 Hypocrisy and free speech, etc
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Oct. 9th, 2011 @ 08:18 am 
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This is one of the better comments on the Andrew-Bolt-is-a-racist-but-zomg-FREE-SPEECH thing I've seen yet, because in no small part it makes the point that the whole thing was not about free speech. And that freedom of speech is not an absolute, and shouldn't be, and no-one sane thinks it should be.
The question about "freedom of speech" is not about whether it should be limited - it should. The question is about where those limits are placed.
Note to Americans, before you reply to tell me about how I clearly favour Orwellian dictatorship or how America the Beautiful totally doesn't limit freedom of speech: Yes, it bloody does. To use the age-old example, your laws regarding freedom of speech do not give you freedom to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theatre. America's legal provisions limiting freedom of speech are woefully inadequate, but they're there.
(Man, those first two amendments to the U.S. Constitution are terrible. "So, we're going to have a country in which there's no legal way to limit hate speech or gun ownership? There is NO POSSIBLE WAY this could go wrong. I'm sure that it's just coincidence that approximately 16% of our heads of state get murdered in office, as of 9/10/11.")
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I'm not going to say that the US of A doesn't have problems--it very, very, very clearly does--but I will argue that the U.S. Constitution is actually a pretty awesome document, and that those two amendments can, in fact, be modified, in the same way that other amendments are ratified and then taken out again with other amendments (see the 18th Amendment and the 21st Amendment, one which started Prohibition and the other that rather smartly ended Prohibition).
The forefathers crafted the document based on the original status of the United States which still had to deal with a lot of wilderness and a rather loose union and the threat of powerful European countries who could turn around and wage war against them again if they wanted... hence the insurance to the right to bear arms, which at the time, made sense--they also made the document as a whole quite flexible to give the country room to grow. The US federal government could, in fact, produce an amendment to ban the usage of guns, but the amendment would have to be ratified by a certain number of states and the likelihood of that occurring isn't high. It's one of the issues that has been determined currently as being decided at the state level. And states can make it harder for people to acquire guns or even practice "Free Speech." Unfortunately, it just hasn't happened and with the current state of mind in the US it isn't likely to happen for awhile, as much as many of us would like it.
I don't expect anyone outside the US to be aware of US history, but please bear in mind that the Constitution was adopted in 1787. The US was a little different back then.
Also, I don't know which Americans you're so worried about, but despite how often you diss our country's politics I don't tend to see a whole lot of people getting onto your case about it here on DW--so the fact that you even include that jibe at us is puzzling.
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| From: | ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) sami |
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October 10th, 2011 12:53 am (UTC) |
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I'm quite aware of quite a lot of US history, actually. Probably more than most Americans, which is less of a jibe at Americans (although the making-nasty-comments-about-France thing many Americans do consistently pisses me off, because, seriously, if it weren't for France America wouldn't be a country) and more a product of my being a history major.
I wouldn't have said I "diss" your country's politics that much, unless you're arguing that the current state of the legislative branch of federal government in the USA is in any way not a hideous mess.
In which case we're going to have a disagreement going, but I rather think facts are on my side. And I would, in fact, argue that a form of government which is subject to this kind of legislative paralysis with no apparent constitutional recourse available is somewhat flawed.
And when American politics are threatening to throw the entire damn world into a new Depression, like that complete idiocy over the debt ceiling, it's not like the rest of us don't kind of have a reason to be interested in and critical of this crap - when the government of a country that has ten times your population, about a hundred times your military, and the economic doom of the world in its hands are collectively behaving like a bunch of two-year-olds, it's sort of problematic.
Especially since we have no say in this, no way to do anything about it, and Americans do. So talking about it is really the only option we have.
To return to the precise matter of the Constitution: Yes, those amendments happened centuries ago. They were in response to very different historical circumstances, but the point is that now is not then. The Second Amendment opens with the phrase, "A well-regulated militia..." and for some reason no-one ever seems to take that part into account.
The fact that, hey, those amendments totally could be changed doesn't change the fact that, unless they are, their results are actively damaging to the country, especially when, as you acknowledge, they aren't going to be. The 18th Amendment was still a bad, bad idea for the years it was in place, even though it totally *could have been changed*, and, as you note, was.
As for why I include that note: I haven't discussed the free speech thing in quite some time, but my past experience is that suggesting that free speech should not be held as an absolute, and that America takes it too far, tends to end in arguments with Americans, and I didn't want another one.
I agree that we're in a mess right now, and we've been in a mess for awhile. And no, the US isn't perfect, and I believe I said straight off the bat that we have problems.
I'll disagree with you about the Constitution, though, in how you used it in your initial post, which is what I took issue with.
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