As human beings, we are neither infallible nor all-knowing, and an opinion we despise may, in fact, be true.
Moreover, if an opinion is incorrect, it may contain even a slight portion of the truth that would have otherwise gone undiscovered had it not been protected.
Further, even if the opinion’s censors were 100 percent true, if their ideas were not permitted to be vigorously contested, we would not confidently believe or understand the idea, but simply agree to it as a prejudice — a belief we cannot provide an explanation for.
A few commentators, including fellow BG News columnists, have expressed worries regarding where the line is drawn between hate speech and protected speech. Admittedly, this is a tremendously difficult issue and isn’t one easily answered in a short column. Alas, I’m going to have a go at it; please bear with me.
In the Supreme Court case Terminiello v. City of Chicago in 1949, Justice Douglas said in his majority opinion that, “[Free Speech] best serves its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are or even stirs people to anger.” It is within this thought that I believe the true beauty of expression lies. It is necessary to challenge popular opinion, to be the lonely dissenter.
Another Supreme Court case often cited is Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire in 1942, where the Court defined “fighting words” as expressions that, by their very utterance, inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. The connotation usually paired with this sentiment is that words can cause psychological harm, as one columnist previously mentioned.
The definition of “fighting words” was later clarified to mean words that actually tend to provoke an immediate violent fight — the true connotation of “inflict injury.”
Since Chaplinsky, the Supreme Court hasn’t decided a single case in which it deemed speech to be sufficiently an instance of fighting words.
In my honest opinion, the fighting words doctrine demeans those affected by deeming them incapable of listening peacefully to upsetting words and ideas.
Another challenging idea presented is that of inciting violence — the common example being shouting, “Fire!” in a crowded theater. In Brandenburg v. Ohio in 1969 and later confirmed in Hess v. Indiana in 1973, the Supreme Court ruled that in order to qualify as punishable incitement, the speech must be “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” The key word here is “imminent.”
In the latter case, a Vietnam protester allegedly threatened that, “we’ll take the … street later.” The court ruled in favor of the protester stating that Hess’s “threat” amounted to nothing more than advocacy of illegal action at some indefinite future time.
In other words, the suggested illegal act wasn’t “imminent.” There’s a clear difference between rallying a mob in an attempt to commit illegal action now, and suggesting illegal action ought to be taken sometime in the future.
Now, the implications are interesting. The most recent example of expression-induced violence is the attack on US embassies with the alleged cause being an online, anti-Muslim film. The unlawful act, in this situation, is the violence and not the film.
Consider the alternative; we ought not allow ourselves to be bullied into silence. Tyranny, including anything from popular opinion to an oppressive regime, should be challenged and not feared. This is one of the reasons we claim to employ military forces, is it not?
Our soldiers are fighting for our freedoms and expression is certainly among the most important. If an aggressor attacks an individual for their opinion, law enforcement’s duty is to stop the true unlawful actor, the violent aggressor. This legal system exists to protect our freedoms, not allow others to curb them.
In conclusion, I agree wholeheartedly with the other columnists. We, having claim to these freedoms of expression, must accept a special responsibility to use them properly and maturely; to keep in mind and accept the consequences and to overall encourage an environment where we can all peacefully share in constructive discourse.
As always, the answer to poor speech is more speech.
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