[Fwd: THE TEARS OF THE MIGHTY]

[Dace]

From: Gordon Fitch
>Dace:
>> If speech means sharing your thoughts, then that's not really an action.
>> That's more like a mental activity that happens to involve more than one
>> mind.  It's only by accident that this communion entails some kind of
>> physical action, like producing soundwaves in the air or pixels on a
>> computer screen.  At the same time, if your words are intended to achieve
an
>> effect beyond merely changing someone's mind, then this is speech only in
>> the accidental sense that words happen to be the best tool for starting a
>> stampede in a crowded theatre, for instance, or conspiring to commit a
>> crime.  These are objectively harmful and not subject to protection.  So,
>> speech which serves only to express opinion is not really an action,
while
>> speech designed to achieve an objective effect is indeed an action and is
>> therefore not really speech.
>>
>> If we define the term this way, then the right to free speech is
absolute.
>
>Expression and communication, if they are at all successful,
>are actions in that they change the state of people's minds.
>This is recognized by the law of liberal states in
>justifying the forceful prohibition of libel, copyright
>violation, harassment, and certain kinds of fraud, whatever
>First Amendment may say.  In effect, the possibility of
>property damage is held to exist in those kinds of speech,
>and property damage supersedes free expression.  By the
>same reasoning, it seems logically consistent to say that a
>category of persons who are damaged by a slander against the
>category, and can prove it, could prevail against freedom of
>expression.  I don't think Black people in the United States,
>among others, would have much trouble in coming up with such
>a proof.  If you want to have absolute freedom of speech, I
>think you've got to throw out liberalism and its exceptions
>(essentially for bourgeois interests) and become an anarchist.
>
>
>Gordon
>
If by "speech" we mean people expressing their opinion, then the right to
free speech is absolute.  It is absolute only to the extent that speech is
severed from action.  You cannot be convicted of libel unless it's
demonstrated that you've intentionally spread false information to hurt
someone.  Trying to hurt someone is an action, not "speech" according to the
narrow definition.  True speech entails expressing what you believe to be
the truth.  In other words, if speaking what you perceive as truth hurts
someone, then that's their problem.  If speaking what you know to be false
hurts someone, that's your problem.  Copyright violation only applies when
you're trying to fool people into believing that someone else's speech is
your own.  To that extent it ceases to be an expression of belief and
becomes an action.  Same goes for harassment and fraud.  These are attempts
to achieve some kind of effect in the world beyond changing someone's mind.

Sam Pawlett asked how you would feel if someone tacked up a Nazi flyer on a
public bulletin board outside your office.  Well, if you're Jewish or Roma
or gay or leftist, then this action could certainly be interpreted as
harassment and is not protected.  This could also apply to the Nazi march in
Skokie, Illinois.  It wasn't really speech.  It was intimidation and should
not have been allowed.  Can one say the same thing about socialist speech?
Well, if socialist speech is "Kill capitalists," then it's not protected.
But if socialist speech means, "Let's make ownership of capital social
instead of personal," then this is speech in the narrow sense, and our right
to utter it is inviolable.  The distinction is between trying to change
people's minds versus trying to intimidate or incite violence or cause harm
to someone's reputation, etc.

While I still disagree with Charles that "talk causes action," sometimes
talk is not really just talk but a kind of action in itself and can be
prohibited when that action is harmful, such as intimidation.  Using words
for a purpose other than expression is profanity.  This is the only true
meaning of "profanity."  When the terms are defined correctly, "speech" is
protected, "profanity" is not.

Hitler makes no overt attempt to intimidate Jews in *Mein Kampf,* and
thererore this is protected.  But certainly the text can be used in a
deliberately intimidating way.  One could argue that *Mein Kampf* itself is
protected, but posting its more explosive excerpts in a public place is not
protected.

Back to Gordon: I take it that by "anarchism" you mean that human rights are
absolute, and property rights are null and void.  I don't agree with this.
We have the right to own the products of our labor.  This includes the
written word, hence the need for copyrights.  What about the right to rule
over other people?  Of course there's no such thing, but in this society,
it's considered natural that the capitalist class rules over the working
class.  If we define "anarchism" as meaning that no one has any natural
right to rule, then I am an anarchist.

Ted