February 22, 2006

On Free Speech

Philadelphia's chapter of CAIR had a panel this past weekend to discuss the offensive to Prophet cartoons and free speech. UPenn's paper, the Daily Pennsylvanian covered it.

    During their introductory speeches, several panelists denounced the cartoons as slanderous while discussing limitations on free speech.

    "People have every right to give an opinion on something," Rachel Lawton, executive director of the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations, said. "You cross the line when you threaten, intimidate or harass, and that is when free speech is limited."


The trouble is that when that line is defined by the threatened or the harrassed, freedom of speech itself is threatened. ... and that offends me.
    CAIR board member Mazhar Rishi agreed.

    "The right to free speech is not absolute," Rishi said. "It does not give a right to defame Prophet Muhammad or any other" religious figure.


See what I mean?

If I were a trouble maker, I could do down to Penn's campus, (it's perhaps a forty minute drive) and take an inventory of things I was offended by. Philadelphia has more artwork per capita than any other major city. Surely there is something around that I will be offended by.

Opponents of the death penalty often quote Gandhi, "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind," I would say that "muzzling offense leaves the whole world muzzled."

Philosophy Posted by AlexC at February 22, 2006 3:55 PM

And if I were a troublemaker (if?) I would point out that this sounds a lot like my point about "fighting words" back on March 9th of last year.

http://www.threesources.com/archives/001487.html

At the conclusion of a contentious and emotional comments debate I declared, "Force against another is only justified in self-defense... defense from FORCE (or a reasonable anticipation of it), not "epithets." To this we can now add, "... or defamation of religious figures."

My point then was that a free society must not condone acts of violence by individuals who are offended by the speech of others, no matter how universally offensive it is. Today we have a textbook example of why defending a "stupid white kid's" right to say nigger without being physically assaulted is important: Who then could say that such physical assaults are proper in response to unflattering cartoons about a muslim prophet?

Posted by: johngalt at February 23, 2006 3:57 AM

A moment of shame for my old hometown of Denver was when they buckled to threats of violence from Russell Means and shut down the Columbus Day parade.

I'm pretty lukewarm on the European explorer. Bully for him for pluck and vision and all that, but American exceptionalism is based on ideas and I would rather celebrate those who made this country (When is Hamilton Day?), not the (perhaps) first European to wash ashore.

Yet the Italians celebrated this day with parades and pride -- and were shut down with threats of violence from indigenous american groups. Shame.

Posted by: jk at February 23, 2006 11:39 AM | What do you think? [2]