When is free speech no longer free?
At least when it incites the death or physical harm of other humans,
right? This photo is powerful because it demonstrates the moral divide
that separates the world's cultures right now. We must navigate this
gulf in fundamental opinions about basic human rights in order to
foster peace, or certainly we will perish. Free
speech and the exchange of ideas and feelings is critical to resolving
our differences, but along the way, shouldn't there still be limits to
what you can advocate publicly.
What is the
point of "free" speech, if you are not free from death for uttering
certain things. Should the _expression of some idea or opinion be
enough to warrant your death? Never, if the word "free" has any of its
basic meanings. The painful reality of free _expression in a
multi-cultural world with due process is that you loose the ability to
simply kill someone who insults your beliefs or mocks your lifestyle.
This
is also why these enlightened principles are critical to a democracy.
There is no right to kill another human (saving self-defense), and so
how does a democracy integrate a culture whose
religion grants such divine rights of killing your critics. How
can we resolve a God-given right to smite an enemy granted by one's
religion against the civil obligation to respect the bodily integrity
of all others?
Certinly the legal defense of
your own sacred tenets cannot extend to actually killing anyone for
simple speech or publication of critical or satirical comment on those
tennets, and so why is it ok to advocate it? Topics are not off limits
if speech is free, but the type of language and the actions urged by
such language should be off limits when inciting violent death,
shouldn't they?
These protestors in London use
signs readable by English-speakers, but if you read Arabic, you will
see these types of slogans and threats in most if not all Muslim
demonstrations. It will be a true test of Earth's democratic systems
for how we deal with our own integrated Muslim communities who endorse
and advocate this kind of violence against fellow citizens in public,
and an even bigger test of Muslim nation's self-rule whether they
encourage or sponsor such hate.
The covenant
between the people and of the people that forms the basis for our
shared community of citizens includes the right of free _expression,
but when one group's _expression threatens the existence or physical
safety of another group solely engaged in commentary on them, the
freedom of both parties must be balanced in favor of the greater good.
Most basic of the rights of being a citizen in
a free society is the right to bodily security, and there should be
consequences for violent speech that leads to actual violence. For
example, what is the moral responsibility or legal liability when a
Danish foreign service employee is killed in an alley by a mob in
response to these protests?
Free speech and
the attendant necessary limits to insure public safety make no
guarrantee to address one culture's ignorance or negligence towards
another culture, but it should protect our basic safety. If you can't
yell "Fire" in a crowded movie theatre, why can they call for the
bloody dismemberment of a cartoonist?
For this
very reason a multi-cultural democacy has a strong interest to foster
dialogue among citizens by at least limiting their ability to publicly
advocate violent action. By limiting anyone's ability to bully or
threaten another person, the law should foster more constructive
dialogue while insuring the basic bodily integrity of all voices in
that dialogue.
On both sides of this global
conflict, Democratic and Muslim communities must address the open,
public-rallying by one set of humans advocating the destruction or
death of another set of humans. What happens in this conflict as more
and more on each side give up and simply join the calls for the
complete destruction and death of the other side?
What happens indeed....
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