DERFOR er amerikanerne os 'miles ahead'...
http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkxNCZmZ2JlbDdmN3ZxZWVFRXl5NzExNTA2OQ== -
dem der ikke kan vente til siden har ladet, læs videre her:
Free speech, caustic words, and a public pushed too far
Sunday, April 15, 2007
By RONALD J. RICCIO *)
THE FIRING of radio personality Don Imus was not the result of government
censorship or the force of law, but the voice of the people. In the
marketplace of ideas, Imus lost and decency won.
How does this coincide with the free speech clause of the First Amendment?
In the hierarchy of individual rights protected by our Constitution against
government abridgement, none ranks higher than freedom of speech. The free
speech clause protects all kinds of speakers against government sanction,
even when the speaker's speech is unpopular, creates dissatisfaction, stirs
people to anger, offends the listener, arouses animosity, or advocates
dangerous ideas.
Protection against government regulation is also given to a speaker's lewd
speech, profane words or vulgarity best suited for the gutter. Sometimes the
free speech clause will even protect racial, gender, sexual orientation,
religious or ethnic slurs against government efforts to prohibit or punish
the speaker.
Worthless speech
One may naturally wonder why our Constitution protects any speech that has
little or no value. Why shouldn't government be allowed to ban all worthless
speech?
There are two basic answers to this question.
First, free speech is an express constitutional right protected against
government abridgement. It is deeply rooted in our history, tradition and
culture. As a free people we attach enormous significance and jealously
guard our individual liberty and personal autonomy. An essential element of
individual liberty and personal autonomy is the freedom to speak one's mind.
We fought and won wars to protect our right to believe what we want and to
say what we believe.
Justice Brandeis described it this way:
"Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the state was
to make men free to develop their faculties. They believed that freedom to
think as you will and to speak as you think are indispensable to the
discovery and spread of political truth; that without free speech and
assembly, discussion would be futile; that with them, discussion ordinarily
affords adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine;
that the greater menace to freedom is an inert people."
Second, we believe that protecting speech against government encroachment
facilitates the search for truth in the marketplace of ideas. Justice Holmes
said: "The ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas."
Years later Justice Brennan observed that in the search for truth the free
speech clause will produce debate that is "uninhibited, robust and
wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic and sometimes
unpleasantly sharp attacks."
Constitutional refuge
It is in the context of a highly speech-protective body of American
constitutional law, which is broader than the European model of speech
protection, that Imus' worthless racist and sexist insult of the Rutgers
women's basketball team derives some constitutional refuge against
government sanction, although because of the medium he used - public radio -
some of his broad speech protection is diminished by FCC regulation.
The fact, however, that the free speech clause may protect Imus' insults, or
that of other shock-jocks like Howard Stern or the "Jersey Guys," or even
North Bergen's white supremacist radio talk show host Hal Turner, does not
mean the First Amendment has failed us or should be narrowed in scope. To
the contrary, the constitutional protection of Imus' insults and his
eventual firing by his employer provides a good case study of how the free
speech clause promotes free trade in ideas that can result in exposing and
then debunking false speech.
Imus will likely never be sanctioned by government for his speech, although
the FCC may have some authority under its decency regulation to penalize him
or his employer. Imus' most severe sanction, however, has not come from any
law but from a combination of the power of truth as embodied in the
dignified speech and grace under fire of the Rutgers women, and the
practical consequences that the public can inflict when it chooses on
profiteers of racist and sexist hate speech.
It has been the combined impact of truth and public consequences upon Imus'
speech, not any law, that resulted in his undoing. This is how the Free
Speech Clause is meant to work.
Public inertia
The larger question, I suggest, is not about the firing of Imus, nor whether
he is a good or a bad person. He's gone, at least until he re-invents
himself. He is merely one player on a larger stage of hate-spewing shock
jocks, hip-hoppers, comedians and others who enjoy public acceptance.
The crucial question is not what the free speech clause protects, but what
took an inert public such a long time to denounce the false views of
speakers who clutter our public airwaves with worthless hate rhetoric.
Why has it taken the public so long to come to the realization that
degrading, demeaning and dehumanizing others isn't clever, isn't funny and
isn't entertaining? What will happen to the pubic outcry against hate speech
now that Imus has been fired?
It is a fact of history that reliance on the marketplace of ideas, rather
than on laws, to separate true speech from false speech can be a very
dangerous and risky proposition. Sometimes it is successful, as it was here.
But sometimes it is not.
Strong free speech proponents, in the words of Justice Black, believe that
"the benefits derived from free expression" are far outweighed by the
dangers that flow from protecting the "unfettered communication of ideas."
History teaches, however, that when truth loses to lies in the free trade of
ideas, the consequences can be catastrophic. This happened in anti-semitic
Nazi Germany, the Rwandan genocide, the enactment of Jim Crow laws, and the
proliferation of hate groups in America.
But history also teaches the important lesson that false ideas can gain
public support in the marketplace only if an inert or ignorant people are
willing to accept, nurture and embrace the false ideas.
This can explain, in part, the phenomenon in which shock jocks, gangster
rappers, comics and other purveyors of demeaning ideas are currently
enjoying economic success and fame. The simple fact is that if people listen
to dehumanizing rhetoric and advertisers sponsor it, then the dehumanization
is not debunked but validated. Human dignity gets sacrificed on the altar of
hate.
Culture of tolerance
Imus wasn't the cause of this phenomenon, but the offspring of it. His
success and the success of others like him has flourished in a culture that
allows those who use the airwaves to degrade others, not only to profit
economically, but to be feted as some kind of media icons and/or
celebrities.
The Rutgers women, thankfully, did not accept or passively tolerate Imus'
dehumanizing speech. They did not allow his targeted insults directed at
them to go unanswered. They put a face on the victims of hate speech and
eloquently stated their rebuttal and described their hurt in the marketplace
of ideas, not by relying on any laws for help in their debate, but by
relying on themselves to become the voice of what has been an otherwise
indolent public.
The Rutgers women made their point abundantly clear - degrading and
dehumanizing speech is worthless and should stop.
They are, of course, undoubtedly correct about this. The lesson these young
women and their inestimable coach have taught by their example is that while
our Constitution may protect Imus' right to insult them, it doesn't prevent
them and others from answering back in a powerful social, political and
economic repudiation of the insult.
Their answer back ultimately resulted in Imus' losing his job, even though
he was one of the most influential personalities in radio.
In the free exchange of ideas between the Rutgers women and Imus, the
Rutgers women scored a decisive victory. It wasn't even a contest. Imus'
morally bankrupt message lost by forfeit in the marketplace and, in turn, he
was fired. But only time will tell whether the Rutgers women touched a
public nerve that awakened a permanent public condemnation of all hate
speech in all its forms.
We must wonder whether history will remember this episode as a mere
30-second intermission for a brief public message about the importance of
civility, respect and human dignity. Only we, the people, can prevent that
from happening.
At least for now, however, the public has decided that truth and decency
should prevail over insult and hate.
For that we owe a debt of gratitude to the women of Rutgers, champions both
on and off the court.
*) Ronald J. Riccio is the former dean of Seton Hall Law School, where he is
currently a professor of constitutional law. He is also counsel to the law
firm of McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter, LLP.
--
Even if leftists and jews don't like to hear it: No third-world immigration
to the western world! Many danes think the same, see e g
http://www.dendanskeforening.dk/index.asp?id=27 .
Third-world immigration to the west was organised by the jewish orientals
(third-worlders themselves), in order to make them less visible in the
growing ethnic chaos. Proof: research done by prof Kevin B MacDonald, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_B._MacDonald .
Don't surrender, keep on fighting !!!