The issue of the ACLU and NAMBLA came up in another thread, so I'd like to re-examine the issue from another aspect.
Is Free Speech morally wrong?
Here in Britain we do not claim to have Free Speech, and we never claim we do. There are laws that can be enforced for saying the wrong things - for example, for incitement to do violence, or simply to hate.
You see, we have learned through experience that ideas such as the Final Solution are not pleasant, and their promotion is not to be tolerated, because ultimately they seek to discriminate against and cause harm to specific social/cultural groups of people.
Yet in the USA Free Speech has become it's own secular god. Everyone is allowed to express an opinion, no matter how worthless that opinion is, and no matter what harm is intended in that expressed opinion.
For example, the NAMBLA seeks to promote paedophile behaviour. Surely it should not be a matter of national recourse that such an association be allowed to promote such a view that is already clearly so morally repugnant and already legislated against with severe penalties?
Therefore has the issue of Free Speech not become a way of ensuring personal and social freedoms, as much as a tool for the malcontent, who would seek to use such a liberal system for the self-promotion of socially unacceptable views - often inciting harm, metal and physical, to others?
Surely a society that says that the KKK, NAMBLA, Neo-Nazi groups, and variously similarly concerned organisation are valid and worthy of expressing abhorrent views upon society?
The lesson of World War 2 wasn't that Hitler was an exceptional evil - he was merely the product of his cultural environment, not least the rampant anti-semitism that so plagued Bavaria and Austria in those days?
Surely this therefore means there's a moral lesson in accepting that certain views should not be expressed, because it allows them to breed and foster and merely await yet another social weakness so as to rise up again for a fuller expression?
Freedom of speech, as a literal principle, is therefore morally wrong, yes?
A starter for discussion.
Is Free Speech morally wrong?
Here in Britain we do not claim to have Free Speech, and we never claim we do. There are laws that can be enforced for saying the wrong things - for example, for incitement to do violence, or simply to hate.
You see, we have learned through experience that ideas such as the Final Solution are not pleasant, and their promotion is not to be tolerated, because ultimately they seek to discriminate against and cause harm to specific social/cultural groups of people.
Yet in the USA Free Speech has become it's own secular god. Everyone is allowed to express an opinion, no matter how worthless that opinion is, and no matter what harm is intended in that expressed opinion.
For example, the NAMBLA seeks to promote paedophile behaviour. Surely it should not be a matter of national recourse that such an association be allowed to promote such a view that is already clearly so morally repugnant and already legislated against with severe penalties?
Therefore has the issue of Free Speech not become a way of ensuring personal and social freedoms, as much as a tool for the malcontent, who would seek to use such a liberal system for the self-promotion of socially unacceptable views - often inciting harm, metal and physical, to others?
Surely a society that says that the KKK, NAMBLA, Neo-Nazi groups, and variously similarly concerned organisation are valid and worthy of expressing abhorrent views upon society?
The lesson of World War 2 wasn't that Hitler was an exceptional evil - he was merely the product of his cultural environment, not least the rampant anti-semitism that so plagued Bavaria and Austria in those days?
Surely this therefore means there's a moral lesson in accepting that certain views should not be expressed, because it allows them to breed and foster and merely await yet another social weakness so as to rise up again for a fuller expression?
Freedom of speech, as a literal principle, is therefore morally wrong, yes?
A starter for discussion.