Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey you, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, There's Jerry. The papers have
Speaker 1: been shuffled, their plumb and true. It's time for Stuff
Speaker 1: you Should Know the podcast. You know it's not plumb
Speaker 1: and true. My gut. Anything in my house I went to, Uh,
Speaker 1: all of my house had those gross, cheap, hollow gore
Speaker 1: doors you know. Oh yeah, you know they're not doors.
Speaker 1: I mean they function as doors. If there's air in
Speaker 1: your door, then it's not a door. So one by
Speaker 1: one I've been replacing them with wood, solid doors. And
Speaker 1: I went and did that for our bedroom, and man,
Speaker 1: oh man, was it frustrating. Oh hanging them because they
Speaker 1: didn't want to hang. It's the worst, like nothing straight, like, oh,
Speaker 1: that looks good, and then it goes to shutting like whack. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was straight, you know, a hundred years ago,
Speaker 1: you know, and then over time the house settled in
Speaker 1: and now it's it's doing its own thing. So I
Speaker 1: had to shave the door in so many places. It
Speaker 1: looks like a doctor seue store. Oh cool, you should
Speaker 1: plant one of those weird doctor Seue's palm trees in
Speaker 1: your yard. To really complete it, it's called marijuana. So
Speaker 1: I'm glad you just said marijuana, chuck, because you have
Speaker 1: every right to say the word marijuana in this country.
Speaker 1: It's a free country. You can say the name of
Speaker 1: a plant, you know, people, people do say and have
Speaker 1: long said, this is a free country. I can say
Speaker 1: whatever I want. And free speech is one of the
Speaker 1: basic hallmarks of what makes America free country. Freedom of speech. Um.
Speaker 1: But America is not the only country that enshrines a
Speaker 1: freedom of speech protection and it's charter. Yeah, there are
Speaker 1: varying degrees of it in many many countries. In some
Speaker 1: countries there's not very much. In other countries, there's a lot.
Speaker 1: In the US is arguably one of the leaders, although
Speaker 1: some people point to Europe's and we'll talk about those later.
Speaker 1: But some people point to Europe's free speech protections and say, there,
Speaker 1: those people know what they're doing. Um. In the US,
Speaker 1: if you look at free speech, you go to the
Speaker 1: Bill of Rights. Typically it's a great place to start,
Speaker 1: and you will find you will find in the First
Speaker 1: Amendment of the Constitution, which is the first part of
Speaker 1: the Bill of Rights. It says in there specifically that
Speaker 1: Congress will make no law right abridging the freedom of speech.
Speaker 1: It's as simple as that. It doesn't say unless speech
Speaker 1: says this, unless somebody says that, unless you really don't
Speaker 1: like the guy there is no. It's absolute. It's an
Speaker 1: absolute protection of freedom of speech. Yeah, and that goes on.
Speaker 1: I think, Uh, it's pertinent to mention abridging the freedom
Speaker 1: of speech or of the press, or the right of
Speaker 1: the people to peaceably to assemble founding Father JFK and
Speaker 1: to petition the government for a redress of grievances. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry that on those, Ted Kennedy, because we're all very important,
Speaker 1: you know, sure they are, Oh yeah, right to a symbol,
Speaker 1: it's a pretty important one. Well yeah, And because we
Speaker 1: had just left the country, uh one independence from Britain,
Speaker 1: who at the time was like no, no, no no, we
Speaker 1: we very much want to squash any dissenting opinions about
Speaker 1: the ground. Uh. And people are getting thrown in jail
Speaker 1: for that kind of stuff in the colonies. They were
Speaker 1: trying to quash a rebellion, and that's a pretty important
Speaker 1: part of it. If you're if you're a monarchy, an
Speaker 1: absolute monarchy that wants to keep the rebels in check.
Speaker 1: You just say you can't say certain things, and if
Speaker 1: you do, we're going to throw you in jail. It
Speaker 1: has a freezing effect. Yeah, or they're weird punishments, like
Speaker 1: when they said stick a sock in it. They went, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: and they went no, really, stick a sock in it
Speaker 1: by law for eight months and tape it, tape it shut.
Speaker 1: With my dirty sock in your mouth, my dirty sock,
Speaker 1: my wool sock from my wet boots. Um. Quickly though,
Speaker 1: I think we should point out that as we were
Speaker 1: going through this, like I realized you could have an
Speaker 1: entire podcast called the Ins and Outs of Free Speech. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like a series, a whole show. You have a whole
Speaker 1: show about it, not just an episode. So this is
Speaker 1: you know, this is an overview as we do that
Speaker 1: is going to pick and you know, talk about various
Speaker 1: court cases over the years, rulings and writings of judges,
Speaker 1: um That are pertinent. But man, it's deep and wide. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is, especially considering that again, when you go to
Speaker 1: the Bill of Rights, it just says Congress can't pass
Speaker 1: any laws that abridge the freedom of speech. They're like,
Speaker 1: why does he keep writing right there? And chuck. Not
Speaker 1: only though, was it this in retaliation reaction to um,
Speaker 1: the British monarchy. It was also a big part of
Speaker 1: Enlightenment thinking as well. The protection of freedom of speech
Speaker 1: was a huge aspect of the Enlightenment. And you know,
Speaker 1: obviously the United States was founded during the Enlightenment and
Speaker 1: in as part of the Enlightenment. It was an Enlightenment experiment, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like we don't want to restrict thought or expression. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, some might say that if if the
Speaker 1: Britain hadn't been so intent on squashing dissenting opinion, then
Speaker 1: we might not have been so Enlightenment aside, so uh,
Speaker 1: heck bent on ensuring those rights. So maybe it all
Speaker 1: worked out for the best. Yeah, I think so, And
Speaker 1: Britain came around. Right. You can still get a sock
Speaker 1: thrown in your mouth, can you? I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: it's on the book still. I just don't know if
Speaker 1: they do it anymore. This socks are much nicer now,
Speaker 1: that's right. They're a happy socks. So since you have
Speaker 1: this very broad um protection of freedom of speech, right,
Speaker 1: but then there's nothing more to be said about anybody
Speaker 1: can say anything they want. Not quite true. It isn't
Speaker 1: true because we have three branches of government here in
Speaker 1: the US. We do. Yeah, it turns out I thought
Speaker 1: that was just one. You got the executive branch, which
Speaker 1: is the one I think you're thinking. Uh. Then you
Speaker 1: have the legislative branch Congress, okay, which is actually separate.
Speaker 1: And then you have the third branch, the judicial branch. Yes,
Speaker 1: they are equal and important branch. And with um the
Speaker 1: congressional the legislative branch. They pass laws, people go out
Speaker 1: and break laws, People get convicted, people appeal their convictions,
Speaker 1: and in some cases those convictions and the laws are
Speaker 1: questionable enough or interesting enough that it will eventually make
Speaker 1: it to a high enough court that the court will
Speaker 1: rule on whether or not that law holds up to
Speaker 1: any constitutional standard. Over time, freedom of speech has been
Speaker 1: shaped and expanded and paired away, um by the courts
Speaker 1: here in the United States. Yeah. Like maybe more so
Speaker 1: than any other kind of segment of law, or maybe not.
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna just as as an complete um armchair attorney,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say that perhaps free speeches has been challenge
Speaker 1: more and whittled down and defined more than maybe any
Speaker 1: other aspect of law. Yeah, because one of the big
Speaker 1: things that the courts did with freedom of speech was
Speaker 1: to really expand the definition of speech. Yeah, it's not
Speaker 1: just words that come out of your mouth or even right. No,
Speaker 1: Like it can be a T shirt that says f
Speaker 1: the police, or could say um, um uh yeah, hug
Speaker 1: the police. Sure, somebody might find that offensive. Who knows,
Speaker 1: thank you for coming to my rescue this thing. It
Speaker 1: could be a billboard, it could be um, it could
Speaker 1: be a pamphlet you hand out, it could be an act,
Speaker 1: symbolic act, flag burning, that was a big one, remember
Speaker 1: that in the eighties. Absolutely or or refusing to say
Speaker 1: the pledge allegiance that was in the I think World
Speaker 1: War two, Yeah, which is actually now protected as because
Speaker 1: free speech can also mean the freedom to not speech. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because up until I think in the Supreme Court ruled
Speaker 1: on kids were being forced to say the pledge whether
Speaker 1: they wanted to or not. In the Supreme couiside, no,
Speaker 1: we think freedom of speech is really freedom of expression.
Speaker 1: And if you don't feel like saying the pledge, you're
Speaker 1: free to express yourself in that way. Yeah. And as
Speaker 1: you'll find Um. Throughout the show will kind of probably
Speaker 1: say this over and over. Freedom of speech doesn't have
Speaker 1: a lot to do with something you might find offensive
Speaker 1: or repugnant. Um. Generally, the US has sided on protecting
Speaker 1: that right regardless of whether or not you're offended or
Speaker 1: you think it's awful. And that's kind of what makes
Speaker 1: America great in a lot of ways, is you know what,
Speaker 1: who are we to decide what ud you know, to
Speaker 1: legislate morality essentially and what we'll get into all this
Speaker 1: with obscenity and all that stuff and pornography. But um,
Speaker 1: even when it comes to like, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: want to say the pledge because of this reason, the
Speaker 1: courts have said, you know what, that that you're right,
Speaker 1: this is America. We may not like it, but that
Speaker 1: you're right. Yeah. And the whole reason behind this too,
Speaker 1: it's it's easy to just take it for granted, especially
Speaker 1: if you were raised in the United States, that you
Speaker 1: have that right. Who cares what the basis of it is.
Speaker 1: You can say basically whatever you want, you know, Um,
Speaker 1: But when you really dig into why the founders sought
Speaker 1: to protect this and why it's been upheld and defended
Speaker 1: so much, over the years. Is because the idea is
Speaker 1: that if you are free to speak your mind without
Speaker 1: fear of being put in jail or killed or beaten
Speaker 1: by a mob, um, that you are going to introduce
Speaker 1: new ideas to the marketplace of ideas. And through this
Speaker 1: you're gonna have an exchange with other people, and a
Speaker 1: lot of times it's going to be contentious and it's
Speaker 1: going to be ugly, but over time things can evolve
Speaker 1: and get better and change for the better through this
Speaker 1: exchange of ideas. And to ensure that the engine of
Speaker 1: cultural evolution continues unabated, you have to have the free
Speaker 1: exchange of ideas. And to have the free exchange of ideas,
Speaker 1: you have to have protection of free speech. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: if not, you have the government being the one saying, well, no,
Speaker 1: here are all the ideas right exactly, and um, don't
Speaker 1: worry about having any of your own. Yeah, these are these,
Speaker 1: these are the ones. Yeah. And in a lot of cases,
Speaker 1: those things can come across as really great ideas. UM.
Speaker 1: Here in the US, up until the UH, I think
Speaker 1: the mid fifties or early sixties, there were laws on
Speaker 1: the books where it said you can't you can't speak
Speaker 1: ill of groups like you can't say anything about um,
Speaker 1: Jewish people or Muslim people or any group. You can't
Speaker 1: say these things. It's speech was not protected rights. It
Speaker 1: was called group libel. And that actually sounds pretty good
Speaker 1: in a lot of in a lot of senses, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we shouldn't be talking trash about entire groups of people,
Speaker 1: because it does it can lead to two problems. But
Speaker 1: that same prohibition on speech came to be exploited by
Speaker 1: white Southerners who were in power in the fifties, who said,
Speaker 1: Martin Luther King, he's trying to incite violent social change
Speaker 1: with his his radical ideas. Somebody needs to uh put
Speaker 1: a duct tape over that guy's mouth, stick a sock
Speaker 1: in it. He doesn't have the freedom to say this.
Speaker 1: And actually, our right to say hateful things about other
Speaker 1: people was a direct result in the United States of
Speaker 1: the Civil rights movement UM being protected by the courts
Speaker 1: against white Southerners who sought to UM to uh squash
Speaker 1: their their speech. So hate speech, yeah, is due in
Speaker 1: part in part to Dr Martin Luther King and and
Speaker 1: trying to advance civil rights. In a weird turn of events, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it really was. Uh. And in Europe, and we'll talk
Speaker 1: about this a little more. Um. Like you said, some
Speaker 1: people say they have nailed it. They don't protect hate speech,
Speaker 1: and you can't be uh, you can't deny the Holocaust publicly,
Speaker 1: and you can't um say, you know Jewish people, you
Speaker 1: know x y z or this group of people are
Speaker 1: like this. Um. Some people say that's you know, that's
Speaker 1: kind of right on the money. We have taken a
Speaker 1: different tech here in the US. Right in Europe does
Speaker 1: that because they have a pretty recent example of what
Speaker 1: can happen if you do have freedom of speech, and
Speaker 1: that totalitarian government can hijack that freedom of speech and
Speaker 1: use it as propaganda to incite hatred amongst an entire
Speaker 1: population um or even as as um this this one
Speaker 1: author put it to prepare them for extermination, just basically
Speaker 1: saying like, hey, everybody, get those guys. There are the
Speaker 1: reasons you don't have jobs. They're the rapists. They're the
Speaker 1: people who are who are going to kill you and
Speaker 1: steal your your family's wealth and well being. So get
Speaker 1: rid of them. Turn on them. And that's the whole
Speaker 1: point of saying, nobody can incite hatred through speech. In
Speaker 1: its these European democracies. Um, because the state has done
Speaker 1: it before. Yeah, and we all see what happened there. Um,
Speaker 1: should we take a break. I feel like that's a
Speaker 1: good intro, broad, all encompassing, passionate, all encompassingly. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: we'll come back here in a minute and get down
Speaker 1: to the nitty gritty of some of these court cases. Okay,
Speaker 1: sk alright, trend um. So if you want to go
Speaker 1: back a little bit to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Speaker 1: Son of one of the famous Justices the United States. Uh,
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, but very specifically because everyone
Speaker 1: has sort of heard the the old thing that, Um,
Speaker 1: you can't yell fire in a movie theater and say
Speaker 1: that's free speech, because that will in the case of
Speaker 1: in the nineteen nineteen case Shink the United States, UM,
Speaker 1: Charles Schenk was arrested for distributing material basically that said, hey, um,
Speaker 1: don't the the US draft military draft is bs um,
Speaker 1: don't do it. Fight against it. Uh. And they said,
Speaker 1: you know what, that's that's espionage actually, And that went
Speaker 1: all the way to Supreme Court, and they did not
Speaker 1: protect that right because, in the words of Oliver one
Speaker 1: to Holmes, they said, did the words create a clear
Speaker 1: and present danger that they will bring about substantive evils?
Speaker 1: Congress has a right to prevent and that sort of
Speaker 1: in line. And later on in the same ruling, is
Speaker 1: talking about yelling fire in a theater as an example, like,
Speaker 1: you know, you can't do that because I don't in
Speaker 1: sight panic if people get stomped. Right, And and in
Speaker 1: this case this kind of set the precedent for or
Speaker 1: the tone for all free speech cases to follow. Um
Speaker 1: is weighing the the individual right versus the public good
Speaker 1: or in this case, the individual right versus UM creating
Speaker 1: some problem or evil. As he put it, that Congress
Speaker 1: has a right and an interest to prevent a danger
Speaker 1: to the country, right. UM. In this case, really what
Speaker 1: they were saying was they were suppressing criticism of a
Speaker 1: government program, the Draft. Um. And then but Holmes was
Speaker 1: fine with that. But within a year I think he
Speaker 1: saw his UM his test, you know, does it present
Speaker 1: a clear and present danger being used in a way
Speaker 1: just to squaw dissent when a bunch of anarchists who
Speaker 1: were just generally advocating the overthrow of the government. Um,
Speaker 1: rather than need to do this on this date at
Speaker 1: this time, Um, they were used, they were convicted under
Speaker 1: the test that Homes created. So he took what was
Speaker 1: called the Great Dissent and actually dissented against his own
Speaker 1: former test and said, no, it has to present a
Speaker 1: clear and present danger, present meaning like it's about to
Speaker 1: happen or you know the time that it's going to happen,
Speaker 1: and it's a clear danger, like this is what's going
Speaker 1: to happen. Because this person said that, So that that
Speaker 1: ultimately became the format for um what we'll talk about
Speaker 1: in a little bit, which is inciting violence. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that's not to say that, um like the ruling there,
Speaker 1: like you said, was about a clear and present danger,
Speaker 1: not necessarily the fact that Charles Schenk was against the war,
Speaker 1: because we have a long history in this country of
Speaker 1: being able to uh be a wartime dissenter and talk
Speaker 1: about it and be protected. Um. During Vietnam War, there
Speaker 1: was a man who had he went to an l
Speaker 1: A courthouse and he had a jacket that said, you know,
Speaker 1: F the draft, but it was really spelled out, it's
Speaker 1: so ironic that we're censoring ourselves in this one. But
Speaker 1: uh F the draft and they um, as you will
Speaker 1: always almost always see here. These people are, like you said,
Speaker 1: usually arrested, convicted, and then that's when they're well, maybe hippies,
Speaker 1: you never know. And then that's when the courts take
Speaker 1: it up and potentially either protect or don't protect the speech.
Speaker 1: In this case, the court said, no, you're within your
Speaker 1: right because someone could see your jacket and then not
Speaker 1: look at it, right, And that's a good point. Like
Speaker 1: you you can just look away from the guy's jacket, right.
Speaker 1: You can also not take the pamphlet that the guy's
Speaker 1: handing you. You can also you can also not rent
Speaker 1: the movie that um that you find offensive. You can
Speaker 1: also turn the TV station. You can also turn the
Speaker 1: radio down. You can also not go to the website.
Speaker 1: You can turn our podcast off. To me, well, you shouldn't,
Speaker 1: so you could. To me, the alternative of not not
Speaker 1: receiving some speech that you find offensive like being able
Speaker 1: to get away from it. That to me is the
Speaker 1: ultimate test for for whether speech should be restricted or not.
Speaker 1: And since you can in virtually any situation get away
Speaker 1: from speech except maybe skywriting, we should probably really regulate
Speaker 1: sky riding pretty pretty toughly. You can look down at
Speaker 1: the ground, but I guess you could. Yeah, so as
Speaker 1: long as you can get away from it, or more
Speaker 1: to the point, shear shield your children from it. I
Speaker 1: don't think it should be. I don't see any reason
Speaker 1: for it to be um entailed for skywriting. You would
Speaker 1: have to argue in court that it is such a
Speaker 1: delight to children that they can't help but look like
Speaker 1: you would have to physically restrain them and put blinders
Speaker 1: on them, exactly, and that's unreasonable, your honor right. You
Speaker 1: write a curse word and then do a drawing a barney,
Speaker 1: and that would satisfy that is Barney still a thing?
Speaker 1: So I think barney will always be a thing. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Uh So. Over the years have been, like
Speaker 1: we said, a lot of court cases that have kind
Speaker 1: of whittled away and defined not whittled away, you know,
Speaker 1: because that molded shaped, molded and shaped. Uh So. Marvin
Speaker 1: Old Marv ran an adult book business, and he what
Speaker 1: he did was he sent out mailer's. He liked to
Speaker 1: send out a mailer right, and um these mailers would
Speaker 1: show up at houses where you know, something, my kid
Speaker 1: might read it, or someone easily offended might read it,
Speaker 1: or not so easily offended might read it. Uh. And
Speaker 1: there was a mom who uh this was her adult son. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a mom and her grown son who's the
Speaker 1: manager of I guess the family restaurant. And they childlike
Speaker 1: maybe he was his eyes were burning. Um, I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe his mom was just just treated him like a kid.
Speaker 1: Who knows. But they said, you know what, you know,
Speaker 1: this guy shouldn't be mailing these randomly to just whoever.
Speaker 1: We certainly don't want it, so we're gonna call and complaint.
Speaker 1: And Marvin Miller ended up getting arrested for um obscenity.
Speaker 1: And this is a huge This turned out to be
Speaker 1: a huge case. Yeah, and went all the way to
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, and um, yeah, it was. It was
Speaker 1: what you call a um, what do you call that? Landmark?
Speaker 1: Landmark watershed? Watershed. I couldn't think of it. I was like,
Speaker 1: we did a podcast on it recently. It's an Indigo
Speaker 1: Girls song. That's right. It was a watershed case. Miller v. California,
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna say V instead of versus. I think
Speaker 1: we've talked about that before, right, Um, it makes you
Speaker 1: sound more legal easy, yeah, and everyone likes being legal eazy. Uh.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy three. Like I said, the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: heard the case and they found that his speech did
Speaker 1: not qualify for for protection. Um. But here's the hitch.
Speaker 1: They didn't rule on the obscenity. They ruled that, hey,
Speaker 1: we're protecting kids, and you can't just mail this stuff
Speaker 1: to a house because kids live in houses, and so
Speaker 1: it was an appropriate content for children. Um. And what
Speaker 1: it did as well is is it specified a test
Speaker 1: for defining obscenity. Which, boy, over the years, this has
Speaker 1: been a really tough thing, and it seems like over
Speaker 1: the years of courts round me don't want any part
Speaker 1: of that. Now. If there's one thing too that as
Speaker 1: far as restricting free speech goes, that drives me up
Speaker 1: the wall, it's obscenity. The Court should not have anything
Speaker 1: to do with obscenity, and mostly they don't wanting on it. Right.
Speaker 1: There's this great quote from Hugo Black, who as of
Speaker 1: this podcast has become my favorite Supreme Court justice of
Speaker 1: all time. He said in Michigan versus State of New York, Um,
Speaker 1: I wish once more to express my this is my
Speaker 1: Hugo Black, By the way, I wish once more to
Speaker 1: ex pressed my objections to saddling this court with the
Speaker 1: irksome and an inevitably unpopular and unwholesome task of finally deciding,
Speaker 1: by a case by case, site by site personal judgment
Speaker 1: of the members of this court what pornography whatever that
Speaker 1: means is too hardcore for people to see or read. Yeah, basically,
Speaker 1: they were tired of sitting in court and looking at
Speaker 1: like pictures of bestiality at least, and ruling on this
Speaker 1: stuff like what about this one? What about this one?
Speaker 1: What about this? The thing is they were looking at
Speaker 1: like pulp pulp books, Like Michigan was a guy who
Speaker 1: had a publishing house of pulp books that showed like
Speaker 1: B D S. M or lesbianism or masturbation or whatever
Speaker 1: on the cover. He's like, this is this is actually
Speaker 1: pretty nice? Right, They're like, man, it's a perk of
Speaker 1: the job, but we shouldn't have to do it anyway.
Speaker 1: And so the idea that that um, the Court is
Speaker 1: ruling what is obscene is and what is not is
Speaker 1: it's legislating morality, clear and just clearly it's legislating morality.
Speaker 1: And I don't think the Court has any any right
Speaker 1: to that at all, but they have they have a
Speaker 1: long tradition of it, and over time they've actually come
Speaker 1: to protect pornography. Um, with the exception of child pornography,
Speaker 1: which you're not really gonna You're gonna be hard pressed
Speaker 1: to find anybody who argues for freedom of speech as
Speaker 1: far as child pornography goes. UM. And then obscenity, which
Speaker 1: is which came out of this, the three pronged tests
Speaker 1: to determine what's obscene came out of that Miller the
Speaker 1: California case, and it says this. It says that if
Speaker 1: the average person using contemporary community standards can look at
Speaker 1: something and says that this arouses the prurient interest, does
Speaker 1: it meaning sexy time? Yeah? Uh, that's that's the wronged one.
Speaker 1: And you have to satisfy all three of them. Is
Speaker 1: this patently offensive sexual content or patently either one? I
Speaker 1: say patently and I got that from Mr Burns. Oh well,
Speaker 1: I say, I say patently like Mr Burns does. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then the final one is a big one. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's whether the work, taken as a whole, lack serious literary, artistic,
Speaker 1: or potentially or political or scientific value. Right. That's that's subjective,
Speaker 1: extremely subjective, Like who who it literally says if it's artistic, right?
Speaker 1: Who who says what's art and what's not? Yeah, and
Speaker 1: very famously, uh Justice Potter Stewart the very very famous
Speaker 1: line when asking about obscenity or pornography said I know
Speaker 1: what when I see it? Right? But they they have
Speaker 1: long said like we we one of them said, we
Speaker 1: may be trying to define the indefinable. Yeah, it is indefinable.
Speaker 1: You ask a hundred people what pornography is and you'll
Speaker 1: get a hundred different answers. And so as a result,
Speaker 1: some courts have said, uh, yeah, this community, the jurors
Speaker 1: decided that this is obscene. So people go to jail
Speaker 1: for depicting sexual acts or something like that that some
Speaker 1: jurors in that town found um distasteful. And as America
Speaker 1: has has long had a very puritanical hang up with
Speaker 1: sex and nudity. H violence, bring it on, but yeah,
Speaker 1: nude bodies, shame, shame. I think that's probably my issue
Speaker 1: with it too, is we're super like, we'll expose kids
Speaker 1: to violence, extreme violence at a very young age. But sexuality, Hey,
Speaker 1: you wait until you're you wait until your parents are dead.
Speaker 1: You understand wonders for the therapy industry. Though. That's true,
Speaker 1: So hold on check there's one other thing, the other
Speaker 1: part that the other problem I have with the um
Speaker 1: defining obscenity is that there's no national standard. The courts
Speaker 1: even said it would be impossible to come up with
Speaker 1: a national standard. So if Miller had been tried in
Speaker 1: a community of swingers who are like into that stuff, um,
Speaker 1: he probably would have gotten off right. But because he
Speaker 1: was tried in a community that decided that no, this
Speaker 1: is this is obscene, it was deemed obscene, whereas in
Speaker 1: another community it may not have been deemed obscene. That's
Speaker 1: no test. Well yeah, and that that became a big
Speaker 1: deal at one point because they basically, um, the law
Speaker 1: said that community standards are like, you can't have a
Speaker 1: national standard because what what the someone thinks in Skoky,
Speaker 1: Illinois is not what in Sin City, Las Vegas. They
Speaker 1: have an entirely different definition of obscenity and pornography, you know,
Speaker 1: And they're right. Yeah, I guess they are right, which
Speaker 1: is which is why I you I to me, it's
Speaker 1: one or the other. Either get rid of anything that
Speaker 1: could possibly be considered obscene or you allow it all.
Speaker 1: So obscenity. It's obscene. It is. Well, we'll get more
Speaker 1: into a sinity too, But um, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of other facets of free speech that you might not
Speaker 1: really think about. In two thousand thirteen, that was a
Speaker 1: case Bland v. Roberts, where there were these two dudes,
Speaker 1: um that work for a sheriff department. You know, sheriff's
Speaker 1: are elected. They were running for office, and they were
Speaker 1: fired for commenting and liking um on an opponent's Facebook page,
Speaker 1: which you know, this gets into in the digital age
Speaker 1: and the Internet age, a whole different slew of questions
Speaker 1: to be answered, and they appealed that case and then
Speaker 1: in one actually yeah, Bland v. Roberts. As a result,
Speaker 1: Facebook likes are considered protective protected free speech under the
Speaker 1: First Amendment. Now yeah, but ibronic, well maybe not ironically,
Speaker 1: but Facebook and social media in general you can also
Speaker 1: I mean it's at their discretion whether or not they
Speaker 1: take something down, and you can't say, well, that's free speech,
Speaker 1: and it's like, no, this is our our private room.
Speaker 1: Essentially is our home. And inside a private home you
Speaker 1: can tell someone to shut up private home. Private companies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: social media platform like if you show up to work
Speaker 1: in h F the police shirt. They can fire you
Speaker 1: or tell you to change it. And if you say no, no, no,
Speaker 1: like this is my free speech, so go no, this
Speaker 1: is my business. This is not a free speech. So
Speaker 1: like like the mall, yeah, oh yeah, that's right, poor
Speaker 1: Victor Gruing Uh. And here's the thing too is and
Speaker 1: this isn't really section in our notes. But I get
Speaker 1: kind of a riffin here. I get kind of bugged
Speaker 1: these days with I think a lot of people have
Speaker 1: the notion that freedom of speech means also freedom from consequence,
Speaker 1: and those are two different things. Like freedom of speech
Speaker 1: means that you were not going to be well, you
Speaker 1: might even be arrested and convicted, but eventually it will
Speaker 1: be overturned. You'll be vindicated. But if a business or
Speaker 1: a comedian or a TV show does something that people
Speaker 1: find offensive or provocateur YouTube and someone wants to pick
Speaker 1: at them and shut them down or boycott them, and
Speaker 1: they cry free speech, it's like, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: you said that you got away with it. You're not
Speaker 1: in jail, doesn't mean it won't be consequences. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: the right to protest is enshrined in the same amendment
Speaker 1: free speech. But I think, yeah, I hear a lot.
Speaker 1: It seems like more and more of these days where people, um,
Speaker 1: people whine about the consequences of their own free speech
Speaker 1: and that's not enshrined in the Constitution. There there very
Speaker 1: likely will be consequences, right, people will hate you maybe,
Speaker 1: But it's like you said, though you know the the
Speaker 1: the it's there to protect the unpopular opinion. There's this guy,
Speaker 1: Um who's a an expert on free speech at Penn State.
Speaker 1: I believe um. He said, we have a first Amendment
Speaker 1: to protect unpopular expression or the minority viewpoint, because we
Speaker 1: don't need a constitution to protect the majority what the
Speaker 1: majority thinks. The majority takes care of itself. It's good point.
Speaker 1: It's the people who everybody else hates and what they
Speaker 1: have to say. Um, that is protected by the constitution. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And uh, Harvard law professor Noah Feldman, in a very
Speaker 1: Unharvard law like way, said, Uh, if your feelings are hurt,
Speaker 1: then that's your problem, snowflake. You didn't say Harvard like JFK.
Speaker 1: He didn't say snowflake. I was kidding, no, but he he.
Speaker 1: What he was pointing out was basically the sentiment behind
Speaker 1: free speech in the United States that as long as
Speaker 1: you are not physically harming somebody, you like, emotional harm
Speaker 1: is whatever. We're not even gonna it's not even gonna register. Well,
Speaker 1: although that one article you sent that op ed there
Speaker 1: there was the guy that argued that emotional harm was
Speaker 1: worse than physical harm and had a longer lasting impact. Um,
Speaker 1: So you know there are two sides to every argument there. Well,
Speaker 1: that's one of the reasons why Europe has said no
Speaker 1: hate speech. It's harmful. Yeah, yeah, Like even if it
Speaker 1: isn't physically harmful, it's emotionally it's an intellectually harmful. It's
Speaker 1: it's not good. All right, So we've dabbled in an obscenity. Uh,
Speaker 1: one of the other and we'll talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more about it. But one of the other things that um,
Speaker 1: you can you can have insulting speech, but that there's
Speaker 1: something called fighting words, um that is not protected and
Speaker 1: it's can be difficult to determine. And again over the
Speaker 1: years the courts have tried to do so. But in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine that was kind of a landmark case
Speaker 1: Brandenburg v. Ohio, where Clarence Brandenburg was at a clan
Speaker 1: rally in Ohio and said, we are we're not a
Speaker 1: revengeent organization. But if our president, our Congress, our Supreme
Speaker 1: Court continues to suppress the white Caucasian race, please, it's
Speaker 1: possible that there might have to be some revengeance taken.
Speaker 1: So they should have jailed him for grammar. Revengeance is,
Speaker 1: of course not a real word. Make neither us revenge it.
Speaker 1: Although I think it's in a video game now. Someone said, yeah, uh,
Speaker 1: revengeance too, don't. I don't think it's called that. Revengeance
Speaker 1: two or parentheses? S I C. Right? What does that
Speaker 1: stand for? Again? Uh? Sick? I can't remember, Like that's
Speaker 1: so sick. They got it wrong, right, I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't know how. Yeah, somebody will send it in, people
Speaker 1: who tend to write it after the stuff we right,
Speaker 1: we don't usually use it ourselves. Yeah, it's funny, though,
Speaker 1: I have this thing, you know, just the weird quirky
Speaker 1: things that everyone sort of does in their head in life.
Speaker 1: Whenever I see s I C. Written in an article,
Speaker 1: I always try and think of what word either they
Speaker 1: got wrong or were replacing in the article, you know,
Speaker 1: to make make more sense. Well, no, they use it too,
Speaker 1: because well, if it's a misspelling, or if it's not
Speaker 1: a word, it's basically the writer or the editor saying,
Speaker 1: this guy got it wrong, not me, yeah yeah, but
Speaker 1: or am I thinking of a different was it? What
Speaker 1: is it? When they um, that's just when they put
Speaker 1: it in brackets and they put like there or something
Speaker 1: like oh okay. The person lets it out sick also
Speaker 1: goes in brackets, but it's basically saying I'm aware that
Speaker 1: this is misspelled, to show what a dummy this guy is.
Speaker 1: I think I do it in both cases, like if
Speaker 1: it's a made up word, I'll try and think of
Speaker 1: what like they meant, or like the other one where
Speaker 1: there's just a parentheses and they just basically add something
Speaker 1: to make it more sense, I try and think of,
Speaker 1: like what did they say to begin with? It's a
Speaker 1: weird thing. No, I know what I mean in my
Speaker 1: head right now I have for your eyes only you're
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what I'm thinking. The brains brain
Speaker 1: does some terrible stuff. I have that in my head
Speaker 1: now too, because you came in singing it for your
Speaker 1: Why do you It doesn't make any sense? It doesn't.
Speaker 1: I haven't heard the song in decades, a week long
Speaker 1: ear worm from a song you haven't heard in decades?
Speaker 1: Was it in a dream? I don't think so. You're
Speaker 1: dreaming about she and Easton Again. That's a good movie though, Uh,
Speaker 1: that's the Connery one on it? No, No, that was
Speaker 1: Roger Moore. Are you sure? Yeah? Sure, I'm thinking was
Speaker 1: Sean Connery's last one? Yeah? All right? Maybe right here
Speaker 1: go to the map for that one. All right, um,
Speaker 1: all right, Getting back to Brandenburg, the the clan member
Speaker 1: who who didn't know how to talk right, Um, he
Speaker 1: didn't talk good. He was arrested for advocating violence, and
Speaker 1: he won. Supreme Court decided in his favor, and thus
Speaker 1: began the history, the long history of the United States, saying,
Speaker 1: you know what, the clan wants to have a rally
Speaker 1: out in the public town square and they apply for
Speaker 1: their permit, you gotta let him do it. But again
Speaker 1: that actually that the clans hate speech being protected was
Speaker 1: lumped together and came out of the civil rights movements
Speaker 1: freedom of speech being protected as well. Yeah, because they
Speaker 1: were like, well, hey man, stokely Carmichael says that you know,
Speaker 1: we gotta like take take the take control from the
Speaker 1: whiteis rise up and take control. Like that's hate speech
Speaker 1: and the supreme courses, you know what, you're right, and
Speaker 1: that's protected. So so it is what the clan saying
Speaker 1: or Illinois Nazis and Skokie second time Skokies made an
Speaker 1: appearance in this episode. Yeah, why not a third um
Speaker 1: the usual suspects. So yeah, anyway, I think what you're
Speaker 1: you're saying is as a result, hate speech is has
Speaker 1: a decades long tradition of being protected at any and
Speaker 1: all costs unless you are using it to incite violence.
Speaker 1: And that ties in to that um original prohibition on
Speaker 1: free speech that Oliver Wendell Holmes came up with, is
Speaker 1: that it presents a clear and present danger. So rather
Speaker 1: than using that specifically to incite violence, you basically have
Speaker 1: to be saying it's not enough to um to say, uh, like,
Speaker 1: we black people need to rise up and take control
Speaker 1: of the United States, and if it has to be violent,
Speaker 1: it has to be violent. But we can't live like
Speaker 1: this anymore. Right If if Stokely Carmichael saying something like that,
Speaker 1: or Malcolm X is saying something like that, that is
Speaker 1: protected speech even though it makes a lot of people,
Speaker 1: or it made a lot of people uneasy to hear
Speaker 1: that kind of thing, and they said, hey, they're trying
Speaker 1: to start a race war. It's still protected speech. On
Speaker 1: the other hand, if you said, or stokely Carmichael said
Speaker 1: everybody needs to go get the shotguns and we're all
Speaker 1: gonna be here on Tuesday and we're gonna take the
Speaker 1: streets Tuesday afternoon, that would not be protected because he
Speaker 1: would be directly inciting violence. Yeah, what what are the
Speaker 1: two things that likely? And it has to the advocacy
Speaker 1: for violence has to be um directed to inciting or
Speaker 1: producing imminent lawless action, and then it has to be
Speaker 1: likely to incite or produce such actions. So it's it
Speaker 1: has to it has to be happening at some point
Speaker 1: that you can point to next Tuesday, something that's not
Speaker 1: vague or indefinable, like we should do this in the
Speaker 1: future if um, if we're not granted greater rights. So
Speaker 1: it has to be something specific and it has to
Speaker 1: be likely to produce that effect. Right, So if somebody
Speaker 1: is a great order and the people they're telling to
Speaker 1: get their shotguns all own shotguns at home, that would
Speaker 1: probably make it likely. And then a few years after
Speaker 1: UM that case. Another one has the Indiana from Ene
Speaker 1: to find imminent a little further and it said an
Speaker 1: advocacy of a legal action at some indefinite future time
Speaker 1: that's protected. So likely and eminent. Yes, interesting? All right,
Speaker 1: well let's take a likely and eminent break and we'll
Speaker 1: talk more, even more about obscenity after this. Ak alright,
Speaker 1: So did you see the movie Cardinal Knowledge? I didn't.
Speaker 1: I thought, Um, for some reason, my I was like,
Speaker 1: Body Heats not that old that I thought the movie was.
Speaker 1: Wasn't that a sexy one? Body Heat was quite sexy?
Speaker 1: I never saw that? One very good movie? Was it?
Speaker 1: Kathleen Turner? Kathleen Turner that was putting to Palmer? Right?
Speaker 1: I think so? Yeah? I think she's also the star
Speaker 1: of one of my favorite all time movies, which is
Speaker 1: the War of the roses Man. That is a great movie.
Speaker 1: I can watch that movie a thousand times and not
Speaker 1: get sick of it. Um, alright, So Cardinal Knowledge was
Speaker 1: the Mike Nichols film with Jack Nicholson, Candice Bergen, and
Speaker 1: Art Garfunkel. Of all people, what is our gar funcle
Speaker 1: doing in there? He sings in a falsetto throughout it's
Speaker 1: very nice. Lines are in sing song. Um no he
Speaker 1: he was? He acted in it was good? Was he good? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a great movie. He like Paul Simon good,
Speaker 1: Well he's acted too here and there. Really good movie though.
Speaker 1: I mean, like I said, it was Mike Nichols. It
Speaker 1: was not like porn, but it was just a very
Speaker 1: frank movie about sex and relationships. Um, Like Nicholson plays
Speaker 1: sort of a you know what you would think kind
Speaker 1: of a womanizer, and Art Garfunkels are more uh tinder
Speaker 1: and um not as big of a womanizer, trying to
Speaker 1: decide how to put all this and it kind of
Speaker 1: just follows him in three points of their life from
Speaker 1: like college to middle age and their sexual exploits. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it sounds kind of boring. Just really good movie, is it?
Speaker 1: And very famously in nineteen seventy four. I think it
Speaker 1: might have started in seventy three, and right here in
Speaker 1: All Beneath Georgia, that was a theater manager that was
Speaker 1: arrested for showing that movie in a theater. Oh is
Speaker 1: that where this case comes from? Yeah, and he was
Speaker 1: arrested and convicted of distributing obscene material. It's Jenkins v. Georgia. Right,
Speaker 1: Jenkins v. Georgia was a court case, and of course
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court ruled um that Colonel Knowledge was not obscene.
Speaker 1: And I think in the ruling they said, it's Mike Nichols,
Speaker 1: for God's sake, He's like, what are you thinking, precious treasure? Uh?
Speaker 1: And um, well they said that it basically your your
Speaker 1: opposition to a state of Georgia making us so proud
Speaker 1: is that there's nudity in it. And it's not a
Speaker 1: lot of nudity. They were like, that's not enough. That
Speaker 1: doesn't it's not um patently offensive sexual, sexually explicit material
Speaker 1: that has no artistic value. Yes, it fails the Miller
Speaker 1: test is what it's called. Yeah, it passes. I guess
Speaker 1: it would fail the Miller test because if you pass
Speaker 1: the Miller test would be it would be obscene. Right,
Speaker 1: it's a weird way to look at it, I guess. Uh.
Speaker 1: Here in the modern age, like I said, with the
Speaker 1: Internet opened up a whole host of issues with free speech,
Speaker 1: and notably the Child Online Protection Act COPA. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was a big deal, very big deal. COPPA was legislation
Speaker 1: that was introduced to you know, protect kids from online smut. Right.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, uh, freedom of speech. I
Speaker 1: advocates said, no, they're gonna this is the start of
Speaker 1: regulating the internet. The Internet is a free, open wild
Speaker 1: West and it should not be regulated, so don't try
Speaker 1: to regulate it. And again everybody said except for child pornography,
Speaker 1: and the prison talking said, well, yeah, except of course
Speaker 1: child peryn i Aron, if you don't be stupid. Well,
Speaker 1: COPA never actually went into effect. It went through three
Speaker 1: rounds of litigation over the years, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: basically one of the big things that the court would
Speaker 1: say back was our protections that parents can put in
Speaker 1: right to restrict their kids from this stuff and that's enough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a huge thing. Like the court really tends to
Speaker 1: to not like government overreach and tends to restrict it
Speaker 1: whenever it comes about, right, Yeah, And this was really
Speaker 1: tricky because what they were trying to do is apply
Speaker 1: a federal law to community standards for a global product.
Speaker 1: And that's just I mean, talk about complicated law. That's tricky.
Speaker 1: It's very very tricky. Yeah. So, um, the court struck
Speaker 1: it down in part because they thought it was overly broad.
Speaker 1: They they said that the what the government was considering
Speaker 1: offensive material would not would not pass the Miller test,
Speaker 1: so that was overly broad. And then they also said, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's alternatives like parental controls that are widely available. Are
Speaker 1: can solve the problem that the government's looking to solve,
Speaker 1: which is restrict kids from pornography. Um, but with out
Speaker 1: restricting anyone else's individual liberty. Right, So they said see
Speaker 1: around COPA. Uh. And Justice Steven Bryer wrote in a
Speaker 1: concurring opinion, this is a good quote too, to read
Speaker 1: the statute as adopting the community standards of every locality
Speaker 1: in the United States would provide the most puritan of
Speaker 1: communities with a Heckler's veto affecting the rest of the nation,
Speaker 1: basically saying what many have said was this is an
Speaker 1: impossible task, so don't even try. I wish they'd take
Speaker 1: that that idea with obscenity as well. Well. And here's
Speaker 1: the other thing when they struck down cope. And this
Speaker 1: is another really good quote, and this this one from U. S.
Speaker 1: District Judge Lowell read Jr. Not lou read, but Lowell read.
Speaker 1: Lee Reid said take a walk on the wild side.
Speaker 1: Lowell said, maybe after a nap Lowell said, uh, and
Speaker 1: this kind of sums up for me. I think he said,
Speaker 1: perhaps we do the miners of this country harm if
Speaker 1: first a protections which they uh will with age inherit
Speaker 1: fully are chipped away in the name of their protection. Right.
Speaker 1: So basically like in trying to protect these kids, we
Speaker 1: have restricted their free speech when they become adults. Very interesting, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's true, you know. Yeah, Um, the the the courts
Speaker 1: do you go with obscenity, I'm great with it with
Speaker 1: the courts have also kind of shaped um freedom of
Speaker 1: speech or protective freedom of speech by saying yes, certain
Speaker 1: types of speech are not protected obscenity, child pornography, fighting words,
Speaker 1: fighting words, and then libel is another one. But one
Speaker 1: of the ways they further protected even when they're restricting
Speaker 1: it is to say, not everything that you say is
Speaker 1: liabel is actually liable. It's it's very I think it
Speaker 1: more has to do with slanders words that it is okay,
Speaker 1: So with libel laws, and I would guess slander falls
Speaker 1: under the same laws, right. So, but with libel laws, Um,
Speaker 1: it's really difficult to prove libel, right because the person
Speaker 1: printing the libelous um information, which is basically, you're defaming
Speaker 1: someone's character. And that's a really old, longstanding prohibition. I
Speaker 1: think even back in ancient Greece they had a certain
Speaker 1: amount of freedom of speech in Athens, classical Athens. Um.
Speaker 1: But even even that was restricted as far as talking
Speaker 1: trash about someone's character. Right. So that's a that's a
Speaker 1: really old idea that you shouldn't. You shouldn't put fake
Speaker 1: stuff about someone's character reputation out there. And if you do,
Speaker 1: then they have recourse. But to prove that that person
Speaker 1: said something libelous, they have to have had malice of forethought.
Speaker 1: They had to have um known that what they were
Speaker 1: printing was wrong or untrue. Yeah, that's the key. It
Speaker 1: has to be untrue. You can express an opinion about
Speaker 1: somebody and say someone's a big poopy pants, but you
Speaker 1: can't say someone's big poopy pants. Who did X, Y
Speaker 1: and Z if that isn't true? Right, exactly, um, And
Speaker 1: so it's really tough to to prove or to prove
Speaker 1: libel right. So it is unprotected speech, but it's also
Speaker 1: protected in that it's not very broad, it's very narrow.
Speaker 1: And then part and parcel with that is um satire
Speaker 1: and parody are also very much protected in the United States, thankfully,
Speaker 1: and we have Larry Flint, Hustler publisher, to thank for that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: every I mean, people versus Larry Flint is a very
Speaker 1: good job of that spelling out that case. But very famously,
Speaker 1: he went to war with the Reverend Jerry Fallwell because
Speaker 1: he had a cartoon and his Hustler magazine that was
Speaker 1: an unflattering, uh, sexual depiction of Jerry Fallwell. It was no,
Speaker 1: it was a fake pari ad. It was a spoof
Speaker 1: campari ad. But it was a cartoon though no, not
Speaker 1: the one I saw really, I saw like a I'm
Speaker 1: I'm sure he had that too. But this what the
Speaker 1: court case was. It was like a campari ad and
Speaker 1: there was like a campari um ad campaign where people
Speaker 1: talked about their first time they had campari or whatever,
Speaker 1: and Jerry Fallwells was, uh, he and his mother got
Speaker 1: drunk on campari and had sex in the outhouse and
Speaker 1: that was actually how he lost his virginity. Jerry Falwell
Speaker 1: didn't like that, of course, so he sued um. He
Speaker 1: sued Larry Flint, and Larry Flint won that case. It
Speaker 1: went all the way up to the Supreme Court. It
Speaker 1: was a case and they said, nope, this is parody.
Speaker 1: There's a satire. It's protected. If any reasonable person um
Speaker 1: sees it and would know that it's not true, it's protected.
Speaker 1: And and Larry Flint said, draw or no reasonable person
Speaker 1: would right pervert frack, Oh, yours is better than I
Speaker 1: That was good? Oh yeah, what was that going? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I like, what are you Harrelson doing, Larry Flint, which
Speaker 1: is right on the money. In my head, I sound
Speaker 1: like a muppety tenor doing. What are you Harrelson doing?
Speaker 1: Great movie the Muppets people versus Larry fin Um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In any way, thankfully satire and is protected here in
Speaker 1: the US because we have a long, rich history of
Speaker 1: political cartoons and rich satire that can really make a difference.
Speaker 1: Like you see what's going on with Saturday out Live
Speaker 1: right now. It's like they've had a long, long tradition
Speaker 1: of political satire and and most times that opening bit
Speaker 1: they do is political in nature. Uh, And then you
Speaker 1: know it's nothing new. They've been doing it forever. So
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just think it's when you start
Speaker 1: like poking at that and the onion and you know,
Speaker 1: some of the great satirical publications. That's that goes down
Speaker 1: a bad road. Agreed, so, Chuck. One of the things
Speaker 1: that's coming up now that we're connected globally is this
Speaker 1: idea that what we talked about the beginning, the US
Speaker 1: has very broad free speech protections, some other countries don't.
Speaker 1: There's like the the U n Universal Declaration of Human Rights, right,
Speaker 1: some of that has has some free speech protection in it.
Speaker 1: Not everybody signed on to it, and a lot of
Speaker 1: people think there will never be any way to to
Speaker 1: protect freedom of speech worldwide. Normally, up to say the nineties,
Speaker 1: that wasn't that big of an issue unless like Salman
Speaker 1: Rushdie published a book or something like that, um, because
Speaker 1: each country had its own standards, and what was said
Speaker 1: in one country typically stayed in that country, even if
Speaker 1: it was offensive to another country. Right, Sure, the the
Speaker 1: two didn't clide. Now that the internet's here, what's said
Speaker 1: in one country can be carried immediately to another country
Speaker 1: and the offense can be taken. And this went out
Speaker 1: of hypotheticals and into real world, well into the real world. UM.
Speaker 1: Back in two thousand twelve, when a guy named Nakula Beasel.
Speaker 1: Nakula released a fourteen minute video called the Innocence of Muslims.
Speaker 1: Do you remember that? I don't. It was extremely incendiary.
Speaker 1: If you um were a Muslim, you were going to
Speaker 1: be offended by this because it basically said that Prophet
Speaker 1: Mohammed was a fraud. Uh. It had him as a flander,
Speaker 1: a womanizer, I think, a pedophile, it was like. And
Speaker 1: the people who were in it were scared to death
Speaker 1: because of the reaction. There were riots around the world
Speaker 1: once it was translated into Arabic and released. What they
Speaker 1: think was going to happen, I don't, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't remember if the person was a
Speaker 1: provocateur on purpose or if these were their real beliefs
Speaker 1: son Islam. Regardless, they were Um Egyptian American, so the
Speaker 1: video was protected, even though elsewhere in the world they
Speaker 1: were literally rioting the streets and people were dying because
Speaker 1: this video existed. They were so upset by it. But
Speaker 1: in the US t s and as far as I know,
Speaker 1: it's still up on YouTube right because it's protected by
Speaker 1: free speech. Well, that's a that's a great example of
Speaker 1: should the US have the freedom of speech that is
Speaker 1: going to cause harm in another country? Now that those
Speaker 1: two countries are connected via the Internet. There's no easy
Speaker 1: answer to that. That was basically a rhetorical question at
Speaker 1: this point, but it's one that I think is going
Speaker 1: to have to be decided more and more. And what
Speaker 1: goes to the heart of his blasphemy in this case. Yeah,
Speaker 1: blasphemy typically means insulting God or any religious or holy
Speaker 1: person or thing. Uh. It means different things in different religions. Um,
Speaker 1: it's actually still illegal in some states in the U.
Speaker 1: S Um. Oh is that I thought the last one
Speaker 1: was struck down in two thousand seven. Okay, well but
Speaker 1: two thousands up until two thousand seven. Um, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: had laws until two thousand seven. That's right again two
Speaker 1: thousand seven. Yeah. Uh. But the last conviction for blasphemy
Speaker 1: in the US was in night so because these were
Speaker 1: laws that were sort of on the books that no
Speaker 1: one did much about. Well, there's a dude. It was
Speaker 1: in Little Rock, Arkansas, and he was an anti religious atheist,
Speaker 1: this white supremacist who um had an office and in
Speaker 1: the office there was a sign out front I guess
Speaker 1: it was a storefin office, and it said, Um, evolution
Speaker 1: is true. The Bible is a lie. God is a
Speaker 1: ghost and he got arrested and convicted for blasphem me.
Speaker 1: So again, this is and there were blasphemy laws on
Speaker 1: the books until two thousand seven, and yeah, it is.
Speaker 1: It's it's really surprising to think that the United States
Speaker 1: ever had blasphemy laws, but they were fairly recent. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know when it comes to religion, like the
Speaker 1: United States protects Westboro Baptist Church and they say you
Speaker 1: can go out and you can have uh offensive messages
Speaker 1: on signs at military funerals if you want UM, because
Speaker 1: this is the United States and we allow that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so I think that kind of brings up that
Speaker 1: one op ed you're talking about from the Atlantic, that um,
Speaker 1: free speech isn't free. What's the title of it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's the what's the guy who wrote its name? Garrett
Speaker 1: Epps wrote it, and he makes really great He didn't
Speaker 1: even make a case. He just kind of presented both
Speaker 1: sides well. And what he did was he was the quote.
Speaker 1: And I think you're right on the money with that um,
Speaker 1: with that summation, because he said, Um, repressing speech has costs,
Speaker 1: but so it does allowing it. And the only mature
Speaker 1: way to judge the system is to look at both
Speaker 1: sides of the ledger right. That really kind of says
Speaker 1: it all. Yeah, and he's he's basically saying like it's
Speaker 1: not enough to be to say freedom of speech exists
Speaker 1: because we have free speech in the U. S. America
Speaker 1: is a free country. You have to examine why and
Speaker 1: you have to defend it or else it's just a privilege.
Speaker 1: And privileges are always subject to attack. But actual freedom
Speaker 1: is should be defensible, and so he says we need
Speaker 1: to defend it, especially based on another op ed that
Speaker 1: he was actually talking about by a law professor from
Speaker 1: fordom Thane Rosenbaum said, Um, no, there are actual harms
Speaker 1: to speech. It does cause physical or it does cause
Speaker 1: emotional harm that can in some cases exceed physical harm.
Speaker 1: It can be longer lasting, it can have a greater
Speaker 1: impact on more people at once. Um, and so why
Speaker 1: do we allow hate speech in the United States? And
Speaker 1: Garret Ups doesn't have the answer, He just examines the
Speaker 1: whole question. I think, really well, yeah, I thought it
Speaker 1: was interesting. I mean, you know, he makes a point
Speaker 1: that the same laws that allow for strides of civil
Speaker 1: rights and feminism and gay rights groups over the years
Speaker 1: are the same law as that protect the people that
Speaker 1: have done them such harm over the years. Um And
Speaker 1: you know, like you said, you gotta look at both
Speaker 1: sides of the ledger. It might cause harm and there
Speaker 1: is a cost to it, but ultimately the freedom well
Speaker 1: in my opinion, least outweighs those harms. So there's this
Speaker 1: guy named Jonathan Rausch who um garret ups quotes, but
Speaker 1: he wrote another OpEd that I read, and his idea
Speaker 1: of why freedom of speech, including hate speech, is important
Speaker 1: is because he says that if you suppress speech, you're
Speaker 1: suppressing thoughts. Right, So if you suppress hate speech, it's
Speaker 1: still gonna be there. It's still gonna be boiling under
Speaker 1: the surface. People are still gonna quietly, subtly trade in it,
Speaker 1: but you can't refute it. If you allow hate speech,
Speaker 1: it can be refuted loudly, publicly. And then from that
Speaker 1: and he makes the case that this is why the
Speaker 1: gay community has made such strides in the last few years,
Speaker 1: because of the vicious homophobia that was publicly hurled at them,
Speaker 1: that they stood up and said, you know what, this
Speaker 1: isn't true. You know what, we deserve this right. You
Speaker 1: know what, we're not pedophiles. You know what, we should
Speaker 1: be able to adopt everything and shot down all this
Speaker 1: stuff systematically. And America was watching this back and forth
Speaker 1: and um, gay people one public sentiment just through logic.
Speaker 1: He was saying, if you didn't allow that hate speech
Speaker 1: in the first place, there wouldn't have been that position
Speaker 1: to address, um, that hate speech. Improve it wrong because
Speaker 1: you can't suppress hateful ideology. It's gonna exist, so all
Speaker 1: the speech so it can be publicly refuted and just
Speaker 1: smacked down. Yeah, yeah, I thought. I think that's probably
Speaker 1: the best explanation for freedom of speech I've ever heard.
Speaker 1: A good way to close to huh Man. Thanks a
Speaker 1: lot of Jonathan rosh Ah. You got anything else? No,
Speaker 1: I don't, but a little tease before listener mail, we're
Speaker 1: gonna have a couple of very intriguing follow ups to
Speaker 1: recent questions. Okay, all right, Well, if you want to
Speaker 1: know more about free speech, uh to start talking. And
Speaker 1: since I said that, it's time for whatever Chuck's got
Speaker 1: up his sleeve. Yeah. Before I read the listener mail, Um,
Speaker 1: two things were on a recent show. We asked about
Speaker 1: our old buddy Sarah the Amazing fan, and then our
Speaker 1: old Buddy Sam, the Summer of Sam. Weirdly enough, we
Speaker 1: come into the office and Sam's parents dropped off a
Speaker 1: letter to us. Sam wants to be an intern here.
Speaker 1: So he's around. He's in college doing great and wants
Speaker 1: to In turn, wrote us a letter, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: try and get him in here. And he wouldn't be
Speaker 1: our intern specifically, it'd be for how stuff works. But um,
Speaker 1: we're gonna burn a lot of currency to make sure
Speaker 1: he gets this job. Yeah, I hope it happens. It'd
Speaker 1: be great. It was good to hear from him, and
Speaker 1: it sounds like college is going great. His resume was stacked,
Speaker 1: Buddy Sam. Uh. And the other thing is, I don't
Speaker 1: know if you saw this because I did the Facebook,
Speaker 1: but um, Katherine Mary Stewart of Night of the Comment
Speaker 1: played the older sister Reggie uh and was also in
Speaker 1: the Last Starfighter. And we ken to Bernie's and you
Speaker 1: know it was, you know, sort of the darling in
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties and nineties. Uh. And it's still an
Speaker 1: actor today, does theater, working stuff and movies and TV
Speaker 1: and radio. She does it all. Uh. She got in
Speaker 1: touch with us. She listened to the malls Podcasts posted
Speaker 1: on Facebook that we shouted her out and also her
Speaker 1: hometown Edmonton Mall and I was just knocked out and
Speaker 1: told her to email us. She emailed that thinks she
Speaker 1: lives in New York, and I said, hey, listen, next
Speaker 1: time we do a show at the Bell House, I
Speaker 1: want to act out week end to Berne. I'll play
Speaker 1: I'll play the debt guy and you and Josh can
Speaker 1: just pop it me around. Now. It was like, you know,
Speaker 1: come and bring your family. We'd love to guest list you.
Speaker 1: Maybe you can hop up on stage and we can
Speaker 1: chit chat for a minute. I took the liberty of
Speaker 1: doing that. It was very nice. You're like, no, she
Speaker 1: can't get on stage. We edit that part out. I
Speaker 1: just thought that was very cool. Yes, very cool. Thanks
Speaker 1: for writing in Katherine Mary Stewart. Yes, and boy, she's
Speaker 1: found the Countain of Youth. She looks exactly the same. Yes.
Speaker 1: Uh and Sam too, he looks exactly the same. It's
Speaker 1: like twenty looked like he did when he was seventeen.
Speaker 1: Well thanks, dudes. Oh we haven't even done listener mail yet,
Speaker 1: know so listener mail, Um, well, I'm just gonna read it.
Speaker 1: It's called would you rather? I feel bad for Jerry.
Speaker 1: She's not gonna know where to put the listener mail
Speaker 1: chime and that's sorry. Hey, guys, just finishing listening to
Speaker 1: soil It and uh I thought I had a surefire
Speaker 1: argument starter for you, guys, Josh's rant about the pros
Speaker 1: and cons of cooking and sharing meals. I don't rant
Speaker 1: reinforce my position on the subject. I'd like to know
Speaker 1: what you think about it. Here's how you play would
Speaker 1: you rather? And it's not the sexy one. You get
Speaker 1: to forego one thing that humans need to do in
Speaker 1: order to live, either eating, sleeping, or breathing. You can
Speaker 1: do the thing that you choose to forego, of course,
Speaker 1: you just don't need to in order to live, and
Speaker 1: you remain neutral in terms of pleasure or discomfort caused
Speaker 1: by the lack of the necessity. So you don't feel hungry,
Speaker 1: you don't feel sleepy, you don't feel asphixiated. It seems
Speaker 1: like stop out to me. So he wants to know
Speaker 1: what would we rather do? Without um? Mine is easy.
Speaker 1: I would easily not breathe question who would want? Who
Speaker 1: would say like I don't want to eat? I get
Speaker 1: a lot out of breathing. I'd have trouble giving that
Speaker 1: one out. Well, Andrew said he wouldn't eat. That's the
Speaker 1: answer to that question. He said, I would always forego
Speaker 1: eating because of the money it takes to feed myself
Speaker 1: and uh, the waking hours I would save. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: people's that's the two things with food, time and money. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but you get so much pleasure of it. Breathing, Sure,
Speaker 1: it's free, but who cares, especially if you're not going
Speaker 1: to die from not breathing? And this situation is weird
Speaker 1: fantasy world of his. I say, anyone who chooses, and
Speaker 1: this is Andrew talking, I say anyone who chooses to
Speaker 1: forego sleep as a dummy, because not only are you
Speaker 1: not saving on food, you have to entertain yourself for
Speaker 1: an additional five hours a day. You argument there, though,
Speaker 1: is you could get more done. Sure, sometimes I do
Speaker 1: wish that you don't sleep to sleep. Sometimes I also
Speaker 1: enjoy sleep too, he says. Plus, I could eat socially
Speaker 1: every now and then under these terms if I wanted to.
Speaker 1: But who would just take a nap if you don't
Speaker 1: feel refreshed afterward? Yeah? I would. I love to sleep.
Speaker 1: And then the non breathers are just like deep sea
Speaker 1: diving and exploring volcanoes and stuff. I guess, oh, what
Speaker 1: do you think about that? Pert, Yeah, you just go
Speaker 1: swimming all the way at the bottom forever. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: it's clearly breathing is the answer. It's not even a
Speaker 1: subjective question at this point that we've proven it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, keep up the good work. That's from Andrew.
Speaker 1: Thanks Andrew, you keep thinking a good work too. Nice.
Speaker 1: I just want to see you're a sucker for not
Speaker 1: eating though. Yeah. Uh. If you want to try to
Speaker 1: stump us but fail at it like Andrew did, you
Speaker 1: can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast.
Speaker 1: You can join us on Facebook dot com. You can
Speaker 1: or slash stuff you Should Know. You can send us
Speaker 1: an email to Stuff Podcast to how Stuff Works dot
Speaker 1: com and it's always joined us at at home on
Speaker 1: the web Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics at how stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. MHM