From Liberty-tree.ca, some quotes by Thomas Emerson, one of America's leading thinkers on the system of free speech protection that we enjoy, and are at pains to maintain.
Well, everyone is for freedom of speech, right? So what's the problem?
There are lots of problems. We regulate harmful conduct, so why not harmful speech?
Which speech is that, pray tell?
Flag-burning. What's wrong with that? If I want to burn an enemy's flag, I should be permitted to do that in America, right? Can't I express my views through fire?
Sure, have fun, but what about when someone wants to burn your glorious American flag? Do the same rule apply?
Oh, no, that's way different. That's my flag you're talking about. We can't burn this one.
How about burning old newspapers, can we burn them?
Sure, no problem. Burn all the scrap newsprint you want.
How about if there's a picture of the flag in one of them. A crime to burn?
Is flag-burning conduct or expression? Or both?
Can you suppress one without suppressing the other? How?
As you can see, there's a lot more to free speech than simple assertions.
We have to slice the baloney pretty thin sometimes, in order to enjoy the sandwich.
Somebody has to do the hard work of thinking this through. Emerson, who taught at Yale Law and argued Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), perhaps the leading liberty and privacy case of all time, was a hard worker in the First Amendment vineyard, to change the culinary metaphor a bit:
Thomas I. Emerson quotes:
1. The Right of all members of society to form their own beliefs and communicate them freely to others must be regarded as an essential principle of a democratically organized society.
2. The right to freedom of expression is justified first of all as the right of an individual purely in his capacity as an individual. It derives from the widely accepted premise of Western thought that the proper end of man is the realization of his character and potentialities as a human being.
3. The function of the censor is to censor. He has a professional interest in finding things to suppress.
4. It is frequently said that speech that is intentionally provocative and therefore invites physical retaliation can be punished or suppressed. Yet, plainly no such general proposition can be sustained. Quite the contrary…. The provocative nature of the communication does not make it any the less expression. Indeed, the whole theory of free expression contemplates that expression will in many circumstances be provocative and arouse hostility. The audience, just as the speaker, has an obligation to maintain physical restraint.
5. Suppression of expression conceals the real problems confronting a society and diverts public attention from the critical issues. It is likely to result in neglect of the grievances which are the actual basis of the unrest, and this prevent their correction.
6. Every man – in the development of his own personality – has the right to form his own beliefs and opinions. Hence, suppression of belief, opinion and expression is an affront to the dignity of man, a negation of man’s essential nature.
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