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"This was not an issue about free speech," Tim Moore, director of the SMU student center, said in a story for Thursday's edition of The Dallas Morning News. "It was really an issue where we had a hostile environment being created."*
I love that quote. It so neatly side steps the "censorship" label and makes it all about being "kinder and gentler". Look, it cries, I'm good, I'm for free speech, only this, well, this can't be free speech because it was creating a hostile environment. I feel like I've stepped right into a parallel ending of "Animal Farm" -- "All speech is free but some is more free than others."
Free speech is a sorely abused rallying cry for so many people these days, especially here on the 'Net where the "free speech" banner is often used bludgeon others into submission or justify intrusive and trollish behavior. But I notice a very disturbing trend -- free speech is only "free speech" if it happens to be saying what could be considered "progressive" or "open minded" or "good". Otherwise it's not "free speech" it's "hate speech" -- as in "I hate your speech so you can't say it."
There was a terrific example of that just during the latest Gulf War. Rallies were going on and the old standby of burning the American flag was again trotted out in symbolic protest against the government action. This didn't make the news, much. Burning flags is quite passe and everyone knows that it is just symbolism -- anyone who is so narrow-minded as to feel hurt and offended about such a wonderful expression of free speech just needs to get over themselves. Free speech ruled the day. Symbolic gesture = free speech.
Then the Dixie Chicks expressed their personal feelings about the President and the war. Not everyone agreed with what they had to say and several groups of these people decided that they would express their own personal feelings about the Dixie Chicks. So they gathered all the DIxie Chicks albums that they had and ran them over with tractors. The outcry against this was swift and universal. How dare anyone be so hateful as to do that? Look at how terribly threatened the Chicks must feel, such displays of destruction must be stopped -- or at least belittled and ridiculed. Symbolic gesture = hate speech.
Colored me confused. I see no difference in the burning of the flag or the crushing of a CD. Now if I send a letter to the President or to Natalie Maines threatening to blow them up or cut off their heads, I could see how that is obviously threatening. But if burning a flag is free speech, why isn't crushing a CD. Or burning a book for that matter?
If I burn a flag and it only means that I don't like what the government is doing, doesn't it follow logically that if I crush a CD it only means I don't like what the artist is saying or if I burn a book it only means I don't like what the writer is saying? And conversely if burning a book means that I want to totally undermine the access to the written word and crushing a CD means that I want the artist to die a horrible and painful death, then doesn't burning the flag mean that I want the government and all those who work for/support the government to be wiped from the face of the earth?
Freedom of Speech should be an ideal -- a right that comes with responsibilities and obligations. It should not be a weapon used to force your opinion others nor should it be a cry to "prove" your own superiority. For "Freedom of Speech" to survive, no one should ever be allowed co-opt that ideal and claim it as part of their -- and only their -- ideology. Because the very idea of that -- the very thought that only one side, group or person is the sole protector and champion of Freedom of Speech -- undermines the very right that they claim to cherish.
I love that quote. It so neatly side steps the "censorship" label and makes it all about being "kinder and gentler". Look, it cries, I'm good, I'm for free speech, only this, well, this can't be free speech because it was creating a hostile environment. I feel like I've stepped right into a parallel ending of "Animal Farm" -- "All speech is free but some is more free than others."
Free speech is a sorely abused rallying cry for so many people these days, especially here on the 'Net where the "free speech" banner is often used bludgeon others into submission or justify intrusive and trollish behavior. But I notice a very disturbing trend -- free speech is only "free speech" if it happens to be saying what could be considered "progressive" or "open minded" or "good". Otherwise it's not "free speech" it's "hate speech" -- as in "I hate your speech so you can't say it."
There was a terrific example of that just during the latest Gulf War. Rallies were going on and the old standby of burning the American flag was again trotted out in symbolic protest against the government action. This didn't make the news, much. Burning flags is quite passe and everyone knows that it is just symbolism -- anyone who is so narrow-minded as to feel hurt and offended about such a wonderful expression of free speech just needs to get over themselves. Free speech ruled the day. Symbolic gesture = free speech.
Then the Dixie Chicks expressed their personal feelings about the President and the war. Not everyone agreed with what they had to say and several groups of these people decided that they would express their own personal feelings about the Dixie Chicks. So they gathered all the DIxie Chicks albums that they had and ran them over with tractors. The outcry against this was swift and universal. How dare anyone be so hateful as to do that? Look at how terribly threatened the Chicks must feel, such displays of destruction must be stopped -- or at least belittled and ridiculed. Symbolic gesture = hate speech.
Colored me confused. I see no difference in the burning of the flag or the crushing of a CD. Now if I send a letter to the President or to Natalie Maines threatening to blow them up or cut off their heads, I could see how that is obviously threatening. But if burning a flag is free speech, why isn't crushing a CD. Or burning a book for that matter?
If I burn a flag and it only means that I don't like what the government is doing, doesn't it follow logically that if I crush a CD it only means I don't like what the artist is saying or if I burn a book it only means I don't like what the writer is saying? And conversely if burning a book means that I want to totally undermine the access to the written word and crushing a CD means that I want the artist to die a horrible and painful death, then doesn't burning the flag mean that I want the government and all those who work for/support the government to be wiped from the face of the earth?
Freedom of Speech should be an ideal -- a right that comes with responsibilities and obligations. It should not be a weapon used to force your opinion others nor should it be a cry to "prove" your own superiority. For "Freedom of Speech" to survive, no one should ever be allowed co-opt that ideal and claim it as part of their -- and only their -- ideology. Because the very idea of that -- the very thought that only one side, group or person is the sole protector and champion of Freedom of Speech -- undermines the very right that they claim to cherish.
