Face Off Friday: Freedom of Speech

Every American seems to favor the First Amendment right of free speech until it comes to people he or she disagrees with. When a conservative commentator says something a liberal finds offensive, the latter calls it "hate speech"; when a liberal says something a conservative objects to, it gets labeled "unpatriotic," even "treasonous." And in extreme cases, the law and the courts have found certain forms of speech at both ends to be actionable.

Is there a difference between the two? Or are they more the same than they are different? After David and Austin face off, you can have your say by leaving a comment.


DAVID LOFTUS:
Many conservatives don’t really value free speech rights because they don’t like having to hear certain things, whether they’re fundamentalists upset about sex and strong language on TV or so-called patriots who don’t like to hear about anti-war dissent, multiculturalism and other liberal values. But as soon as they want to insult and threaten people with whom they disagree, then it’s all about “freedom of speech.”

The difference I see is, the objectionable things liberals talk about -- evolution, sexuality, divergent points of view and spiritual belief, disagreement with American war policy -- do not normally involve criminal acts, but the things I hear conservatives say (for example, Glenn Beck’s “I’m thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I’m wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it,” or Michael Savage’s “I’d hang every lawyer who went down to Guantánamo to defend those murderers”; and remember former Congresswoman Michelle Bachman’s exhortation to a campaign-trail crowd to “get armed and dangerous”?) sometimes do.

Now, I don’t believe Tea Party fanatics who threaten and insult Obama are any real threat. They’re blusterers and mouth bullies. It’s hilarious that Austin Lee tries to make people like Limbaugh, Beck, or Sean Hannity out to be victims: these men made their reputations and maintain their audience numbers by behaving “mean, angry, and scary.” It’s also amusing that Lee equates being shouted down, lampooned, or made to look mean and scary with a loss of free speech; that’s nothing more than one expression of free speech battling another -- openly and freely. However, I fear the rising tide of verbal rage over Obama and health care reform may embolden individuals who were crazy to begin with and needed an excuse to pull an act of domestic terrorism, whether a random bombing or an attempt on the life of the President.

In a nice bit of ironic timing, yesterday Scott Roeder the man who killed physician George Tiller “so he could not dismember another innocent baby,” was sentenced to life in prison. Perhaps Mr. Lee can provide an example of where liberal ideology led someone to take another human being’s life. I’m as staunch an advocate of free speech as anyone; we can’t shut these loud-mouth bullies down. But there’s gotta be some way to out-shout, out-ridicule, or humiliate them so that one of two things happens: they choose to simmer down themselves, or people just stop listening to them.


AUSTIN LEE:
These are the exact same issue as far as I am concerned and the very reason that the freedom of speech was included in the Bill of Rights.  These men knew then what we still know to be true today: Opposing sides always want to shut down the competition.

Unfortunately it seems to me that after the McCarthyism of the 1950's the main opponent of free speech has been Liberals that shout down dissenting opinions from conservatives as closed minded or hate speech.  As soon as a conservative radio host voices an opinion that is contrary to their beliefs or world view they begin to lampoon this opinion no matter how widely held by the American people.

The problem is that Liberals control the main stream media.  So, while the issue is the same, the problem is more pronounced for the conservatives.  In the media they are made to look mean, angry, and scary, while the Liberals are made to look like the free speech victims.  Anytime that a conservative complains that his freedom of speech has been violated the media paints it as an over reaction.  When a Liberal voices the complaint the media makes the offense out to be the worst violation of civil rights since Jim Crow.

Until the media begins to treat ALL forms of free speech violations as harmful to our freedoms we will be in a perpetual state of unbalance and unfairness.