire! ruling was overturned, I have not heard that millions of American theatergoers were trampled to death every year. As a matter of fact no one was trampling each other when they knew the Twin Towers were burning.

What protected theatergoers before 1919?

My perception of the Fire restraint on free speech is that political free speech would remain absolute, but not all speech would be so blessed. At least that is what the High Court seemed to be saying at the time. That one prohibition appeared to be reasonable on the face of it, but now political free speech is no longer absolute; right along with the other kind. Would the Nifty Nine from a bygone era have made that pronouncement had they known that Intelligent Design, campaign finance reform, and banning politically incorrect speech would follow? It is impossible to say.

One unshakable fact about speech is universal. All speech, by its very nature, is most closely related to “Let the buyer beware.”

Incidentally, how many times did the words “limited speech” appear in print, commentaries, High Court decisions, etc., prior to 1919? How many times did James Madison invoke those words?

It is no secret that all governments just love protecting meaningless speech, while all governments claim the absolute Right to define “clear and present danger.” In every form of government do not falsely shout FIRE in a crowded theater becomes do not shout FIRE in an empty theater. Then it becomes do not shout FIRE! And finally do not speak at all.

Finally, whatever is going wrong with freedom of speech in this country today can be laid at Harvard’s doorstep along with journalism schools. All of the other institutions of higher learning combined do not corrupt this country as much as does Harvard.

Harvard graduates bounce back and forth between government and the academy in greater number than do all of the graduates from all of the other universities combined. Our courts have gone bad because of Harvard lawyers.

Starting with Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in 1902 the Supreme Court was transformed into a pantheon of liberalism. Just to name a few off the top of my average American head. Louis Brandeis, Felix Frankfurter, Earl Warren, William Brennan, William Powell, Jr., Harry Blackmun, Louis Powell, Jr., Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, David Souter, Jr, Sonia Sotomyer, Elena Kagan, and of course John Roberts who gave us the ACA who is not finished yet.


NOTE: Antonin Scalia is also a Harvard lawyer. I don’t know how in hell he fell in with a pack of scoundrels. (Happy to report that Clarence Thomas did not go to Harvard.)

Combine the awesome influence of Harvard’s well-known bunch with aspiring liberals who made it to the Supreme Court from lesser schools and you cannot fail to see that something is wrong. Add in Harvard grads who sit on lower courts, plus an overwhelming number of Harvard grads who clerk for Supreme Court justices, and you have a judicial cabal headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
 
In the real world it is offensive speech that requires the most protection, not kissy-kissy, touchy-feely, sermons.
It is no secret that all governments just love protecting meaningless speech, while all governments claim the absolute Right to define “clear and present danger.” In every form of government do not falsely shout FIRE in a crowded theater becomes do not shout FIRE in an empty theater. Then it becomes do not shout FIRE! And finally do not speak at all.
The First Amendment does protect “. . . hate speech.” when you identify the people who are trying to abolish the First Amendment.

“However, upon closer examination, the survey reveals some alarming insights into the anti-free speech mentality on college campuses today.”

For example, the poll showed that 32 percent of students could not identify the First Amendment as the section of the Constitution dealing with free speech. And one-third of those who could identify the First Amendment claimed it does not protect “hate speech.”

College students: Yes, you can limit our speech
Large numbers claim Constitution does not protect 'hate'
Posted By Bob Unruh On 10/28/2015 @ 7:54 pm

College students: Yes, you can limit our speech

First Amendment

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.​

The press has a vested interest in abolishing freedom of speech. Unfortunately, free speech is not the only freedom under attack. Powerful priesthoods of every stripe are trying to abolish freedom of religion certain they can wipe out every other religion.

Democrats-cum-Socialists are trying to abolish freedom of assembly ——— demonstrated by the IRS’ abuse of conservatives.

Disarming law-abiding Americans automatically abolishes the freedom to petition the government by other means.

By extension, the First Amendment is the best protection against oppressive government, activist judges, parasites, and organized religion.
 
Last edited:
In the real world it is offensive speech that requires the most protection, not kissy-kissy, touchy-feely, sermons.
After they come for you for speaking they will come for you for listening:

ISIS execute a 15-year-old boy by beheading after he is caught listening to western music in Iraq
By Simon Tomlinson for MailOnline
Published: 04:54 EST, 18 February 2016 | Updated: 08:34 EST, 18 February 2016

ISIS behead boy, 15, after he is caught listening to music in Iraq
 
DeWayne Hickham, the dean of Morgan State’s J-school, isn’t demanding a “Mohammed exception” to the First Amendment.
Wow that one threw me for a loop... I thought you were talking about Dobie Gillis... Then I ducked-ducked...
No, the word monopoly has nothing to do with the 1st Amendment or the free press. The right to free speech can only be placed in jeopardy by the government.
I concur...
 
No, the word monopoly has nothing to do with the 1st Amendment or the free press. The right to free speech can only be placed in jeopardy by the government.
I have to slightly disagree, or maybe it's nitpicking. Ten years ago, I would not have questioned it.

If I want to do some old school free speech in the town square, and a group from the "Citizen's Counsel," or a local church or a youth gang, or whoever, threatens me with violence for speaking my mind, including violence at my home, directed at my family, my free speech is in jeopardy.

Of course, the government has the option to punish the threateners or condone what they are doing. If government chooses the latter, that is government putting free speech in jeopardy.

If I want to speak freely on an online platform, and I am doxed, threatened and otherwise cyber-bullied, my free speech is in jeopardy.

On the other hand, if a privately owned website allows people to post with no pre-publication vetting, but then edits content as it sees fit, by deleting it, or even banning posters, that in itself is not a jeopardy to free speech. It is the website owner who has the free speech right to decide what is said on his or her site.

Obviously, such a site should not be exempted from lawsuits due to a law designed to protect a "neutral public platform."

One year ago, given the shenanigans in the 2020 elections, I was starting to question whether the left had found a way to end free speech, without government. By banning opposing view, including fact-based journalism, they clearly influenced the presidential election.

I have to say that if the left had maintained its stranglehold on the mass media, it would have been time to say that free speech can be put in jeopardy by non-governmental actors. But with the purchase of Twitter by an African-American (I love immigrants) who is promising to restore its status as a neutral public platform, it may be that they free market (as usual) is solving this problem.
 
Hate speech is free speech. Disinformation is free speech.

It is all the more important to not interfere with free speech if the person speaking is a hateful liar. How else for their hatefulness and dishonesty to be exposed?
 
It is thrilling to watch a demented war criminal virtue signal about a Free Press while currently imprisoning and torturing our generations most important anti-war journalist. Liberals are every bit as dumb, corrupt, and tribal as the people they claim to hate.
 
The very definition of monopoly was written for a free press:

monopoly (noun)​
plural monopolies
1. Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service.​
2. Law. A right granted by a government giving exclusive control over a specified commercial activity to a single party.​
3. a. A company or group having exclusive control over a commercial activity. b. A commodity or service so controlled.​
4. a. Exclusive possession or control: arrogantly claims to have a monopoly on the truth. b. Something that is exclusively possessed or controlled: showed that scientific achievement is not a male monopoly.

They even have schools protecting their monopoly:

DeWayne Hickham, the dean of Morgan State’s J-school, isn’t demanding a “Mohammed exception” to the First Amendment. He’s demanding an exception for all speech that would make the audience so angry that they might react violently — exactly the sort of slippery slope on censorship that people like you and me worry about when images of Mohammed are suppressed. Actual line from this op-ed, regarding the new cover of Charlie Hebdo: “The once little-known French satirical news weekly crossed the line that separates free speech from toxic talk.”​

Media income always depended upon controlling whatever the public hears. A free press monopoly over free speech enriching press barons worked suitably from the day the country was founded. Indeed, the monopoly got stronger, and wealthier, when television came along. In truth, media moguls saw Charlie Hebdo as a moral stick they could use to beat free speech to death.

NOTE: Media moralists and priests are the only ones looking for an excuse to diminish free speech for everybody else. Anyone with a lick of sense give not a rat’s ass about giving moralists of any stripe an exemption from criticism.

Bottom line: Wealthy tax dollar propagandists are not building responsible barricades because fringe publications poke fun at Islam, or any religion for that matter. The Internet broke the media’s freedom of speech monopoly. That is why media mouths and the government are sweating bullets.

Look who else is stomping on freedom of speech:


Pope Francis has said of the magazine, “You cannot make fun of the faith of others.”…​

The pope can exercise his own free speech in any way he chooses, but his opposition to freedom of speech in America carry’s no weight in our law or culture. My only regret is that absolute freedom of speech might silence every priest.

The crux of the matter

In 1919, the Supreme Court ruled speech that presents a “clear and present danger” is not protected by the First Amendment. Crying “fire” in a quiet, uninhabited place is one thing, the court said. But “the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic.”​
Twenty-two years later, the Supreme Court ruled that forms of expression that “inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace” are fighting words that are not protected by the First Amendment.​
Journalism school dean: The First Amendment ends at insulting Mohammed​
posted at 8:01 pm on January 21, 2015 by Allahpundit​



In the real world it is offensive speech that requires the most protection, not kissy-kissy, touchy-feely, sermons.

The things you cannot say, and the things you must say, is clearly an evolutionary step in America’s culture. In bygone decades the opponents of free speech confined their attacks to silencing speech for average Americans. The long-running debate used to be about the government shutting up people. Now, go back to Oliver Wendell Holmes’ often misquoted opinion: "Falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater.”, and come forward. You’ll see that before the Fairness Doctrine (1949 - 1987) was implemented no one was required to listen. Nowadays, freedom of speech is still as much as about making people listen as much as it is about shutting them up.

Parenthetically, Justice Holmes never told us how freedom of speech traveled from the year 1791 to the year 1919 without his opinion guiding the country. To me, “political freedom of speech” is absolute, or at least it should be. If an individual’s constitutional Rights are not as absolute as the government’s Rights the individual has no Rights at all. At best, individual’s constitutional Rights become nothing more than lawyers’ laws dressed up to look prettier than they actually are.

Fire!

It is a bit of a stretch to say that falsely yelling Fire! in a crowded theater would cause thinking humans trampling one another in a rush to the exits. Since the Fire! ruling was overturned, I have not heard that millions of American theatergoers were trampled to death every year. As a matter of fact no one was trampling each other when they knew the Twin Towers were burning.

What protected theatergoers before 1919?

My perception of the Fire restraint on free speech is that political free speech would remain absolute, but not all speech would be so blessed. At least that is what the High Court seemed to be saying at the time. That one prohibition appeared to be reasonable on the face of it, but now political free speech is no longer absolute; right along with the other kind. Would the Nifty Nine from a bygone era have made that pronouncement had they known that Intelligent Design, campaign finance reform, and banning politically incorrect speech would follow? It is impossible to say.

One unshakable fact about speech is universal. All speech, by its very nature, is most closely related to “Let the buyer beware.”

Incidentally, how many times did the words “limited speech” appear in print, commentaries, High Court decisions, etc., prior to 1919? How many times did James Madison invoke those words?

It is no secret that all governments just love protecting meaningless speech, while all governments claim the absolute Right to define “clear and present danger.” In every form of government do not falsely shout FIRE in a crowded theater becomes do not shout FIRE in an empty theater. Then it becomes do not shout FIRE! And finally do not speak at all.

Finally, whatever is going wrong with freedom of speech in this country today can be laid at Harvard’s doorstep along with journalism schools. All of the other institutions of higher learning combined do not corrupt this country as much as does Harvard.

Harvard graduates bounce back and forth between government and the academy in greater number than do all of the graduates from all of the other universities combined. Our courts have gone bad because of Harvard lawyers.

Starting with Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in 1902 the Supreme Court was transformed into a pantheon of liberalism. Just to name a few off the top of my average American head. Louis Brandeis, Felix Frankfurter, Earl Warren, William Brennan, William Powell, Jr., Harry Blackmun, Louis Powell, Jr., Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, David Souter, Jr, Sonia Sotomyer, Elena Kagan, and of course John Roberts who gave us the ACA who is not finished yet.

NOTE: Antonin Scalia is also a Harvard lawyer. I don’t know how in hell he fell in with a pack of scoundrels. (Happy to report that Clarence Thomas did not go to Harvard.)

Combine the awesome influence of Harvard’s well-known bunch with aspiring liberals who made it to the Supreme Court from lesser schools and you cannot fail to see that something is wrong. Add in Harvard grads who sit on lower courts, plus an overwhelming number of Harvard grads who clerk for Supreme Court justices, and you have a judicial cabal headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Becarful where you get your meanings from , they are changing the definitions/meanings in multiple areas for multiple reasons.
If people are not aware of this imagine the false information they are learning when they run to the dictionary to prove to someone, or let’s say write a paper etc…….They are rewriting history and the American dumb asses have no idea.
 

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