One of my favorite quotes on this subject comes from Jim Hines, who said, "Freedom of speech doesn't protect you from the consequences of saying stupid shit." Everyone who's ever whined that their free speech was being curtailed because people responded by saying mean things about them needs to tattoo Jim's quote on their forearm or something, someplace where they can see it every day.
Tobias Buckell just linked to this great post by Ken White on Popehat, the legal blog. It's right on point and well worth reading. It starts like this:
Let's be clear — the right to free speech is the right to express oneself without state retaliation. It is not a right to speak without social retaliation. Speech has consequences. Among those consequences are condemnation, vituperation, scorn, ridicule, and pariah status. Those consequences represent other people exercising their free speech rights. That's a feature of the marketplace of ideas, not a bug.
Yet too many people seem to think that free speech includes not only a right to be free of consequences imposed by the state, but a right to be free of consequences imposed by other people. Therefore they attempt to portray criticism as a violation of their rights. This, of course, finds no support in the law, and is patently unsustainable as a philosophy besides — it nonsensically elevates the rights of the first person to talk over the rights of the second person to talk.
There's more; click through and check it out.
Angie
2 comments:
People seem to want a world where there are no consequences to them doing what they want. if we get that world we'll have nothing.
Charles -- exactly. They want all the restrictions to be on other people and none on themselves. :/
Angie
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