Extremists versus Free Speech

Last updated on: May 5, 2015 at 3:12 pm by Robert Hunt

Extremists versus Free Speech 2015-05-05T15:12:35-06:00 Robert Hunt

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Recently the American Freedom Defense Initiative (http://freedomdefense.typepad.com/) led by the famous bikini blogger Pamela Geller, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHBEYgfW5kA) organized an “art contest” of caricatures of the prophet Muhammad. The ostensible reason was to defend free speech against its terrorist enemies in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shootings. The idea was to be provocative, drawing a violent response, and thus the organizers spent a fortune on security, according to reports having more than 40 officers on hand.

First – Holding an event that is intended to provoke a violent response puts the lives of police officers and security guards at risk. Not, notably, the event organizers. I know that these brave men and women will do their duty, but in this case they weren’t defending the constitutional right to free speech, they were only a citizen’s right to be stupidly offensive. (And indeed, arguably their actions constituted disorderly conduct under Texas law, see below.)

Because the constitutional right to freedom of speech isn’t the same as the right to be offensive. Let’s break that down.

First the Constitution, Amendment 1

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Note that what the constitution guarantees is that the Congress will not abridge the right of free speech. Several court decisions extended this guarantee to governments more generally. HOWEVER, this does not guarantee that everyone, always, everywhere has the right to free speech. Indeed, corporations, schools, businesses, and homes may legally abridge your right to free speech. It happens all the time. Come to my classroom and try to be offensive and I’ll show you how little free speech you have as the campus police escort you out. Or try tell a colleagues dirty joke in your corporate office and see how long it takes before you are charged with sexual harassment.

For this reason the only, only defense of the constitutional right to free speech is to exercise one’s freedom in defiance of government authority. If your speech is being protected by the government (in the form of 40 police officers) then you really aren’t defending your right to free speech.

So the AFDI should just stop that BS line right now. It only shows that they haven’t read their US constitution.

What they were really “defending” is a person’s supposed right to be offensive and obnoxious without fear of violent reprisals. Except of course they weren’t defending anything. They were being obnoxious and offensive and asking the police to defend them.

And let us ask whether we all have that right: that in a public venue we should be able to get in someone’s face and insult them, or their mom, or their god, or their prophet and expect them to just stand by and do nothing violent and hurtful. Has “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” become the only legal answer to offensive speech?

Well yes. Ours is a society in which self-restraint is a mandate. The law says we cannot repay words with violence. Just as it says we cannot steal other people’s property or defraud them. But would we valorize a homeowner who left her doors open and insisted the police stand guard 24/7 against thieves? For that matter, would we send the police to defend an individual who insisted on walking into country western bars and shouting “death to Tammy Wynette!” It happens that the police do have an obligation to protect people who are stupid from the illegal violent consequences of their stupidity. But being stupid, or offensive, just to prove that you have the right isn’t exactly heroic. Especially if it puts an officer’s life on the line.

The real extremists in Garland were the 200 people gathered to offend Muslims and wait for a violent response. (Press reports say they applauded when they heard that shots were fired.) They got the response. But it proved nothing. This wasn’t about free speech, it was about selling hatred as a therapy for anxiety and fear. A band of insignificant losers sought to offend people in the most obnoxious possible way and succeeded in getting a violent reaction from two equally insignificant losers. The group holding the event proved nothing about free speech, and the two shooters died defending nothing but their anger.

(a quick note from a friend – I’ll let readers check this concept out:

“In regard to the assertion of the AFDI that they were exercising their constitutional free speech rights, they may, in fact, not have any constitutional protection under the “fighting words” concept which denies constitutional protections to “insulting or ‘fighting words,’ those that by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace”.

It would appear that the group purposefully staged the “contest” in order to stir-up Muslims, and they were quite aware of the potential for trouble based on the number of off-duty policemen and private security guards that they hired.

To try to hide such purposeful conduct behind the constitution is shameful, to say the least, and the prosecutor in Garland should be seriously considering the possibility of prosecuting AFDI for negligent homocide or something similar.”

I’ll add, from http://www.mytexasdefenselawyer.com/texas-criminal-laws-penalties/disorderly-conduct/. “According to the Texas Penal Code, you can be charged with disorderly conduct if you do any of these in a public place:

1. Use “abusive, indecent, profane, or vulgar language,” of the kind likely to provoke a physical altercation. These are known legally as “fighting words.”

2. Make an obscene gesture that is likely to start a physical altercation.

3. Use chemicals to make a “noxious and unreasonable odor.”

4. Verbally abuse or threaten another person “in an obviously offensive manner.”

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