Common Sense: Who Decides What We’re Allowed to Say?

Defining Free Speech and Censorship
There has been a lot of recent attention on the topic of speech. At the end of the day, the argument is about who will decide and what guides those decisions.

The debate begins with defining free speech and censorship. Censorship is preventing the voice of someone from being heard in the first place. There already exist certain restrictions on speech. The Supreme Court long ago ruled you cannot call fire in a crowded theatre. You cannot incite a riot, but, as discussed later, even this comes with what might seem like caveats.

When tech giants, especially in the social media space, prevent your message from appearing on their platform in the name of preventing the spread of misinformation, disinformation, or hate speech, that is censorship.

Accountability Versus Censorship
What is not censorship is paying a consequence for exercising your right to speak. Blocking a message that dissents from a Presidential Administration’s position, at their request, is censorship. Firing someone for repeatedly using the N word is not censorship. The individual is free to continue with their horrible behavior. Allowing an employer to remove that person is not censorship. It is the roosters coming home to roost. It is the price you pay for crossing the line of decency as determined by that employer. That employer is simply exercising their rights.

What Determines Acceptable Speech?
What determines what is acceptable to say in a non-private situation? This Boomer, without hesitation, says the Constitution. History has proven more than once that we can tolerate speech with which we disagree within a Democratic Republic.

A Lesson from Skokie, Illinois
Back in the 1970s, the American Nazi Party was a little more in the news than is the case now. The group decided to stage a march in Skokie, Illinois. This was the home to the largest number of Jews who had survived German concentration camps. This was a little more than controversial, and efforts to stop the march were many and loud. However, the courts ruled that the American Nazi Party had a Constitutional right to conduct the march under their First Amendment rights to free speech and right to peacefully assemble. Even those who concurred on the issue of free speech found the right to assemble a tough pill to swallow. Essentially, the court ruled that unless it could be shown the Nazis were going to be violent and riot, others would have to grin and bear it.
What happened? Well, individuals deciding for themselves determined the Nazis to be despicable people who deserved only scorn and ridicule. No Department of Hate Speech was required. Americans exercising their individual freedoms widely condemned the group.

Justice Kennedy’s Reminder
Retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy recently discussed the topic of free speech. He highlighted that he was proud to have authored the Court’s majority opinion upholding the Constitutional right to burn the American flag. His principal point being the right to free speech, by definition, includes speech with which we disagree.

Burning an American flag might send a twinge down the legs of Progressives. At the same time, the rest of Americans are offended. Strictly as a political matter, it does nothing to help Progressives expand their appeal and much to restrict it. As a conservative, burning the flag angers me. That does not give me the right to prevent you from doing it.

Who Do You Trust?
We are back to the start. Who do you trust more—individuals deciding for themselves what they will and won’t accept or a third party (i.e., the government)? Each time there is a call to restrict speech due to it being misinformation, disinformation, or hateful, we answer the question.

A while back, Hillary Clinton lamented the First Amendment prevented the government from taking action to protect us natives from speech they deemed unacceptable. At the time, and now, my reaction to her complaint is to emphasize that preventing the government from restricting speech is the purpose of the First Amendment.

Deciding what constitutes misinformation, disinformation, or hate speech should be left to individual Americans. Otherwise, the decision is to concede the responsibility to the government. That is many things. Free speech is not one of them. Do you trust the American public, or don’t you? This is what the real fight is all about.

Common Sense
My bet is that Americans trust themselves more than a bunch of ideologically driven bureaucrats. This is for both having the speech heard in the first place and how it should be treated in the second place.