On the Freedom of Speech

“Freedom of Speech”. What comes to your mind when you read these words? What do you think about? What connotation does this phrase have for you?

Do you think of the Constitution? Do these words resonate in a legal sense?

Do you think of the press and its duty to a functioning democratic society?

Perhaps you think of a protester, shouting for change and holding inflammatory signs? If so, on which side of the protest do you envision yourself?

As the purpose of this website is to provide a platform for my views on many topics, I feel it is necessary to state what “Freedom of Speech” means to me at the very start.

To be clear, I am referring to the ideological notion of Freedom of Speech, not its legal notion. Speech that is legal in the USA may not be legal in France, or the UK, or Canada, despite each of these nations having signed human rights covenants safeguarding Freedom of Speech. This distinction between laws and ideals is vital. Ideals can be distilled into laws. Laws, in turn, can manipulate the formation and propagation of ideals.

My position on Freedom of Speech is both extreme and absolute:

I uphold that it is the right of any individual to express any and all ideas via any action that does not directly violate another individual’s right to existence or possession of private property.

“AH!” you might exclaim, “You included two undetermined caveats into your definition!” Yes, I did. So let me define them:

I uphold that it is the right of any individual to physically exist without accepting the direct infliction of physical damage and/or death from another individual.

I uphold that it is the right of any individual to possess physical objects and/or collections of physical objects as being private property such that the use, occupation, and/or destruction of this private property can only be dictated by the the possessor of such private property. I further uphold that private property can only be considered possessed if it is independently claimed by the would-be possessor in such a way that the majority of interested parties accept the claim or if it is transferred to a would-be possessor by a currently recognized possessor via any means agreed upon by the two functional parties.

What do these statements mean in terms of practical application?

Basically? Say whatever you want, however you want, in any way you want, anywhere you want, provided that you do not cause direct bodily harm, trespass on private property, steal private property, or damage/destroy private property.

You want to protest Russian imperialism by putting Ukrainian flags on your house? Go for it!

You want to start a blog mirroring every point I make and expounding on how much you admire me as a human being? A bit much, but go for it!

You want to protest on the street outside my home regarding my inadequacies as man due to the fact that I am in fact a gay Nazi space demon? Go for it, but step into my home and I’ll shoot you dead.

This latter point is intentionally extreme. I am not gay, I am not a Nazi, I am not a demon (I promise!), and I am not from space. These would in fact be lies, slanderous and defamatory when applied to my character. These statements may cause me economic harm, would certainly cause me stress, and would likely cause my social standing with respect to the local community to decline. Such a protest could even jeopardize my ability to stay in my home, being a rented dwelling, as the landowner may subsequently choose to decline to continue my lease moving forward.

Bottom line: This protest, this example of speech, would hurt me personally… and I would support the right of any individual(s) to undertake exactly such an action.

Why?

It is very difficult to be self-consistent when taking anything other than an absolute stance with respect to Freedom of Speech. In effect, one might either support all forms of speech or none at all. Let us examine a few examples.

It is easy to state that one’s speech should not be hateful, should not be slanderous, and should not call for the harm of another individual. This is a comfortable thing. In fact, most liberal democratic states, including the USA, have laws in existence specifically addressing these topics.

What should we do about all of the people calling for the death of one Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin? Should those that say “Death to Putin, Death to the New Czar!” be punished? Consensus would say ‘no’, but such is inconsistent with the above ideal.

In a rather infamous debate at the Oxford Union, Kate Brooks put forward the idea that speech which does not accept that others may be of a different opinion or in possession of differing beliefs should not be considered Free Speech. Specifically, she suggested that the wording “I am not a Muslim, but others can be” would be an example of a protected difference of opinion, but that her opponent’s stating that he is against the teaching of Islam would be an example of unprotected speech that should be censored. This could be generalized by the statement that ‘speech which acknowledges and accepts the existence and validity of an opposing viewpoint is Free Speech.’'

“I personally believe we are all equal, but I could understand if someone thought certain races are inferior to their own”. Is this free speech by the above definition? Yes, it is, yet Kate specifically states in her piece that apartheid and any discourse thereof should be banned regardless of context.

Similarly, if we adopt the her second proposition that all speech directly denouncing a group or ideology should be censored, we would have to ban speech such as “I am against Nazis. I feel it is unacceptable for anyone to use race or religion as an excuse for nationalistic genocide.” I believe Kate, and most others reading this blog, would agree with this sentiment, but it would not be consistent to allow its existence.

It is often put forward that speech should not be allowed if it mentally and/or emotionally damages someone. I understand this position as being one aimed at the establishment of a civil society, but there is a fatal flaw: one’s mind is opaque to those around them. How does one measure emotional damage? How do we objectively identify the impact of words on the mind of another individual? We cannot, in either case. Insight into the thoughts and emotions of an individual can be provided only via the speech, both verbal and nonverbal, of that individual. As there is no way to force an individual to be truthful with regards to their speech at any time, the insight into their thoughts and emotions they provide is not necessarily the truth. Moreover, such insight is not objective. Two individuals who disagree with an arbitrary form of speech may differ drastically in terms of their mental response. In fact, these individuals, both sharing a negative response, may not even understand the nature or appreciate the existence of the other’s position.

The use of thoughts and emotions as a limiting factor also brings a temporal dimension into account. Speech itself cannot directly damage someone physically. It can promote violent ideals and even suggest that those ideals be targeted against a specific individual, but the speech itself cannot physically harm that individual. This means that any violence associated with speech is associated via an indirect relationship. Simply chanting “Hang Mike Pence” on January 6th was not sufficient to cause Mike Pence bodily harm. Rather, this was an expression of the desire of a group of individuals to cause bodily harm to Mike Pence. In the event that such were to have happened, it would have been the desires and decisions of the individuals involved that would have directly harmed Mike Pence.

The same cannot be said for emotional harm. Speech can directly harm individuals emotionally, and it commonly does so. In the example of people protesting outside my home I admitted that it would cause me emotional distress. I would be quite angry, confused, and likely more than a bit scared if a mob were to protest my beliefs or my existence. The arbitrariness of the measure of ‘how distressed would I be’ and ‘is that enough for the speech to be banned’ aside, the issue is that the speech can continue to hurt emotionally moving forward. It is possible that I could be reminded of that horrible day many years in the future, and I would be distressed a second time by reliving its memory. It is possible that other people, who were not the target of the protest, could be hurt emotionally as they were confused by the mob’s message and scared for their own safety. It is further possible that many years later someone could come across footage of the protest, and be emotionally hurt due to the specific wording of the chants or the viewing of symbols associated with my suspected space demon cult.

There is no end to this line. The only way to guarantee that speech cannot hurt someone, that is to say anyone in any time or place, is to eliminate that speech entirely regardless of its context, message, or form.

Not only would this eliminate all speech, but we established previously that we as a society can only gain insight into the level of emotional damage caused by a form of speech via that individual’s speech. As all speech would have to be eliminated to ensure no one could possibly be emotionally damaged by its existence, we would have no way to determine if the subject speech actually caused any emotional damage to begin with.

This is a hole-within-a-hole argument and is thus not self-consistent.

I do not expect most people to agree with my position. That is perfectly fine. My position forces me to accept that different viewpoints and opinions will exist and that others have every right to express them. I also do understand that this piece uses extreme examples to make its points. I fully expect many people to put forward the opinion that rights should only exist for some happy middle-ground of reasonableness, and anything outside that area is to be abhorred. This is perfectly understandable. I have no desire to listen to the far-left or far-right babble unceasingly regarding whatever manufactured problem-of-the-week they have decided remove from its context. I have no desire to listen to propaganda or bullshit artists. Importantly, I have no desire to harm others with my speech nor a desire to be harmed by the speech of others.

In the end, however, I deal in hard objective points as best I can. Inconsistent positions and hypocritical opinions do not serve as workable basis for intellectual exploration, and so I shall continue to put my view forward until and unless I am presented with a more consistent approach.