Freedom of Speech

[Misty]

"Freedom of speech is the political right to communicate one's opinions and ideas. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used. In practice, the right to freedom of speech is not absolute in any country and the right is commonly subject to limitations, as with libel, slander, obscenity,[citation needed]sedition (including, for example inciting ethnic hatred), copyright violation, revelation of information that is classified or otherwise."

"se·di·tion *(s-dshn)
n.
1. Conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of a state.
2. Insurrection; rebellion."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech

This is why people may be removed from the conservative club without fear of hypocrisy.

 

[arKangel]

Since this is the "Clean Debate Zone", would you please articulate what is the presented debate?

 

[Misty]

The debate is that many feel their right to freedom of speech was stomped on because they were removed from one club by joining a club set up toward incitement of discontent.

 

[arKangel]

Pardon me,
Would you please elaborate?

It seems that you are referencing a particular event, would you please share the details of the incident?

 

[Meister]

I'm certainly interested in who was "removed" from any club

 

[uscitizen]

Money is not speech.

 

[Meister]

Wow! After investigating, I'm glad USMB doesn't play by them rules.

 

[arKangel]

OK,

XXXXXXX

Let us open up the debate.
Why is it wrong for people have freedom of speech?
(Now is your chance XXXXXXX can you cleanly tell us why people should be forced to speak only your opinioin?)

This Is The CDZ. The Focus is Civil Discourse. No Put Downs, or Name Calling, Other Posters.

 

[Wiseacre]

Money is not speech.

SCOTUS does not agree.

 

[FA_Q2]

violating material

Starting off with what clearly is an insult is not really following the spirit or the rules of the CDZ. If you actually wish to have a good debate, please refrain from this.

 

[FA_Q2]

Money is not speech.

So a political commercial (which must be bought) is not exercising your right to speak?
I really want to know where you can defend this train of thought. If I have a megaphone and make it illegal for you to have one, I have effectively impacted your ability to communicate (IOW, speak). The SCOTUS decisions was, whether or not you like it or agree, a correct decision. You might not like the results but that is NOT what the courts are there to rule on.

 

[Sherry]

You just can't help yourself from picking at that scab rather than letting it heal.

 

[midcan5]

Just as there is no such thing as a free market, there is no such thing as free speech. All speech is in context and in a historical and cultural setting. Speech is determined by what we know or think we know as well as where we are and who we are with. FS is a enormous abstraction that is often shown to be un-free by law, culture, and setting. There's no need to give examples of why that is so. Or consider hate speech or even pornography. See these two examples.

'Only Words' Catharine A. MacKinnon
The Harm in Hate Speech (Oliver Wendell Holmes Lectures, 2009) Jeremy Waldron

Read Stanley Fish's excellent essay or check his intereview here.

"Many discussions of free speech, especially by those whom I would call free speech ideologues, begin by assuming as normative the situation in which speech is offered for its own sake, just for the sake of expression. The idea is that free expression, the ability to open up your mouth and deliver an opinion in a seminar-like atmosphere, is the typical situation and any constraint on free expression is therefore a deviation from that typical or normative situation. I begin by saying that this is empirically false, that the prototypical academic situation in which you utter sentences only to solicit sentences in return with no thought of actions being taken, is in fact anomalous. It is something that occurs only in the academy and for a very small number of people.

Therefore, a theory of free speech which takes such weightless situations as being the centre of the subject seems to me to go wrong from the first. I begin from the opposite direction. I believe the situation of constraint is the normative one and that the distinctions which are to be made are between differing situations of constraint; rather than a distinction between constraint on the one hand and a condition of no constraint on the other. Another way to put this is to say that, except in a seminar-like situation, when one speaks to another person, it is usually for an instrumental purpose: you are trying to get someone to do something, you are trying to urge an idea and, down the road, a course of action. These are the reasons for which speech exists and it is in that sense that I say that there is no such thing as "free speech", that is, speech that has as its rationale nothing more than its own production." "There is no such thing as free speech": an interview with Stanley Fish <P>

 

[Wiseacre]

Nothing is absolute, free speech, free market, freedom itself, are all ideals to be protected but also limited for the good of society. You don't get to do whatever you want and say whatever you want if in so doing you trample on somebody else's freedoms or put society as a whole at risk. So it boils down to a tradeoff between ensuring individual rights are not diminished and doing what's best for everybody. Now there's a topic for discussion, in another thread.

 

[dblack]

Just as there is no such thing as a free market, there is no such thing as free speech. ...

Hate to say so, but from what I've seen of your world view, there's no such thing as freedom. Or shouldn't be, in any case.

I'm glad I don't share that view.

 

[Pogo]

I have to admit, I'm lost as to what the topic is here. From the aimless direction it seems like a tabula rasa.

Maybe that's the point?

 

[oldfart]

I have to admit, I'm lost as to what the topic is here. From the aimless direction it seems like a tabula rasa.

Maybe that's the point?

Like you I have been unable to discern a point. I have the feeling there is a back channel. If so CUT IT OUT. If you can't state the issue in plain English for any reason, DON'T POST.

Pogo and I will now exit so that we may exchange our super-secret handshake and plot like Pinky and the Brain. I get to be Pinky this time.

 

[Pogo]

I have to admit, I'm lost as to what the topic is here. From the aimless direction it seems like a tabula rasa.

Maybe that's the point?

Like you I have been unable to discern a point. I have the feeling there is a back channel. If so CUT IT OUT. If you can't state the issue in plain English for any reason, DON'T POST.

Pogo and I will now exit so that we may exchange our super-secret handshake and plot like Pinky and the Brain. I get to be Pinky this time.

No fair. Why do I always have to be the brain? Grumble grumble...

 

[arKangel]

Yeah not much of a debate to be had here.

Except for the fringe totalitarians, everyone prefers freedom.

 

[YoungRepublican]

I think the OP meant was if we do cherish a freedom of speech as conservatives then why do we kick people to the curb who are conservative, just not on every issue..Am I correct?