From (O)CT(O)PUS at The Swash Zone:
Our country is unique in practicing the most liberal form of free speech in the world. Yet, the right to free speech is by no means absolute. With freedom comes responsibility. Civil and criminal laws govern our conduct. The right to free speech does not include fraud, imminent incitement, perjury, theft of intellectual property, sedition, slander, smut, or beaches of national security.
European nations guarantee similar rights with a few notable exceptions. Invasions of privacy, hate speech against ethnic or racial minorities, any infringement of human rights, or Holocaust denial … these are prohibited and punishable by law.
In America, bigots may denigrate any nationality or minority group with impunity.
I read this right after reading what JK Rowling had to say about Trump and freedom of speech. Here’s an excerpt:
“If my offended feelings can constitute a travel ban on Donald Trump, I have no moral grounds on which to argue that those offended by feminism or the fight for transgender rights or universal suffrage should not oppress campaigners for those causes. If you seek the removal of freedoms from an opponent simply on the grounds that they have offended you, you have crossed a line to stand along tyrants who imprison, torture and kill on exactly the same justification.”
Whether or not a British travel ban on Trump is justified or right is its own discussion, but this idea that we lose the moral high ground when we employ force is as tired and misguided as the “You can’t legislate morality” line. We have to be careful about when, how, and why we employ force just as we have to be careful about when, how, and why we legislate morality, but neither is necessarily wrong, impossible, or ineffective. To accept the reasoning behind these statements is to dismiss a significant portion of our species’ history and psychology. And this is to say nothing of Rowling’s comparison of a travel ban to imprisonment, torture, and murder or her minimization of Trump’s behavior and proposals as simply “offensive.”
Our right to freedom of speech as codified in our Bill of Rights was meant to protect political speech in particular… and specifically of the kind that others might find offensive. If no one is offended by my political or other speech, then chances are that it wouldn’t need to be protected. My stated opinions would simply be a part of the general consensus.
That doesn’t mean that I am not offended by things that Trump, Hillary, or President Obama have said. Indeed I often find much of what each of them says to be offensive, obtuse, or foolish. However, unlike many of our college students these days that have to be protected from speech they consider to be offensive to their ideals by hiding in “safe spaces”, we do NOT have a right to not be offended. Indeed, I think being offended may even motivate us to try to do better by not voting for those “leaders” that do offend us with their words and actions. It can be the catalyst for us to aspire to better things through our own speech and actions.