Define *Free Speech* if you can...
POSTED BY: pizmobeach
UPDATED: Friday, February 20, 2026 19:33
VIEWED: 5360
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Sig, good points. I think you address some important issues, such as childhood abuse and libel as it harms livelyhood, and we should keep those in mind.
I do think maybe you have a looser definition than I do of childhood abuse, I don't think yelling at your kids is necessarily abuse... I think sometimes kids don't listen if you don't raise your voice. I know I was like that.
And I also don't know if gossiping about your neighbor can be considered slander/libel.
I don't think we can make laws to prosecute people who yell at kids or gossip about their neighbors, either. I think there's a level of triviality that may need to be involved here. Otherwise particularly bitchy people can sue other people for minor offenses.
Also, unfortunate as it is, "swift-boating" a candidate has to be allowed because that gets into a commentary about whether or not a person or a group of people feel the candidate is a good political appointee. Swiftboat Veterans For Truth may have lied their asses off, but they wouldn't have done so if they didn't just plain not like John Kerry and didn't want him to be president.
A certain amount of toxin, even personal toxin, has to be expected and allowed when it's a discussion about real world issues IF it's can be construed as relevant to the discussion. In the sense of logic and fallacy, personal attacks aren't relevant, but in regards to the issues, they can be.
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A lot of what happens as a result of "free speech" winds up in civil court, where the motto is "no harm, no foul".
Gossiping about your neighbor (online or otherwise) is one thing, but what about if a potential employer is doing a background check, and you just cost this person a job? There has to be SOME standard on which to decide these cases.
And have you seen the movie "Precious"? That's what belittling your child day and night can do.
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I looked it up on wikipedia... Looks to me like the sexual abuse was the bigger issue there.
I guess maybe some people might be more sensitive to being belittled as children...
The thing is, it has an impact, I do know that, but I think a lot of it is inadvertent, things that come out when parents were arguing with you. Might even internalize some of it. Maybe most of it. But to prosecute them for that, to call it abuse when it wasn't on purpose, I don't like that.
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Gossiping about your neighbor (online or otherwise) is one thing, but what about if a potential employer is doing a background check, and you just cost this person a job? There has to be SOME standard on which to decide these cases.
If there's harm, then yes, although we have to be very careful about that. My brother, as he's been working with some law firms on internships, he's known people who have gotten fired for things they did over the weekend that got posted on facebook/mypage etc, stuff that was wild but not illegal. I think that beyond personal references given BY the interviewee, that employers have to be careful about invasion of privacy issues. If they're digging deep enough to uncover bitchy neighbor out to get even with annoying interviewee, well, that starts to blur the lines a bit.
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I don't think yelling at your kids is necessarily abuse...
What about when it comes at you day and night, from every single person in your family - father, mother, brothers, sister, etc.?
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Originally posted by SignyM:
There are many aspects to free speech. This is just what comes off the top of my head:
Content, context, access, harm, honesty.
Tackling the most important idea first, I think the primary limiter of free speech is the harm you might cause. That's why you can't falsely yell "fire" in a crowded theater, why you can't threaten people (in CA that's called assault), and why you can't falsely call someone a sexual predator. But what about constantly belittling your child, or "blowing up" in his/her presence many times a day? They're not old enough and independent enough to shrug and think "Sticks and stones..." What about publishing someone's name and address on the inet and calling him a baby-killer who deserves to be shot? What about running cigarette ads geared towards children, "swift-boating" a candidate, or claiming to have inside knowledge of a company's demise which causes their stock to plummet? Aren't you invading someone's privacy, or causing financial and personal harm?
IMHO it's clear that there are limits to "free speech". All we're doing here is figuring out what those limits should be. IMHO there is one type of free speech which must always be honored: Freedom to criticize or support institutions- government, schools, churches, businesses or the media. The REST of it? It needs to stand up to scrutiny on the basis of honesty. If you're belittliing your kid, or libeling your neighbor, or pitching some toxin it's personal or commercial but it's not free speech. (Kinda reminds me of what my folks use to say: High minds talk about ideas, smaller minds talk about things, and petty minds talk about people. But that's another story).
The other big concept is access. Sure, you may be free to spout your spiel on a streecorner... or in a free speech zone three miles from anything... but do YOU have access to people's living rooms every day? Because that access is power, pure and simple. Free speech is MEANINGLESS without free access. IMHO, if you (or anyone) has to PAY for access to the media, that content should be treated as advertising. And then, let's get those truth in adertising laws going.
And I see NOBC touched on those issues while I was typing!
I was about to address most of your same list but deleted my post - glad I did because you said it better. It is about drawing conclusions and distinctions as a group - we do limit free speech and we do punish for certain kinds of speech - so at least let's not hold "Free Speech!" up as some kind of absolute that can't be modified. We're already past that. The ideal is great - I believe in the ideal, but the pesky real world doesn't care.
You also touched on the internet and how it's opened up a whole new universe for slander/libel (yes, both). Spam? Some people would suggest it is free speech!
I like your suggestions for what should be protected.
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I don't know. To me, that still sounds like it's unintentional, and the family is largely unaware of how they pile on their black-sheep/scape goat.
I think abuse has to be intentional. However, this can be unintentionally traumatizing, which is something that should be addressed, but again, not something I think can be prosecuted.
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I think you guys are taking the whole concept of "free speech" waaaay beyond what it was intended by the FF. "Free speech" wasn't mean to imply that you can say anything that pops into your head under any circumstances. It's my understanding that the concept of "free speech" was that you couldn't be prosecuted by the government for criticizing the government. It doesn't apply to what you might say about your neighbor, OR about the company you work for- which will fire your *ss so fast you won't even know what happened if you should even breathe a hint of criticism about it.
MY definition of "free speech" goes farther than what the FF intended. If we could just get to THAT point, it would be great.
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It does not have to be yelling. You can tell children, everyday, that they are useless without yelling. There are plenty of parents who practice this.
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Traveler
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MY definition of "free speech" goes farther than what the FF intended. If we could just get to THAT point, it would be great.
I'm not sure it would, I think it'd just be more ways to prosecute people under a broken judicial system and also to force people to conform to a mainstream mentality.
But rest assured, I don't particularly like the founding fathers either.
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Originally posted by traveler:
It does not have to be yelling. You can tell children, everyday, that they are useless without yelling. There are plenty of parents who practice this.
And minus any specific cases I can look at as to whether just "belittling" a vulnerable child (or adult) can be abuse, I still am inclined to call it likely inadvertent for the most part. But I concede that damage is done that maybe does need to be addressed.
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