Free speech

[ewx]

[Poll #1095097]

You can probably form your own list of views you hold to be odious but it ought to be fairly obvious which ones I'm thinking of.

Comments

[sidheag.livejournal.com]

I feel it depends on what kind of odious views - e.g., if the newspaper in question were expressing the view that violence against a group is justified I'd be quite happy to shut it down, whereas if they were advocating Parliament voting to make violence against said group legal, probably not. In practice, though, expressing the latter view would also encourage the former. So I may be even less in favour of free speech than my views make it appear. It's instructive also to think about how one feels if the odious view in question is "votes for women" or some such.

[sidheag.livejournal.com]

wrong perl the first time, but you know what I mean. Err...what's the easiest way to say what I mean? Maybe
s/my views/my votes/;

[simont]

Yep, I was going to say some of this too. Actual incitement to seriously illegal and harmful things (such as violence) is over the limit of odiousness tolerable on free-speech grounds, but incitement to vote for the legalisation of those things is something we just have to hope the majority of the general public doesn't fall for. Though we should carefully watch people doing the latter and pounce on anything that might be interpretable as the former.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, I can't think what you might be thinking of!

(Having an ex-president of a certain unnamed institution as my former brother-in-law, I'd love to know what he thinks about it.)

[nmg.livejournal.com]

One of the speakers (Irving) is an old boy of my secondary school. During my time there, he was invited to speak to the Historical Society for much the same reasons as the OU gave.

Nasty piece of work was my impression then, and it remains my opinion now.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

The oddest thing about the whole debate is that the views are apparently legal to have (in this country, at least). Given that, then in my opinion, the right tactic is not to use semi-legal methods to try to quash their right to free speech, but use debate to show that their views are odious.

The eternal liberal quandary: whether to tolerate intolerance.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

This is why, ironically, I'd be more supportive of the invitation to Griffin if he were coming to give a speech on "Why people should vote BNP" than a speech on free speech. That said, Union debaters - not as good as they think they are.

Irving, well, he's a charlatan, but a slippery one, his views are of no value, and while the BBC today allows someone to get away with calling him a 'historian and academic', I hope most people know he hasn't even got a degree (dropped out of Physics).

[simont]

The question of what happens if everyone with a suitable venue independently decides not to make it available is a difficult one, and puts me much in mind of George Orwell's problems getting Animal Farm published because all the potential publishers thought antagonising the Russians was Not On given that we were depending on them at the time to help us win WW2. In that case, however, (he claimed) the publishers had been influenced by persuasion from central government, which is a little more iffy.

So I think I'm inclined to say that if everyone with a suitable hall genuinely independently decides not to let you use it to express your views, then that's just your tough luck and you'll have to resort to other means of expressing yourself such as leaflet campaigns (or, I suppose, raising enough money to buy a hall so you don't have to hire one from someone else). But if the government has exerted any influence on all those hall owners' "independent" decisions, even if only by polite request, that might have just crossed the line.

In general, though, freedom of speech shouldn't imply freedom to speak via any particular channel; it only means that if all else fails you have the right to create your own channel and speak your piece there. Though there might be plausible exceptions when it comes to things like right of reply: if someone defames me in a specific newspaper then I ought to have some recourse which gives me a fighting chance of having my rebuttal (or their retraction) seen by the same set of readers who saw the original claims. But that should only apply when it's actual defamation, not if it's accurate and I don't happen to like it!

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

That seems to put your finger on the boundary. I would say, if they're colluding, even without government intervention, I find the thought uncomfortable. I really don't know if you could do anything about it or not. But it's like a monopoly aimed at one person.

And it also depends on the medium:

* everyone refusing to sell opinionated guy food is unacceptable
* no-one refusing to publish his book; maybe tragic, if it's good, but publishing a book is a financial risk, you can't force someone to think it's good
* denying advertising space in a newspaper, or a webpage... somewhere in the middle. They're not quite human rights, but you might reasonably expect them to be available.

[sunflowerinrain.livejournal.com]

Debating fora are one thing, but advertising space is quite different. A debate is supposed to be about two opposing points of view, and airing arguments, so fine - put up anything, as long as it is shown against the other view. Giving advertising space can be seen as condoning/supporting/endorsing whatever it is, and I don't think anyone or any group should be required or expected to give publicity to something they really don't agree with, especially if they risk thereby encouraging it. When I've been editor of a publication (small local stuff) I haven't been faced with the problem, but if anyone had offered money to put in an advert that I (or the readers) would have found objectionable I'd have turned it down.

Surely shopowners should sell whatever they like as long as it's legal, and not sell whatever they don't want to sell? I'd be most annoyed to be compelled to sell things which I didn't want to stock.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

OK, I guess I was thinking more of publishing a notice, where that might be appropriate, along with "having a web site, (or internet access)", "hiring (or licensing an outside venue) for a meeting", etc, or cases where it would be reasonable to have them.

if anyone had offered money to put in an advert that I (or the readers) would have found objectionable I'd have turned it down. [And shops selling things]

Right, in the vast majority of cases, I agree totally, you do, and should, have the right not to deal with someone simply because you don't want to. It's the free market working perfectly, and if it makes it difficult for them, that's because that's what most people want. And I tend to respect people who make use of it and DO stand up for their views.

The question is, if *everyone* does. It's still not *pleasant* to force someone to sell their service against their will, (assuming it's no extra hardship to them, they just don't want it to go to that person), but nor is it pleasant to completely deny the service to the person who wants it.

Examples about of people with views I find repugnant, but to decide where I wanted to draw the line, I considered views that *I* agreed with, but almost everyone else found repugnant. The obvious example would seem to be black-rights in america; afaik there was a long period where the laws were notionally egalitarian, but near-universal prejudice stopped black people doing all sorts of things. If all the shops in the town refuse to sell to a black person[1], they're in significant difficulty -- should the shopkeepers be forced to deal with them? In fact, afaik specific discrimination laws were passed saying they did, for a limited number of specific prejudices.

[1] OK, that's a prejudice against something arbitrary, rather than someone's views. I think it's equivalent, eg. consider someone supporting black rights, rather than someone who is black.

[gareth-rees.livejournal.com]

The poll baldly says, "shutting down a newspaper with odious views" but doesn't say whose newspaper this is or who is doing the shutting down.

Shutting down your own newspaper because it has odious views?

Buying a newspaper with odious views in order to shut it down?

Printers refusing to print newspaper with odious views?

Readers quitting buying newspaper in disgust at its odious views causing it to shut down?

Government making expression of odious views in newspapers illegal?

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of the where the government shuts down a newspaper against the wishes of its readers, staff and owners. Printers refusing to print is more like the hall hiring case and readers going elsewhere is like nobody turning up to the hall.

[armb.livejournal.com]

I assumed that. Also that in the hall hiring that the hall owners would be happy to take the money and we're talking about a third party stopping the transaction by force (rather than, say, offering more money to hire the hall themselves before any other contract was agreed).
Also I'd agree with sidheag and simont are right and direct incitement to violence does justify interference. Similarly if someone has announced their intention to use the hall for a speech which a court agrees will be libellous (at least if you aren't in the sort of state where any criticism of The Party is libellous).

[rmc28]

I think that individuals (and probably private organisations) may use their own criteria for refusing use of their privately-owned facilities, and so long as they are not actually breaking the law, that's ok, even if I personally disagree with their criteria and think they are being nasty in some way (e.g. male-only clubs, if privately run).

If the facilities are publically-owned or publically-supported, then this does not apply and the only restrictions on use should be legal and practical.

[emperor]

Also, if the hall-owner is an organisation of some sort, then it should consider whether the odious views are in conflict with its own stated policies.

[covertmusic.livejournal.com]

Of the ones I ticked, in my mind they're not all wrong in the same way.

Shutting down a newspaper or stopping someone hiring a hall is censorship, and nothing good lies at the end of that path. So those are moral wrongs, if you see what I mean. Giving fascists free publicity is just really, really stupid and self-defeating.

[mhoulden.livejournal.com]

The way to really wind them up would be let them express their views, but demand that they also publish the bits they'd prefer not to be as widely known, and not hidden behind euphemisms and obfuscation.

[baljemmett.livejournal.com]

Regarding "not publishing a letter expressing odious views in your newspaper" -- it depends on the circumstances, I think. Publishing a letter expressing an odious view in relation to an ongoing debate seems perfectly sensible in the interests of balance, and to silence such views means they could go entirely unchallenged or unrefuted which seems a bit wrong.

However, not publishing an unprovoked letter that's only setting out to cause a stink would seem to be perfectly acceptable -- e.g the editor of Modern Microprocessor Monthly would be entirely justified in ignoring the random letter asserting that "the 8088 is the be-all and end-all of computing, and anyone who disagrees should be strung up."

I think your closing note is an important point: yes, I'm sure we all know which ones you're thinking of, but equally I'm sure that there are people who'd find something to object most strenuously to in my views, or your views. Once we start preventing people expressing opinions about one subject, how long before we stop, to pick a completely random example, Chris Morris satirising the media's obsession with paedophiles?

[gerald_duck]

I think it's entirely reasonable to give people with odious views a fair hearing in a debating society and entirely objectionable for people to seek to prevent this happening.

On the other hand, I recognise that the debating society has a right to exclude the people with odious views if it so wishes, and I don't think it should be illegal to try and persuade them to exclude them.

So I don't think anyone involved in the current Oxonian controversy is doing anything that ought to be made illegal, but I think it's shameful that people are trying to exclude people with odious views from debate and Trevor Phillips no longer has my respect or confidence.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

[X] inviting someone with odious views to speak at your institution but then insulting him as you introduce him

[sunflowerinrain.livejournal.com]

every hall owner in the country independently deciding not to hire their halls to people with odious views

Hall owners don't all have the same opinions of what makes a view odious, so we'd probably still get the same mix as now. Some church halls *are* refused to certain groups - e.g. meditation classes and even yoga. I think if one asks to hire a church hall and the committee are horrified at what one wants to do with it, it's their right to refuse.

[gareth-rees.livejournal.com]

David Irving does not deserve a fair hearing. He's spent a career using his knowledge and scholarship in the service of nazism and racism. He has made the world a worse place by giving racists and Holocaust deniers a figleaf of respectability. He's long exhausted any reserves of charity that any reasonable person might have for him. The idea that we are supposed to listen to him or debate him fairly, after all he's done, is absurd.