Freedom of Speech · 3:22pm May 15th, 2017
When shut out of a university, censored from television, or banned from a forum, people cry out ‘Freedom of Speech!’. The typical retort is that Freedom of Speech is from the First Amendment of the Constitution, and refers solely to restrictions on government action.
This is wrong. Hopelessly, myopically wrong.
It is true that the First Amendment refers to Freedom of Speech as a right protected by the Constitution against overreach of the government. But that is not what Freedom of Speech is. Freedom of Speech is an ideal; part and parcel with the rights and freedoms that the founders called ‘self-evident’ in the Declaration of Independence. And it remains so. Freedom of Speech is a commitment to open discussion and debate. It is a commitment to the free exchange of ideas. It is a necessary steward of progress and reason.
When someone says you are impinging on their Freedom of Speech, some people think they are accusing you of doing something illegal. Most of the time, that isn't remotely what's going on. It's much worse: They're accusing you of doing something morally repugnant. Something antithetical to a free society. Something fundamentally bad.
Every individual has responsibilities to the rest of society; including the responsibility to support the rights and freedoms that we all rely on. Government employees have it encoded in the law; but this responsibility is everyone's to share, from Internet providers and television networks to social media platforms and universities to local businesses and community leaders to you and your grumpy neighbor.
I get it; it feels justified when someone who says things you find hurtful or hateful is locked out of your campus or kicked off of your favorite sports team: After all, they were wrong, right? They deserve it, don't they? But Freedom of Speech is not something you can turn on and off at your convenience. Like all rights and freedoms, it requires constant and vigorous assertion to maintain, and if it is lost, it is not easy to regain.
The people who wield power in society are not only the government; they include the business leaders, and the community organizers, and the teachers and professors. Everyone who has an ability to silence dissent, even in a limited area, has power, and so a responsibility to wield that power morally. If you do not hold these people to account, the power will go to their heads, as power does. If you support their actions to restrict the freedoms of others, they will feel justified doing it again, and again, and again.
If you agree with these powers-that-be on the issues that they restrict dissent on, that feels fantastic. You're winning! But it's incredibly short-sighted. Once they have the power to silence disagreement on one topic, they have the power to silence disagreements on all topics. Why do you think that you will always agree with all of the positions the people in charge take? Why do you think that you'll never find yourself on the opposite side? Why don't you think a new issue might arise that you take the minority stance on? Why do you not consider that you might change your mind on a politically correct position that you're currently aligned with? Why do you not consider that the people in control might change their minds?
When you finally do find yourself disagreeing with those in charge, with the social media managers and the college deans and the television networks, you'll quickly learn what it's like to be shut out of the conversation. To be attacked, not on the battlefield of ideas, but for the terrible crime of opening your mouth. To be kicked out, harassed, and bullied for thinking you have a right to speak your mind. Because you supported those tactics when you were in agreement with the people who used them, they have become the norm. And now that you're in the oft-neglected minority of thought, it's too late.
Thank goodness somebody else said it. The people who use that line on me are usually so smug about it, they always sneer when i tell them that free speech goes beyond our government and forms the bedrock of our society. You're not wrong in saying that people only use it to their own benefit. Universal applications of rights are a joke to these people.