I find there is a big undercurrent in freedom-of-speech defense of throwing up hands and saying, “We can’t tell the difference!” Like if that guy can’t run people over in his car, how can I be sure I’ll be allowed to make right turns? We need freedom to drive, don’t we? That analogy is intended to be outrageous, but when you get to some speech that I think is rightly outlawed in some European countries, like holocaust denial, I think there’s reason to consider how outrageous it even is. Is it impossible for speech itself to cause harm?
Here’s what I’m concerned about regarding defense of free speech:
Some people who get defended under free speech have a straight-line between their speech and harassment/attacks on marginalized groups and even specific individuals. A now disgraced free speech darling (disgraced because he said something his free speech defenders didn’t want to defend) would mention a name and next thing you know the person is receive death threats - there was a straight line from one to the other.
Free speech defense occurs when someone is wealthy, famous or otherwise privileged enough to have their case noticed. While trans people are beaten for their use of a particular pronoun, someone like Ann Coulter has the hordes come out to defend her if she says something ugly about trans people. Whose free speech is really in jeopardy? A person who has to hide who they are for fear of physical violence or a person who has more than a dozen published books? I see what looks like trickle-down human rights - somehow protecting the free speech of a person with a massive nationwide and even worldwide platform will end up protecting the rights of the “little guy” too. It doesn’t work that way.
Finally, I know free speech is defended as an important guard against tyranny, but I look at the real world and don’t see evidence that it accomplishes that. People are struggling against oppression all around the world, in places where they have a right to voice their opinion and in places where they can be jailed or disappeared for doing so. I think of the reunification of Germany, of the civil rights movement in the US, the fight against apartheid in South Africa, the struggle of Iranians against theocracy, and even violent campaigns like the troubles in Northern Ireland. Sometimes people fight for rights by legal means, sometimes by illegal means. Sometimes by peaceful means, sometimes by violent means. Sometimes change happens quickly (a few decades) sometimes it happens slowly (a few hundred years). I can’t see the actual evidence that freedom of speech has been a necessary or even important part of that change. It’s a nice-to-have for people who have already largely won struggles against oppression, not a must-have for people in them.
Tons of expression is already illegal in the US (just like everywhere else). Obviously direct incitements to violence are illegal. The majority seem to think that the right of a corporation to profit overrides free speech in the case of copyright. Somehow we have laws that say I can’t draw my own Mickey Mouse cartoon but I can draw my cartoon depicting Jews as baby eaters? We have to admit that’s a statement of our values - that one is more important to us than the other to us.
I’ve got nothing against genuine impassioned defense of free speech as a dearly held principle. It’s just that people are out there connecting the dots between the words “freedom of speech” and racism. I’m going to stick with “we shouldn’t vote for people who are going to make shitty laws” as a substantially better bulwark of freedom than a freedom of speech provision in a constitution. It turns out that oppressive leaders don’t follow the law anyway.
