January/February LD Topic

Every college campus has a crazy preacher, the one who yells batsh1t insane things in the middle of campus. If you don't know this, meet Brother Dean. Brother Dean goes to campuses across Arizona and yells things like "You deserve to be raped," "communist faggot," and so on. This is Pro's world: People should be able to express their views, even sh1tty ones. I won't argue against that. But I will argue that how you say things is as important as what you say, and that schools should stop Brother Dean and similar people from expressing themselves in the ways they do. They should do this because this best respects people's rights. Speech is an Action "Speech" is both words and actions. Communicating words is only possible through an action (speaking, writing, yelling, etc.). I'm only arguing that some actions should be banned, including some acts of speech that are "constitutionally protected". I'll call them "speech-acts" (1), which is just a way of saying they're actions that go along with making speech. For example, Brother Dean's "You deserve rape" is words, but he aims those words at individuals and yells. Both are actions. So, my definition of speech is "the words/images/gestures/etc. and associated actions used to communicate". Speech and Harm We forbid many speech-acts because they harm others--you can't set someone else on fire just to prove a point, no matter how good it is. But words have nothing to do with that. If you say, "By the light of this fire, I shine a light into the darkness of this world", and set yourself on fire, maybe the government shouldn't force you to put out the fire (that's done cruelly in Tibet). But if you say those words and set ME on fire, you've done me wrong. The words don't violate anyone's rights; the action does. The point is that we're not interested in banning words here. We want to moderate actions, and it's easy to tell the difference between the words and actions. There are speech-acts that shouldn't be banned--say, if the "action" is speaking in public. But, we can ban actions that harm others. What's the principle that justifies that? The difference between the fire case and speaking in public is harm, or, infringement of other rights. This is the harm principle that Pro seems to accept: for a public school to ban speech, it must be harmful. His framework is more or less compatible with mine in this round, so I don't need to set out a complete rights theory now. Instead, I'll show there's rights violated--or harm--in not banning some speech-acts. I'll explain what the harm is, and I'll explain a narrow rule that can be applied to fix it. The harm is: Mental harm that is properly documented via scientific research (5 shows this is possible). The rule is: Officials should forbid a speech-act that causes mental harm, if A) the harm greatly outweighs the harm we would do by preventing the speech (competing rights are more harmed than the right to free speech), or B) there is a less harmful (rights-infringing) but similarly effective way to convey the speech. Mental harm from speech obviously exists. Emotional abuse is called emotional abuse for a reason, and we rightly don't allow people to inflict that. Why do we pretend that private speech can harm, but public speech can't? One answer is that we don't pretend at all; we just value speech more. But that's insanity. We don't value speech because it's speech; we value it because we benefit from using it. If a law stops me from saying "239+433=349384929834", I'm not wronged because there was no value in making the statement in the first place. The philosopher Ronald Dworkin described rights, for instance, as "trumps" that prevent the government from doing something to someone if it's only justified by utilitarian calculations. But, he also noted that securing rights "makes the Government's job of securing the general benefit more difficult . . . and it would be a frivolous and wrongful practice unless it served some point" (6). Whether we talk about rules, rights, or principles, the same point applies. We'll apply this to the case of Brother Dean. Let's say studies are done that show those exposed to his speech-acts are 30% more likely to have a panic attack within a day. Universities, in response, tell him he must modify the speech-act. He can hold up his signs, but he can't yell. Following this, studies show a much smaller increase in the rate of panic attacks after exposure to him. Brother Dean is not restricted in terms of his ability to express his views. He can't yell, but this has little effect, if any, on his ability to achieve his purpose. Intuition tells us that preventing yelling is completely reasonable--if a student yells in a class with a professor, that professor should kick the student out. Why apply different standards 5 steps away from the classroom? tl;dr We can and should restrict speech without causing harm/infringing upon rights, and while preventing both, in a narrowly-tailored way. Going Deep--Restricting Speech for the Same Reasons We Have It Plus, we sometimes want to prohibit speech-acts where no direct harm is done. The obvious case is Citizens United v. FEC. In that case, "The United States Supreme Court held . . . that freedom of speech prohibited the government from restricting independent political expenditures by a nonprofit corporation. The principles articulated . . . have also been extended to for-profit corporations, labor unions and other associations" (2). The overwhelming majority of people in a NYTimes poll called bullsh1t (3). What's in the people's self-interest is what's in the people's self-interest. If we're interested in maximizing well-being or protecting rights, we can't follow the Constitution and let money run wild. This is true even though we can't clearly see any harm. Why? We appeal to an underlying principle. In an OpEd about Citizens United, Ellen Weintraub writes, "We should make sure that the voices of citizens are not being drowned out by corporate money. American billionaires already have an outsize influence on our elections. Let’s not cede yet more power to foreign elites" (7). If money is speech, this is an appeal to something deeper--the future of American democracy. These "deep" appeals come from all political stances. For instance, your average conservative might argue that it's nice to take in refugees, but their political stances will destroy the current political fabric of the US. We can make a "deep" appeal against some speech at colleges in spite of the Constitution. In fact, we could make thousands, but I'll just present two. 1. Speech is a nonviolent tactic, and the point of speech is therefore to peacefully resolve disputes. Confrontational tactics like yelling or blocking freeways run contrary to this principle, and should be prohibited. 2. It is important to observe the Constitution as the Framers intended it. Money is not speech, and therefore we must forbid organizations that are given university funds from participating in political activities (yes, this is a real controversy http://www.johnlocke.org...[1].pdf). You may agree with one and disagree with the other--what matters is that these deep appeals go behind speech to its justification to decide what speech may be banned. I'll make a more substantial deep appeal in Round 2, and fill in the missing parts of my framework. Back to you, Pro. Sources 1. https://plato.stanford.edu.... See also the three kinds of speech-acts: "the act of saying something, what one does in saying it, and what one does by saying it" http://online.sfsu.edu... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org... 3. https://tinyurl.com... 4. http://www.johnlocke.org...[1].pdf 5. https://tinyurl.com... 6. Dworkin, "Taking Rights Seriously" as published in Taking Rights Seriously, pg. 198. 7. https://tinyurl.com...