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Jewish World Review
Sept. 24, 2012/ 8 Tishrei, 5773
A Good Way to Kill Free Speech
By
Bernard Goldberg
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
A recent op-ed in the Los Angeles Times attempts to make the case that the anti-Islam video that supposedly touched off violence on the Arab Street may not be the kind of speech protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Is the video free speech or is it incitement to violence? That's the question raised by Sarah Chayes, a resident associate at the Carneigie Endowment, a woman who went to Harvard, who joined the Peace Corps, who worked as a reporter at NPR and has appeared on TV with liberal icons like Bill Moyers and Rachel Maddow.
There are two things I find fascinating: train wrecks and liberals who argue against speech they don't like.
Ms. Chayes tells us that "U.S. 1st Amendment rights distinguish between speech that is simply offensive and speech deliberately tailored to put lives and property at immediate risk."
After all, she says, the Supreme Court long ago put limits on what we can and can't say. We can't yell fire in a crowded theater and get away with it, for example. The First Amendment doesn't protect that kind of speech. Oliver Wendell Holmes made that perfectly clear in his written opinion reflecting a unanimous Supreme Court decision.
From there, it's only a short hop to the "The Innocence of Muslims," the movie trailer that Ms. Chayes believes may not be protected by the First Amendment.
"Holmes' test that words are not protected if their nature and circumstances create a 'clear and present danger' of harm has since been tightened," she writes.
"The current standard for restricting speech or punishing it after it has in fact caused violence was laid out in the 1969 case Brandenburg vs. Ohio. Under the narrower guidelines, only speech that has the intent and the likelihood of inciting imminent violence or lawbreaking can be limited," she tells us before detailing how the movie trailer may very well have had both the intent and the likelihood of inciting imminent violence.
Her argument seems to suggest that there are times when extremists who riot and kill may get the final say on what is constitutionally protected free speech and what isn't. After all, if a bunch of radical Muslims thousands of miles away take offense to something any of us say here in America, and then proceed to burn buildings and set off bombs - and if we should have known that would be the result then we're the ones who've crossed the line. We're the ones who, in effect, yelled fire in a crowded theater.
Let's pursue that line of reasoning -- a word I use loosely -- and see where it takes us.
Does a Yankee fan have First Amendment rights of expression to wear a Derek Jeter jersey into enemy territory --- Fenway Park? Before you say, "Of course," let me remind you that anyone who's been following fan-on-fan violence (I just did a piece on the subject for HBO's Real Sports) would know that such a "provocation" might very well touch off imminent violence.
Do the producers of the soon-to-be released movie on the killing of Osama bin Laden have free speech rights under our constitution? If a crummy little video touched off riots in the Arab world imagine the havoc a multi-million dollar Hollywood movie might touch off. Bin Laden is a hero in much of the Muslim world. The movie will show American SEALs putting a bullet in his head. The filmmakers can say all they want that they had no "intent" to cause violence, but the rioters would disagree. And don't they get the last word?
And I'm afraid to imagine what would happen if a bunch of right-wing radicals rioted every time they read an infuriating left-wing editorial in the New York Times. After a while it would become clear to the Times' editorial writers that their work was likely to touch off imminent violence. And the rioters could argue that that was the Times' intent all along. So, no constitutional rights for the newspaper of recor d?
Ms. Chayes concludes her piece with this:
"The point here is not to excuse the terrible acts perpetrated by committed extremists and others around the world in reaction to the video, or to condone physical violence as a response to words any kind of words. The point is to emphasize that U.S. law makes a distinction between speech that is simply offensive and speech that is deliberately tailored to put lives and property at immediate risk."
This is intellectual drivel. She may argue that she's not excusing violence, but that's exactly what she's doing, by making a case that an American -- even a dopey one -- may not have First Amendment rights because of what a bunch of angry radicals might do. Their intolerance of views they don't like shouldn't make us intolerant of views we don't like.
Liberals used to be the ones who fought for free speech. That's when they really were liberal. Now we have a liberal journalist and scholar putting forth an intellectual argument that perhaps government should step in and stifle free speech. Not all speech of course. Just the kind correct-thinking liberals like Ms. Chayes detest.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment by clicking here.
JWR contributor Bernard Goldberg, the television news reporter and author of several bestselling books, among them, Bias, a New York Times number one bestseller about how the media distort the news. He is widely seen as one of the most original writers and thinkers in broadcast journalism. Mr. Goldberg covered stories all over the world for CBS News and has won 10 Emmy awards for excellence in journalism. He now reports for the widely acclaimed HBO broadcast Real Sports.
He is a graduate of Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey and a member of the school's Hall of Distinguished Alumni and proprietor of BernardGoldberg.com.
Previously:
• 08/30/12: Facts I Have Uncovered About the Real Mitt Romney
• 08/23/12: Hope and Change, R.I.P.s
• 08/16/12: Who's Smarter: Joe Biden or Yogi Berra?
• 08/13/12: His Silence Makes Him Complicit
• 08/07/12: Did You Know that Harry Reid Got Rich Pimping Out HOs?
• 08/02/12: Like Birds on a Telephone Wire
• 07/30/12: What Me Worry? YES!
• 07/26/27: The Mystery Continues --- A Tale of Two Polls
• 07/16/27: We've Set a Low Bar for 'Courage'
• 07/11/27: Will Class Warfare Work?
• 07/09/27: A Brave New World
• 07/02/27: Now the Fun Really Starts
• 06/19/27: You Can't Make This Stuff Up . . .
• 06/19/12: I Would Have Fired Him Before He Got Back to the Office
• 06/12/12: Time to Crush the Myth about Gender Pay Inequality
• 06/06/12: The Desperate Campaign of Barack Obama
• 06/01/12: Hey Fatso! Listen Up!
• 05/25/12: Going After the Stupid Vote
• 05/22/12: The X Factor(s)!
• 05/15/12: Obama Has a Halo; Newsweek Has No Shame
• 05/10/12: Authoritarians on Campus
• 05/08/12: Obama's Path to Victory: Divide and Conquer
• 05/01/12: President Cool Meets Reality
• 04/25/12: Why Media Bias Matters
• 04/17/12: NYT: At It Again
• 04/13/12: Kissing up to the Rev. Al
• 04/10/12: This Just In: War Breaks Out --- Thank You, Lord
• 04/03/12: In Cold Blood?
• 03/27/12: Trayvon Martin and Media Hypocrisy
• 03/26/12: Time to Go, Rick
• 03/22/12: Obama's Mantra: Don't Blame Me
• 03/19/12: The U.N. Human Rights Council --- and other Jokes
• 03/13/12: Bias in the News: Blame it on Their Zip Code
• 03/06/12: Thank Heaven for Rich People --- a Second Look
• 02/29/12: Some Free Advice for the Republican Field
• 02/28/12: Do We Have a Right to Lie?
• 02/16/12: Can Obama Win Re-Election by Promising Free Stuff?
• 02/06/12: The 5 Stages of Mitt
• 02/02/12: Florida Has Spoken; Cue the Fat Lady
• 01/30/12: The Other Global Warming Story
• 01/26/12: They See Racists Everywhere . . .
• 01/24/12: The Arrogant and Clueless Mainstream Media
• 01/23/12: Gingrich Wins SC --- Media Help Big Time
• 01/18/12: A New Entry for 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America
• 01/12/12: The Dream Ticket Could Be a Conservative Nightmare
• 01/11/12: Now 'Anybody But Romney' Has a Name
• 12/30/11: I Have a Confession to Make . . .
• 12/27/11: Know When to Hold 'em and Know When to Fold 'em
• 12/20/11: NBC News, the KKK and the State of Journalism
• 12/19/11: Mitt and Newt: Two Rich Guys Arguing Over Money
• 12/13/11: Donald Trump Is the Greatest; Just Ask Him
• 12/12/11: Rob Peter to Pay Paul: Bad Economics! Good Politics?
• 12/07/11: Yeah . . . and Fish Don't Know They're Wet, Either
• 12/06/11: Did the Media Play Fair with Herman Cain?
• 12/05/11: Obama to Blue-Collar America: Adios!
• 11/29/11: We Can Stop the Crazy Train Before It Gets to Greece
• 11/22/11: Who Can Beat Obama?
• 11/15/11: The Dumbest Media Question I've Ever Heard
• 11/09/11: What If Herman Cain Did It?
• 11/08/11: What If Herman Cain Were a Lib?
• 11/02/11: Who Can Beat Obama?
• 11/01/11: We're Approaching the Tipping Point
• 10/25/11: A Response to the Angry Purists
• 10/18/11: They're Waiting for Reagan to Hit the Campaign Trail
• 10/12/11: Read This!!! --- But Only If You Have Nothing Better To Do
• 10/04/11: Can Obama Win Re-Election?
• 09/27/11: It's NOT the Economy Stupid, It's Theology
• 09/20/11: Bad News on the Doorstep
• 09/09/11: Hypocrisy!
• 09/06/11: Back to the Future
• 08/24/11: Hillary vs. Obama in 2012? It'll Never Happen --- I Don't Think
• 08/22/11: Warning: Conservatives May Be Harmful to Your Mental Health
• 08/17/11: Warren Buffett, Coddled Billionaire
• 08/11/11: Too Much Balance in the Media?
• 08/04/11: All Aboard the Crazy Train
• 08/01/11: Liberal Hate Speech
• 07/25/11: With All Due Respect, Go Fly a Kite
• 07/20/11: Who Is A Natural Born Citizen?
• 07/18/11: Guess Who's Not Paying Their Fair Share
• 07/12/11: Against More Taxes? You May Be a Terrorist!
• 07/11/11: Casey Anthony: The TV Show
• 07/06/11: Standards and Double Standards at MSNBC
• 06/29/11: Is Jon Stewart A Racist?
• 06/21/11: Let's Play the Race Card --- Just for Fun Of Course
• 06/20/11: Sarah Palin and Weiner's Weiner
• 06/03/11: Memo to GOP: Turn Mr. Obama into Mr. Yesterday
• 05/20/11: I Get Letters From People Who Should Be Locked Up
• 05/09/11: Is Torture Ever Justified?
• 05/02/11: The Promiscuous Use of the R Word
• 04/19/11: The Man Behind the Million Dollar Smile
• 04/12/11: What's the Difference Between Libs in Politics and Libs in the Media?
• 04/08/11: An Idea Whose Time Has Come and Gone
• 03/28/11: The Pundits Are Driving Me Crazy --- And You Thought Qadaffi Is Nuts
• 03/14/11: No Liberal Bias at NPR Just Ask NPR
• 03/10/11: The media's frustration
• 03/01/11: Progressives Lost in Time . . .
• 02/23/11: The Lamestreams Strike Again --- This Time in Madison
• 02/03/11: You MUST Own a Gun --- Or Else!
• 01/20/11: It Was Horrible, I tell you … HORRIBLE!
• 01/11/11: Here We Go Again . . .
• 01/06/11: You Go, Oprah
• 12/28/10: A Year-Ender --- The MSM and Obama's Fall from Grace
• 12/14/10: Thank Heaven for Rich People
• 12/02/10: The Phony Nobility of Wikileaks
© 2011, Bernard Goldberg
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