Free Speech: Left and Right

by: Jonathan Edwards

Most political issues of this nation are lodged somewhere between the opposing left and right stances on the topic. So is the definition of free speech in America like this, a compromise between liberals and conservatives? The First Amendment and all of its components, including speech, are considered essential to our democracy all across the political spectrum. Both sides definitely have a position about free speech. However, are the left and the right’s positions different? If they are the same, the more acceptable model of free speech is to have it between complete pluralism and the left/right position.

Pluralism is the laissez-faire version of free speech, thought, and expression. Everything is seen as a marketplace where competition of ideas will lead to, in a sort of Darwinian process, the best ideas and speech being prominent and mainstream even though archaic species of thought may still exist. Jonathan Rauch analogizes pluralism with a scientific community where all hypotheses are open to examination. Pluralism makes no limits on what can be brought to its "marketplace" even if it is threatening to the very existence of pluralism (Rauch 448).

Considering that the left wing and the right wing’s positions are the same goes against the grain, but examine them independently and the united stance of limited speech is apparent. There are three qualities common to each separate side. The first two are political "us versus them" divisions. The third quality is the one that binds them as one and the same. First, they both portray themselves as upright defenders of free speech. That goes without saying. Second, the other side wants to infringe on the First Amendment. Politically vilify the opposition. Third, speech is limited. Right and left are united, despite the purely cosmetic separation that each constructs for the sake of a two-party system, in the fact that both believe that speech should be limited to make a better society.

As aforementioned, each side maintains that it supports free speech. Liberals cite how all forms of expression are valid free speech. Non-verbal expressions are speech and should therefore be protected. Burn the flag; put a crucifix in a jar of urine. The left is completely for expressing beliefs in any form. The right is all about free speech since they are for expression of religion as speech. These claims are just the general stereotypes about each side’s take on how they endorse free speech. It is along the same line as an election ad stating very generally how the candidate is for a broad issue in vague terms. The second quality is another open generalization that is bound to be made when being persuasive about a topic; the alternative point of view is bad. Conservatives are book burners. Pinko liberals want to force political correctness on us all. The secular humanists in the Supreme Court have made decisions that take away our ability to express our religion (Bork 475). It is a false separation based on one-sided accusations.

Liberals and conservatives stand together in that censoring speech is acceptable. Between the two may be a few differences of how it is done, but the effect is the same. Some speech is to be eliminated because it is not good for public morality, or it is verbal violence (Rauch 453). Certain things can not be spoken to certain people. Liberals support words that could offend with a more Politically Correct form in the name of a more tolerant world. Some of the ridiculous examples of how to make one’s writing more sensitive are spelled out in PC dictionaries such as Fowler’s Modern English Usage and The Bias-Free Word Finder, a Dictionary of Nondiscriminatory Language (Kakutani 421). Liberals rationalize this by saying that it would make the world more inclusive, but like all censorship, it is to limit exposure of material that makes the censor uncomfortable. Conservatives wish to remove various books from school libraries that cover controversial topics ranging from Evolution to Non-Christian Religion. Altman versus Bedford Central School District was one such case were parents sponsored by Religious Right organizations sought to remove topics including drug education and Aztec and Hindu culture from the school’s curriculum (http://www.pfaw.org). The right also seeks to limit speech by privatizing such government institutions like the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts (Mendoza 155). All of this would allow corporations, which tend to be conservative as a whole, to determine what art works get funding (Mendoza 156). What the white-collar companies dislike or find objectionable would go without. These limitations, although different in their targets, occupy the same stance and are done for the same motive, suppressing what a particular group finds objectionable.

Free Speech in America then must lie somewhere in the continuum between complete limitation and pluralism. Mostly due to decisions of the Supreme Court, our country is pluralistic with carefully worded limitations woven in. To accommodate limitations, in what is pluralism in name only, is to remove the status of speech from some things. So there is complete freedom as long as it is determined to be speech. For example, the homoerotic artwork of Robert Mapplethorpe is allowed to be considered obscenity and is therefore no longer protected speech by Miller vs. California in 1973 (Greenburg & Page 561). Another legal bending to remove the label of speech occurs when the court has to make distinction involving hateful speech accompanied by hateful actions. This line is particularly blurred when it comes what expressions, symbolic speech, are to be considered actions or protected speech. Cross burning is speech; however, protesting abortion too near the clinic is an action that interferes with the operations of the clinic (Greenburg & Page 556). This hair-splitting of definitions seems to be a way the Court can make a ruling of a possible limitation in a reactive manner. The limitations are developed not before hand, but after an offense is made.

Free speech is undoubtedly an evolving topic. In the course of its history in this nation, it has gone progressively towards the side of pluralism. The first colonists in America sought religious freedom from the Church of England. However, they were just as intolerant to other religions as the established church was to them. This century was subject to McCarthyism and the persecution of political beliefs (Greenburg & Page 555). The shift towards pluralism is evidenced by the Supreme Courts decision in Falwell versus Hustler that gives all ideas and opinions equal weight (Dershowitz 459). The only ground rules of the present are the precedents made by earlier controversies. The disputatious speech of today may only be protected if it is first opposed. It is still as much a volatile and gray area as it was in any other time in history.

Works Cited

Atwan, Robert, Jon Roberts, eds. Left, Right, and Center. Boston: Bedford Books of St.

Martin’s Press, 1996.

Bork, Robert H., "What to do about the First Amendment." Atwan 472-85.

Dershowitz, Alan M., "Shouting ‘Fire.’" Atwan 456-60.

Greensburg, Edward S., Benjamin I. Page. The Struggle For Democracy. 3^rd ed.

New York: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc., 1997.

Kakutani, Michiko, "The Word Police." Atwan 420-24.

Mendoza, David C., "Culture Wars & Freedom of Expression." Eyes Right!. Ed. Chip

Berlet. Boston: South End Press, 1995.

People For The American Way. 28 Sept. 1998.

http://www.pfaw.org/court/index.shtml#education.

Rauch, Jonathan. "In Defense of Prejudice." Atwan 444-55.