A quick note on freedom of speech
I’ve seen a fair amount of discussion around this topic the last several days defending what occurred to Kathy as freedom of speech.
Although I would have thought her title made this clear, it seems perhaps not. I’ve also *already* received messages re: my earlier statement about hate speech. Just so people have it as a reference point, the Supreme Court had this to say in 2003 in the cross-burning case Virginia v. Black:
The protections the First Amendment affords speech and expressive conduct are not absolute. This Court has long recognized that the government may regulate certain categories of expression consistent with the Constitution. … For example, the First Amendment permits a State to ban “true threats,” … which encompass those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals. … The speaker need not actually intend to carry out the threat. Rather, a prohibition on true threats protects individuals from the fear of violence and the disruption that fear engenders, as well as from the possibility that the threatened violence will occur. … Intimidation in the constitutionally proscribable sense of the word is a type of true threat, where a speaker directs a threat to a person or group of persons with the intent of placing the victim in fear of bodily harm or death.
In other words, white supremacists have the right to burn crosses at their rallies. As repugnant as I find it, I understand and defend that right as the price of living in a free society.
On the other hand, white supremacists DO NOT have a right to burn crosses in front of my house. The purpose of intimidation, hate speech, and for that matter terrorism, is to LIMIT freedom. It’s for that very reason that it must be equally intolerable to a free society.
I agree with those who say we don’t need any more rules or regulation on blogging behavior - they’re right. What we do need is a little more respect for the rules we already have.