Freedom of Speech: On the Whole, I Like It

This isn’t the America I grew up in. But human nature hasn’t changed, and freedom of expression still makes some of us uneasy. I’ll be talking about that; and sharing a little family history that relates to the America of my youth.

• A Son of Librarians
  • Information, Attitudes, Access, and Me
  • Free Speech, Social Media, and Perceptions
  • Prepublication Censorship, a Near Miss
  • Politics, Panic, and Principles
• Social Media: New Forum, Old Principles, and Being an American

A Son of Librarians

My parents were both librarians, which may help explain my fascination with books and information in general. I think it also factors into how I feel, when the folks in charge try “protecting” us from information they don’t like.

Or go hunting for people whose opinions aren’t approved by the powers that be.

My father was head librarian at what’s now Minnesota State University Moorhead when earnest Americans like Senator Joseph McCarthy were “protecting” us from commies, fellow-travelers, and scientists.

Years later, he — my father, that is, I haven’t talked with senators — told me that he’d thought about destroying the library’s check-out records, since they showed who had read which books.

Happily, commie-hunters didn’t come looking for students and faculty with “subversive” reading habits.

Information, Attitudes, Access, and Me

Then we got the 1960s, and a whole new set of weirdnesses. That’s ‘my’ decade, when I was a teen and not on the same page as either the staunch defenders of yesteryear or folks who were following Timothy Leary’s advice.

More than a half-century has passed since then. Some folks around my age grew up, had successful careers, and are now part of The Establishment — top-drawer folks who think they know what’s best for the rest of us. Or act as if they do, at any rate.¹

Me? I’ve been a sales clerk, flower delivery guy, researcher/writer, office clerk, computer operator, radio disk jockey, beet chopper, high school teacher; and finally advertising copywriter, graphic designer, and “computer guy” for a small publishing house.

My views have changed a bit over the decades.

But I still think folks should have access to information they can use. And I still think that expressing opinions is okay: even when they’re not sanctioned by the powers that be.

Free Speech, Social Media, and Perceptions

“If speech is intended to result in a crime, and there is a clear and present danger that it actually will result in a crime, the First Amendment does not protect the speaker from government action.”
(Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919), Primary Holding, Justia (justia.com/)) [emphasis mine]

“…Words which, ordinarily and in many places, would be within the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment, may become subject to prohibition when of such a nature and used in such circumstances as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils which Congress has a right to prevent. The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.…”
(Schenck v. United States. Baer v. United States. 439 Argued January 9,10,1919. Decided March 3, 1919. / p. 48. Library of Congress (loc.gov)) [emphasis mine]

Social media isn’t top of the charts in my news feed’s litany of dreadful dangers, malign menaces, and looming dooms. But it didn’t take me long to assemble a half dozen or so “social media” headlines.

I don’t know how many I’d have found, if I’d searched for “disinformation” articles.

Clarification time.

I think that “disinformation” — a potpourri, mishmash, whatever, of falsehood, truth, half-truth, and opinion, presented as unbiased reporting — really happens.

I strongly suspect that much “disinformation” is actually misinformation — alternatively-accurate information, and facts presented out of context.²

Misinformation, by that definition, is not deliberately deceptive. Folks reporting it don’t realize that ‘what everybody knows’ isn’t necessarily so.

From what’s in my news feed, I’m guessing that assorted politicos and do-gooders are at it again: and that this time they see social media as a threat.

Prepublication Censorship, a Near Miss

Fearing the Internet is not exactly new.

Maybe two decades back, I read that “net neutrality” would save the children and defend freedom. As presented, it sounded like the best thing since sliced bread.

Instead of rich folks and organizations having a louder online voice, Internet Service Providers would charge the same rates to everyone, no matter what content the customers put online. It sounded like a wonderful way of updating our rules about free speech.

Just one problem, and I’m relying on my memory here. I haven’t found recent documentation on a particular part of net neutrality that really got my attention.

All this talk about equal rates and free speech was well and good: but how could we save the children and defend freedom from Big Bad Bogeymen with naughty ideas?

The answer was simple: set up a government agency that would check content before allowing it online. That way, the American public wouldn’t be exposed to naughty ideas.

Since it was a government agency, it’d be completely unbiased, approving any and all content that was deemed proper for public perusal.

Nobody, certainly not folks pushing the idea, put it quite that way.

Attempted prepublication censorship didn’t surprise me. It’s an old idea.

What did get my attention was that the Christian Coalition and the Feminist Majority³ united in this effort to — presumably — save the children and defend freedom.

I think my country experienced a near miss when their “net neutrality” didn’t get traction.

Politics, Panic, and Principles

My country’s traditional election-year hysterics are in full cry.

I think the outcome matters. But I won’t echo either — any — side’s ardent assertions that [candidate A] will surely doom us all, while [candidate B] is above and beyond reproach. Or that you must vote for [candidate A], for otherwise [candidate B] will surely doom us all.

I suspect that politicos use wild claims and fearmongering because it’s easier to get votes when voters are too terrified to think.⁴ I’ve never been a fan of moral panic, I talked about that last month, and that’s another topic.

I was going somewhere with this. Let me think.

Reading habits and the Sixties.

Circumstances and censorship.

Politics and moral panic.

Right.

One reason I like living in America is that we can vote for a candidate: even if some judges disapprove of the person. I also like living in a country where we’ve got some respect for freedom of speech: and where rules about those freedoms are reviewed occasionally.

That said, I don’t think the way we run America’s government is the only right way.

There isn’t any one ‘correct’ form of government. Folks living in different cultures and eras have different needs, and that’s okay — If whatever system they use lets folks take an active part in public life, and the system follows natural law: ethical principles which apply in every time and place. (Catechism, 1915, 1957-1958)

Social Media: New Forum, Old Principles, and Being an American

Another reason I like being an American is that our government has (generally) maintained its respect for our freedoms.⁵

“Article the third — Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
(United States Bill of Rights (1791) via Wikisource)

That won’t keep folks — well-intentioned and otherwise — from panicking when others, who aren’t the right sort, express “subversive” ideas.

And sometimes I figure the “subversive” ideas really are aimed at undercutting the common good — possibly with good intentions, and that’s yet another topic.

I might want tighter controls over who gets to express opinions online. — If I believed in the infallibility of experts and the divine right of congress to decide what we may and may not see.

But I figure that experts, journalists, members of congress, and judges are human beings: which is both good news and bad news, and that’s several more topics.

For now, I’ll be glad that folks like me are still allowed to share what we think. Even if we are doing so in a medium that didn’t exist when I was young. Again, that’s a reason I like an American.

If all this sounds familiar, it should. I’ve talked about it before:

• “Independence Day, 2024: America and Context, a Short Ramble”
  (July 4, 2024)
• “Truth, Beauty, and the Evening News”
  (June 15, 2024)
• “Free to Agree With Me: Cancel Culture and Freedom of Expression”
  (November 18, 2023)
• “Doom, Gloom, and Dystopias: But Hope is an Option”
  (January 20, 2024)
• “Social Media, Security and Assumptions”
  (February 6, 2021)

¹ Those were the days, my friend; we thought they’d never end; then they did:

• Wikipedia
  • 1960s
  • Counterculture of the 1960s
  • The Establishment (term used in sociology and political science)
  • Hollywood blacklist
  • House Un-American Activities Committee
  • Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (alleged commie spies: tried, convicted, executed)
  • McCarthyism
  • Red Scare
  • Smith Act trials of Communist Party leaders (decision: actions may be prosecuted, beliefs are not prosecutable)
  • Subversive Activities Control Board
  • Timothy Leary (see Turn on, tune in, drop out)
  • Turn on, tune in, drop out
• “The Einstein file: J. Edgar Hoover’s secret war against the world’s most famous scientist”
  Fred Jerome (2002) via Internet Archive
• “The Scientist as Educator and Public Citizen: Linus Pauling and His Era”
  Video: “Science in the McCarthy Period: Training Ground for Scientists as Public Citizens”
  Lawrence Badash; Special Collections, OSU Libraries; Oregon State University (October 29-30, 2007) via Internet Archive Wayback Machine
• “American Science in an Age of Anxiety”
  “Scientists, Anticommunism, and the Cold War”
  Jessica Wang (1999) The University of North Carolina Press

² Times change; human nature, not so much:

• Wikipedia
  • Clear and present danger (1950 followup on the 1919 Schenck v. United States decision)
  • Disinformation
  • Misinformation
• SCHENCK v. UNITED STATES. BAER v. SAME.
  Supreme Court. Argued Jan. 9 and 10, 1919. Decided March 3, 1919. via Legal Information Institute, Cornell University

³ It seemed like such a good idea — or — very strange bedfellows:

“…misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows….”
(“The Tempest” , William Shakespeare (ca. 1610-1611) from 1863 Cambridge edition of Shakespeare, via Gutenberg.org)

• Wikipedia
  • Attempted net neutrality legislation in the United States (“This article needs to be updated….”)
  • Edmund Tylney (Master of Revels 1579-1610)
  • Internet censorship
  • Internet censorship and surveillance by country
  • Net neutrality
  • Net neutrality in the United States
  • Prior restraint (“The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject….”)
  • Master of the Revels (English official responsible for royal revels: and, from around 1580 to 1624, theatrical censorship)
• “Commentary / Net Neutrality: Telecom Policy and the Public Interest”
  Neil Barratt, Leslie Regan Shade, Concordia University. Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol 32 (2007) 295-305.
• Pre-publication censorship in Elizabethan England
  • “Marlowe’s ‘Dr. Faustus,’ Freedom, Censorship and Speculation” (September 10, 2022)
    • But Publishing May Require Permission [the Christian Coalition and Feminist Majority, united in a common cause: I am not making this up]

⁴ Clutch those pearls!!! — or not:

• Wikipedia
  • Fearmongering
  • Pearl-clutching (“This is an essay on the civility policy. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors….”)
  • Moral panic (it’s not always ‘those people over there’, my opinion)
• Paying attention, but not playing along; my take
  • “Truth, Beauty, and the Evening News” (June 15, 2024)
    • “Moral Panic” and Making Sense

⁵ The United States Constitution, a work in progress:

• Wikipedia
  • Constitution of the United States
• United States Constitution
  Guide to Law Online: U.S. Federal / Library of Congress Research Guides