From: rat@erg.sri.com (Ray Trent)
Newsgroups: soc.men,soc.women,alt.censorship,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Hate speech okay, Supreme Court says
Date: 22 Jul 92 01:46:36 GMT
Reply-To: rat@erg.sri.com (Ray Trent)
Organization: SRI International, Menlo Park, CA

In the referenced article, egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>stores.  A la Thelma 'n Louise.  Whaddya mean there's a law against
>armed robbery?  You is unjustly addressing my speech act based on its
>content, which I claim necessarily includes emptying the cash drawer.
>
>In other words, you talk of slippery slopes; but there's a positive
>Vail, CO, between the actual Viktora decision and extending First
>Amendment protection to any behavior whatsoever.  I'm a performance
>artist or snuff filmmaker.  Laws against murder prohibit may favorite
>form of speech.  Laws against insider trading directly address my
>freedom of speech.  Any crime involves some text since we are textual
>beings.

It is true that any act contains some text, since we are textual
beings. However, all acts *also* contain direct results of the act
that are not textual in and of themselves.

These direct *results* are perfectly within the realm of that which is
subject to legislation, if they interfere with the legitimate rights
of other people.

Yes, there *is* some textual content in the killing of a person, but
there is also a direct effect, to wit, the death of a human being.

"Absolute freedom of speech" refers to restricting speech/actions/etc,
*solely* on the content of the textual *portion* of the action.

You are perfectly within your rights to communicate an
image/icon/text/sound/whatever of a person being killed. What you are
prohibited from doing is taking any action that has as a *direct
result* the actual unjust death of a human being. 

Hence, for example, *if* it is legal to burn a circle on your own
lawn, and *if* burning an otherwise equivilent cross has no additional
*direct results* that infringe on the rights of others, a prohibition
against burning crosses is not legitimate, because the only remaining
difference would be a textual one. 

Now, it may very well be that burning a cross *could* have a different
direct result, depending on the circumstances. For example, lighting
up a cross in front of *anyone* (black or otherwise) while surrounded
by a bunch of people who are actually likely to take the burning of
the cross as a good reason to kill that person might very well be an
assault.  It could easily be argued that the textual content of
burning of the cross had the *direct effect* of enraging the crowd to
kill the person. But this would have to be proven, to the same
standard of proof as any other accusation.

Note: I don't necessarily buy this "fighting words" interpretation,
because it is so open to abuse and interpretation. I, personally,
would be more likely to hold the individuals doing the killing
entirely responsible, because I think there is far too much blaming of
others for the weaknesses of individuals in this society.  But there
have to be reasonable compromises in any position, and there *does*
seem to be a point to this interpretation of the causes and effects of
the events.

People have the right not to be directly threatened. Fear doesn't have
anything to do with it. People do not have the right to be free from
fear. A doctor that tells a patient of a terminal illness may well
cause that patient a great deal of fear.  What the doctor *doesn't*
have the right to do is say: "I'm going to kill you right now, with
this scalpel".

Perhaps the difference is that I don't believe that people have the
right not to be offended.

Of course, if you're an existentialist or something, you may very well
believe, one way or another, that there is nothing *but* textual
content to any action. I deny this hypothesis. Prove it.

Let's see if I can come up with a canonical example...the issuance of
a verbal statement has at least 2 components. One is the textual
content of the speech. The other is the physical impact of the sound
waves upon those in range of the speaker. Absolute freedom of speech
allows for regulation of the latter, but not of the former.  If all
noise above a certain decibel level is prohibited after 10 PM, this is
not a violation of freedom of speech, per se. If only noises whose
textual content is, "Bush is a dweeb", are prohibited then this *is* a
violation of freedom of speech.

(note: I'm not so foolish as to go along with the obvious example of a
law prohibiting all noises at all times. While such would,
technically, not be a violation of free speech under the above
interpretation, it has such an enormously disturbing effect on the
expression of *all* ideas that it must *additionally* be considered
suppression of speech, though of a different order. Of course, if such
a law were actually enforced, it would almost certainly be *enforced*
on the basis of the textual content of the noise, which would qualify
even under the above interpretation.)
-- 
"When you're down, it's a long way up
 When you're up, it's a long way down
 It's all the same thing
 And it's no new tale to tell"                      ../ray\..