Free Speech - Or Not!

 OK, this is mostly last minute this time, since the meeting is tonight.  Sorry about that, but I've been distracted but trying to come up with a good topic for tonight's meeting.  I'll let you decide if this is a good one.

To find source material for tonight's meeting I pulled out my copy of Barnet and Bedeau's classic book, Current Issues and Enduring Questions, 4th Ed.  I see the current copies are 10th editions.  Lucky you.  Anyway, there is a section called "What are the bounds of free speech?" which includes excerpts from Plato, John Stuart Mill, the reversal of a Vietnam war protester's "disturbing the peace" conviction in California for wearing a jacket with the words "F*** The Draft" by the US Supreme Court, and 2 sections on pornography as a form of free speech.  I recommend reading all of them, but I will highlight a couple to get our discussion going.

Plato argues in "The Republic" that children not be taught stories about the gods that show their immoral or willfully evil natures, because this will form ideas in the minds of the children that immoral and nasty acts are OK.  The gods do them, right?  Rather, we should teach children stories of heroism, right actions and right relations, so they grow up knowing right from wrong and wanting to to do the right thing.  It is a form of censorship that intends to improve the children involved.  Plato specifically calls out poets and writers of plays who use stories or tales that glorify nastiness or treachery, torture and infidelity, etc..  The old tales, especially about the gods, where sons kill or castrate fathers, and more, are not good stories for children, especially.  People should not be free to talk about such things.  -  Maybe this is mild stuff in today's world, but I get the feeling that this was very important to the Greeks.

In the case of the protester's suit, the decision by John Marshall Harlan, speaking for the 6-3 majority in this case, reverse the earlier CA convictions on the grounds of the 1st amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

and 14th amendments (Section 1 shown):

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The court upheld the right of the defendant to peacefully display his jacket, inciting no disturbance or physical altercation, but only displaying his displeasure with the draft.  In fact, the court papers report that he did nothing aggressive, and was actually verbally silent during his arrest.  Granted this was in 1968, just as tensions were about to reach their peak, and he displayed his jacket in the San Francisco city courtrooms and hallways trying to provoke a response, which all played into the game he was playing.  

The last section on pornography and obscenity is a reasoned discussion between 2 perspectives that are not totally at odds.  Both respect the physical acts involved, with one stating that this is always the exploitation of the female participant (when present).  The arguments include the idea that this behavior is intended to shock the viewer, but concludes that public sex has been around for millennia, and in many ways it has lost the shock value it might have had.   The cure, they state, is when the viewer is bored and simply walks away.  It is also political, since pornography is a socially subversive activity that works to break down our social institutions and norms.  Calls for censorship come from many sides of the political spectrum, which touch on the idea of free speech and free acts.  

The second article quotes Chief Justice Warren Berger, when he said:

To equate the free and robust exchange of ideas and political debate with commercial exploitation of obscene material demeans the grand conception of the First Amendment and its high purposes in the historic struggle for freedom.  It is a misuse of the great guarantees of free speech and free press.

This came on the heels of calls for burning books like James Joyce's Ulysses, and works of Henry Miller, and many others.  The author goes on to describe pornography as inherently degrading to women, and is in no way "art" or "free speech".  She goes on to point out the many ways the justices on the Supreme Court have been conflicted and inconsistent in their interpretation of obscene materials, and their failure to adequately define what constitutes "hard core" and "patently offensive" obscene images, among others.

We have come through a recent season of political abandonment of facts and truth, in favor of imaginary facts and politically expedient statements.  Can these be justified as "free speech" or are lies in another category of obscene dialogue?

What would it take?

 I read a lot of science fiction literature.  Some of it is escapist drivel, but not much.  I prefer what is called "hard" science fiction, where the author takes pains to keep the developments and technology believable, with Einstein's laws mostly obeyed.  Faster than light travel might be quicker if you need your protagonists to get from star system to star system in less than double-digit year timeframes, but movement through space should have some sort of limit, am I right?

One of the series I enjoy involves the development of a communication system that is instantaneous throughout the galaxy, or seemingly so.  The story plays out over decades so the people can get far enough apart in space to make the story interesting, but the communications allow them to stay in touch in a sort of internet-like way.  What this means is that trouble in one place can be shared with everyone everywhere, in real time.  Ideas can be shared, with action taken by those close enough to do something about it.  Maybe it is helping a sentient species out of an environmental problem, or how to thwart the evil intentions of a diabolical race of devils.  The connectivity of everything makes it all work.

Which brings me to this week's BQ.  In our modern global world where things are connected by images, video, and words, where we can see what is happening essentially everywhere as never before, people are connected in the same way.  In the electronic world we live in, is shutting down an aggressor by denying them access to bank accounts, the commercial world of buying and selling things, including foodstuffs they make and buy, enough?  Can we shut down an aggressor to the extent that the people  will put a stop to the war?  Can a corrupt government be stopped through isolation of this kind?

Could a wall of economic isolation put up around a nation be enough to defeat it?

Could denial of internet, banking, economic sanctions, travel, and so forth be enough to convince a dictator to stop his expansionistic plans?