Free speech is for the brave and the hated (and everyone else)
Last week, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg came under fire for saying he would not automatically censor Holocaust deniers from Facebook.
Mark Zuckerberg is not expressing sympathy with Holocaust deniers when he says he won’t automatically remove them from the Facebook news feed. His convoluted way of saying so may have missed the mark, but defending the right of people to post controversial or objectionable ideas on a free social media service should be a no-brainer. It’s a sad sign that anyone in America today should have to “walk back” any comment that defends the right of free expression.
Facebook has the right to censor content, as it’s a media platform that can operate by whatever standards it deems fit. And indeed it has censored content, putting dollars before principles and obediently obeyed repressive laws overseas in order to gain traction outside the U.S. It follows speech codes set by the Chinese government and governments in Europe that would never pass muster in the U.S. if they were applied by a government agency.
But the demands that Facebook censor content show the diminished respect for the concept of free speech and expression. Facebook enables users to block content they find objectionable and even block other users from their news feed if they are not to your liking. That people clamor for Facebook to go further and eliminate whole blocks of content simply because many people object flies in the face of what we Americans embrace as a concept of free expression.
Free speech is an end unto itself, it is a moral absolute. Freedom of expression is a basic human right that universal and inviolate. It is enshrined in the First Amendment of the U.S. Bill of Rights as well as the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 19).
Social media is not obligated to the same concepts of free expression that are guaranteed human rights. When you sign up for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or whatever comes next, you are agreeing to terms of conditions that enable the service provider to regulate how they wish. But our sense of fair play in allowing free expression in these realms is an important one.
Americans have rightfully embraced the saying that is often attributed to Voltaire (though it actually comes from biographer Evelyn Beatrice Hall who summarized his idea), “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
And to stand up for free speech is to undoubtedly join questionable company. You’re going to be standing up for Klansmen, pornographers, Holocaust deniers, pedophiles, and religious extremists. You will defend the rights of people who want to see you diminished, or maybe even dead. Sadly, the distinction of supporting someone’s right to say something as opposed to supporting what they say is being stripped away. Even long-standing organizations that have famously jumped to the defense of free speech—specifically the once-reliable A.C.L.U.—are now hedging and making exceptions in the toxic partisan atmosphere of our contemporary era.
Much of the speculation today surrounding the ascent of alternative right elements in our national politics is whether or not we are heading down the slippery slope to a fascist state. If the American far right is excelling in bringing us closer to fascism, its greatest victory so far has been in getting its opposition to embrace fascist elements wholesale while waving the flag of anti-fascist virtue. Every “punch a Nazi” post you see on social media, every embrace of the very concept of “hate speech” is a steep step down that terrible slippery slope.
Please remember: there is a reason that fascists are rightly reviled, it’s because they do things such as… restricting freedom of speech under the guise of protecting the populace from harmful ideas, advocating violence against those they disagree with, or claiming some higher moral right to speech than others. “That’s not free speech, that’s hate speech,” is among the most fascistic mantras in common use today.
Let’s all sides agree to let others have their say. You don’t have to listen or agree, but recognize that free speech is a human right that no one should be able to infringe. Defending the right of someone to express their ideas is not the equivalent of endorsing those ideas: teach that in schools and put up ads around town about it.
There can be no equivocation. There is no other speech but free speech. People have died for it in America and around the world. Don’t accept any substitutes.
Like it or not: Gun ownership is a civil right
A sickening act of terror outrages a nation and people demand strong action to prevent something like it from happen again. Not wanting to appear weak on fighting terrorism, the government proposes sweeping changes that infringe on our civil liberties. The new laws don’t really do much to prevent future attacks, but the government makes full use of the new laws and regulations, bringing charges against people for things that have nothing to do with terrorism.
We’ve seen this movie before and we know how it ends, and most of us agree we don’t like it.
The massacre of nine churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina last week in a racially motivated attack. No one disagrees that the shooter should not have been able to get his hands on a gun. This crime has prompted new calls for stricter gun control laws. This would be a mistake.
There is an almost-universal failure on the part of many of our country’s best educated minds to view the right of firearms ownership as a liberty somehow not on par with our other Constitutional guarantees.
Everyone is outraged when people in power tread on our right to free speech or our right to not be subjected to warrantless searches or cruel and unusual punishment. Yet somehow the right to bear arms is considered antiquated and irrelevant. Defending that right is somehow seditious or extreme.
Firearms ownership is a right guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, in the Second Amendment, coming right after the First Amendment’s guarantees of freedom of speech, of the press and religion. The amendment guaranteeing this right to the American people was placed second among a list of 10. That makes it important.
The argument against the Second Amendment today is that because the United States has a professional military and well-armed law enforcement agencies, that there is no need for ordinary people to have guns. Nothing could be a lazier reading of our Constitution or a more contemptuous view of one’s fellow citizens. Please keep in mind that there are about 80 million legal gun owners in the United States. If a fraction of them were homicidal maniacs, our streets would endlessly run with blood. And while the levels of gun homicides and suicides in the U.S. dwarf the rest of the civilized world, that’s no reason to infringe on the civil rights of our citizens.
Furthermore, exercising one’s rights has nothing to do with perceived need. Most eligible American’s don’t feel the need to vote, but no one would suggest we be stripped of that right or have those rights restricted.
While there is universal agreement that guns should not fall into the hands of criminals or the mentally ill, the laws that are already in place to prevent these dangerous people from obtaining firearms are often laxly enforced or have loopholes. In the recent Charleston shooting, the attacker was legally prohibited from obtaining a gun but took advantage of a loophole and took possession of one as a gift.
There are two central failures to the national issue of guns in the U.S. One is the failure of pro-gun advocates to realize that there is indeed a problem of too many of the wrong people obtaining guns.
But the more alarming problem is the refusal of gun-control advocates to acknowledge that firearms ownership is a fundamental civil right.
Matthew Sheahan 
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