Posted on by Californiacontrarian

Free Speech

What is free speech? Does it depend on whether you are conservative or liberal? Even though “free speech” should be a simple concept, apparently to some it is not. A recent op-ed in the NY Times by K-Sue Park, lamented the fact that the ACLU had defended the right of the white supremacy group to organize its march in Charlottesville, Va. earlier in the month. The writer of the op-ed stated that the ACLU needs to “rethink free speech”, and stop standing up for people with offensive views.

Wow. That is really scary.

It means that free speech can only be truly free speech, if it does not offend. Does not offend who? As K-Sue Park is a fellow in critical race studies at UCLA law school (liberal university in liberal California) and her op-ed was printed in the NYT (an uber liberal newspaper), the implication is that free speech is only truly free speech if it does not offend the left. FYI, yes the ACLU (again far left) has “rethought” its position on free speech, and will no longer defend the right of certain groups to free speech.

 

In San Francisco on 8/26 a group called Patriot Prayer Group cancelled a rally and a speech because of safety concerns. Nancy Pelosi had called this group a white supremacist group even though it included black, Hispanic and transgender speakers. Again if you are liberal, you apparently have the right to limit free speech if the group speaking does not agree with you.

Interestingly a group of “anti-protestors” were at the site of the cancelled San Francisco speech and when one was asked why she was there, the twenty-seven year old Richmond high school teacher responded, “I really don’t have an opinion on what they are doing, but I thought that it was important to be out here against it”.

Double Wow! The really scary thing is that this snowflake is teaching in a high school – but then again, it’s a California high school! I am not exactly clear as to what the teacher said, but I do respect her right to say it!

So we are back again to the original question of “what is free speech?” Can speech be free speech if it offends someone? If the answer is “no”, how much does one need to be offended? Does it need to be very offensive to be curtailed?  Here the concept of “microaggression” comes into play. Here by “microaggression” people mean, “You might think that it is small, but it goes to the very core of my particular being, and so it is wrong and shouldn’t be allowed.” Who decides how offensive a “microaggression” is?

It appears to me that these questions have already been answered by the Supreme Court when they said that flag burning was okay as it was a demonstration of free speech, and also recently when the Supreme Court said that a name cannot be banned merely because it offends someone or some group (Supreme Court decision concerning the Asian group called the Slants).

In fairness, I think that the aforementioned high school teacher can be excused from not knowing about these Supreme Court decisions as she probably went to nearby U.C. Berkeley where the concept of free speech is an enigma.

 

 

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