Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Happy Saturday. Good morning. I hope you've had
Speaker 1: your breakfast cereal, and I hope you have had your cartoons.
Speaker 1: And I hope you are ready to learn about free
Speaker 1: speech here. That being thrown around a lot these days,
Speaker 1: free speech, free speech, But free speech actually means something specific.
Speaker 1: It's not just you can say anything you want, any
Speaker 1: time you want and without any repercussions at all. That's
Speaker 1: not free speech. We're here to tell you what it
Speaker 1: really is. In the episode from February How Free Speech Works.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry. Papers have been shuffled.
Speaker 1: Their plumb and true. It's time for Stuff you should
Speaker 1: Know the podcast. You know it's not plumb and true.
Speaker 1: My gut. Anything in my house I went to, Uh,
Speaker 1: all of my house had those gross, cheap, hollow core
Speaker 1: doors you know. Oh yeah, you know they're not doors.
Speaker 1: I mean they function as doors, but if there's air
Speaker 1: in your door, then there's not a door. So one
Speaker 1: by one I've been replacing them with wood, solid doors.
Speaker 1: And 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 shut and
Speaker 1: it's like whack. Well I'm sure it was straight, you know,
Speaker 1: a hundred years ago, you know, and then over time
Speaker 1: the house settled in and now it's it's doing its
Speaker 1: own thing. So I had to shave the door in
Speaker 1: so many places it looks like a Doctor SEUs store.
Speaker 1: Oh cool, you should plant one of those weird doctor
Speaker 1: Seue's palm trees in your yard to really complete it.
Speaker 1: It's called marijuana. So I'm glad you just said marijuana, chuck,
Speaker 1: because you have every right to say the word marijuana
Speaker 1: in this country. It's a free country. You can say
Speaker 1: the name of a plant, you know, people people do
Speaker 1: say and have long said. This is a free country.
Speaker 1: I can say whatever I want. And free speech is
Speaker 1: one of the basic hallmarks of what makes America free country.
Speaker 1: Freedom of speech. Um, but America is not the only
Speaker 1: country that enshrines a freedom of speech protection in its charter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are varying degrees of it in many many countries.
Speaker 1: In some countries there's not very much. In other countries
Speaker 1: there's a lot. In the US is arguably one of
Speaker 1: the leaders, although some people point to Europe's and we'll
Speaker 1: talk about those later, but some people point to Europe's
Speaker 1: free speech protections and saying they're those people know what
Speaker 1: they're doing. Um. In the US, if you look at
Speaker 1: free speech, you go to the Bill of Rights. Typically
Speaker 1: it's a great place to start, and you will find
Speaker 1: you will find in the First Amendment of the Constitution,
Speaker 1: which is the first part of the Bill of Rights,
Speaker 1: it says in there specifically that Congress will make no
Speaker 1: law right abridging the freedom of speech. It's as simple
Speaker 1: as that. It doesn't say unless speech says this, unless
Speaker 1: somebody says that, unless you really don't like the guy,
Speaker 1: there is no It's absolute. It's an absolute protection of
Speaker 1: freedom of speech. Yeah, and that goes on. I think, uh,
Speaker 1: it's pertinent to mention abridging the freedom of speech or
Speaker 1: of the press, or the right of the people to
Speaker 1: peaceably to assemble founding Father JFK and to petition the
Speaker 1: government for a redress of grievances. I'm sorry that I'm
Speaker 1: take Kennedy one because we're all very important, you know,
Speaker 1: sure they are. Oh yeah, the press 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, we
Speaker 1: we very much want to squash any dissenting opinions about
Speaker 1: the grown uh And people were 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, governor, and tape it, tape
Speaker 1: it shut. With my dirty sock in your mouth, my
Speaker 1: dirty century sock, my wool sock from my wet boots.
Speaker 1: Um quickly though, I think we should point out that
Speaker 1: as we were going through this, like I realized you
Speaker 1: could have an entire podcast called the Ins and Outs
Speaker 1: of Free Speech. Yeah, like a series, a whole show.
Speaker 1: You could have a whole show about it, not just
Speaker 1: an episode. So this is you know, this is an
Speaker 1: overview as we do that is going to pick and
Speaker 1: you know, talk about various court cases over the years,
Speaker 1: rulings and writings of judges, um, that are pertinent. But man,
Speaker 1: it's deep and wide. Yeah, it is, especially considering that
Speaker 1: again when you go to the Bill of Rights, it
Speaker 1: just says Congress can't pass any laws that abridge the
Speaker 1: freedom of speech. There they're like, why does he keep
Speaker 1: writing right there? And chuck. Not only though, was it
Speaker 1: this in retaliation reaction to um, the British monarchy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was also a big part of Enlightenment thinking as well.
Speaker 1: The protection of freedom of speech was a huge aspect
Speaker 1: of the Enlightenment. And you know, obviously the United States
Speaker 1: was founded during the Enlightenment and as part of the Enlightenment.
Speaker 1: It was an Enlightenment experiment, right, Yeah, like we don't
Speaker 1: want to restrict thought or expression, um. And you know,
Speaker 1: some might say that if if the Britain hadn't been
Speaker 1: so intent on squashing dissenting opinion, then we might not
Speaker 1: have been so enlightenment aside. So uh, heck bent on
Speaker 1: ensuring those rights. So maybe it all worked out for
Speaker 1: the best. Yeah, I think so. And Britain came around. Right.
Speaker 1: You can still get that sock thrown in your mouth,
Speaker 1: can you? I don't know, man, it's on the book still.
Speaker 1: I just don't know if they do it anymore. Is
Speaker 1: the socks are much nicer now, that's right. They're all
Speaker 1: happy socks. So since you have this very broad um
Speaker 1: protection of freedom of speech, right, yeah, then there's nothing
Speaker 1: more to be said about it. Anybody can say anything
Speaker 1: they want. Not true, quite true. It isn't true because
Speaker 1: we have three branches of government here in the US.
Speaker 1: We do. Yeah, it turns out I thought that was
Speaker 1: just one. You got the executive branch, which is the
Speaker 1: one I think you're thinking. Uh. Then you have the
Speaker 1: legislative branch Congress, okay, which is actually separate, and then
Speaker 1: you have the third branch, the judicial branch. Yes, they
Speaker 1: are equal and important branch. And with um the congressional
Speaker 1: legislative branch. They pass laws, people go out and break laws,
Speaker 1: people get convicted, people appeal their convictions, and in some cases,
Speaker 1: those convictions and the laws are questionable enough or interesting
Speaker 1: enough that it will eventually make it to a high
Speaker 1: enough court that the court will rule on whether or
Speaker 1: not that law holds to any constitutional standard. Yeah. Over time,
Speaker 1: freedom of speech has been shaped and expanded and paired away,
Speaker 1: um by the courts here in the United States. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like maybe more so than any other kind of segment
Speaker 1: of law, or maybe not. But I'm gonna just as
Speaker 1: as an complete, um armchair attorney, I'm gonna say that
Speaker 1: perhaps free speeches has been challenge more and whittled down
Speaker 1: and defined more than maybe any other aspect of law. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because one of the big things that the courts did
Speaker 1: with freedom of speech was to really expand the definition
Speaker 1: of speech. Yeah, it's not just words that come out
Speaker 1: of your mouth or even right. No, Like it can
Speaker 1: be a T shirt that says f the police, or
Speaker 1: could say um um uh yeah, hug the police. Sure
Speaker 1: somebody might find that offensive. Who knows, thank you for
Speaker 1: coming to my rescue. It could be a billboard, it
Speaker 1: could be um, it could be a pamphlet you hand out.
Speaker 1: It could be an act, symbolic act, flag burning. That
Speaker 1: was a big one to remember that in the eighties
Speaker 1: absolutely or or refusing to say the pledge allegiance that
Speaker 1: was in the I think World War two, Yeah, which
Speaker 1: is actually now protected as because free speech can also
Speaker 1: mean the freedom to not speech. Yeah, because up until
Speaker 1: I think in the Supreme Court ruled on it, kids
Speaker 1: were being forced to say the pledge whether they wanted
Speaker 1: to or not. In the Supreme quisite. Now we think
Speaker 1: freedom of speech is really freedom of expression, and if
Speaker 1: you don't feel like saying the pledge, you're free to
Speaker 1: express yourself in that way. Yeah. And as you'll find,
Speaker 1: um throughout the show, we'll kind of probably say this
Speaker 1: over and over, freedom of speech doesn't have a lot
Speaker 1: to do with something you might find offensive or repugnant. Um. Generally,
Speaker 1: the U S decided on protecting that right regardless of
Speaker 1: whether or not you're offended or you think it's awful.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of what makes America great in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, is you know, what, who are we
Speaker 1: to decide what you know, to legislate morality essentially, and
Speaker 1: what we'll get into all this with obscenity and all
Speaker 1: that stuff and pornography. But um, even when it comes
Speaker 1: to like you know, I don't want to say the pledge.
Speaker 1: Because of this reason, the courts have said, you know what,
Speaker 1: that that you're right, this is America. We may not
Speaker 1: like it, but that you're right. Yeah. And the whole
Speaker 1: reason behind this too, it's it's easy to just take
Speaker 1: it for granted, especially if you were raised in the
Speaker 1: United States, that you have that right. Who cares what
Speaker 1: the basis of it is. You can say basically whatever
Speaker 1: you want, you know um. But when you really dig
Speaker 1: into why the founders sought to protect this and why
Speaker 1: it's been upheld and defended so much over the years,
Speaker 1: is because the idea is that if you are free
Speaker 1: to speak your mind without fear of being put in
Speaker 1: jail or killed or beaten by a mob um, that
Speaker 1: you are going to introduce new ideas to the marketplace
Speaker 1: of ideas. And through this you're gonna have an exchange
Speaker 1: with other people, and a lot of times it's going
Speaker 1: to be contentious and it's going to be ugly, but
Speaker 1: over time things can evolve and get better and change
Speaker 1: for the better through this exchange of ideas. And to
Speaker 1: ensure that the engine of cultural evolution continues unabated, you
Speaker 1: have to have the free exchange of ideas. And to
Speaker 1: have the free exchange of ideas, you have to have
Speaker 1: protection of free speech. Yeah, because if not, you have
Speaker 1: the government being the one saying, well, now here are
Speaker 1: all the ideas, right exactly, and um, don't worry about
Speaker 1: having any of your own. Yeah, these are these, these
Speaker 1: 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 was not protected, right. It was
Speaker 1: called group libel. And that actually sounds pretty good in
Speaker 1: 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. He doesn't have
Speaker 1: the freedom to say this. And actually, our right to
Speaker 1: say hateful things about other people was a direct result
Speaker 1: in the United States of the civil rights movement UM
Speaker 1: being protected by the courts against white Southerners who sought
Speaker 1: to um to uh squash their their speech. So I
Speaker 1: hate speech, Yeah, is due in part in part to
Speaker 1: Dr Martin Luther King and and trying to advance civil
Speaker 1: rights in a weird turn of events, Yeah, it really was. Uh.
Speaker 1: And in Europe, and we'll talk about this a little more. UM,
Speaker 1: Like you said, some people say they have nailed it.
Speaker 1: They don't protect hate speech, and you can't be uh,
Speaker 1: you can't deny the Holocaust publicly, and you can't um say,
Speaker 1: you know Jewish people, you know x y Z or
Speaker 1: this group of people are like this. Um. Some people
Speaker 1: say that's you know, that's kind of right on the money.
Speaker 1: We have taken a different tech here in the US.
Speaker 1: Right in Europe does that because they have a pretty
Speaker 1: recent example of what can happen if you do have
Speaker 1: freedom of speech, and that totalitarian government can hijack that
Speaker 1: freedom of speech and use it as propaganda to incite
Speaker 1: hatred amongst an entire population. Um or even as as
Speaker 1: um this this one author put it to prepare them
Speaker 1: for extermination, just basically saying like, hey, everybody, get those guys.
Speaker 1: They're the reasons you don't have jobs. They're the rapists.
Speaker 1: They're the people who are who are going to kill
Speaker 1: you and steal your your family's wealth and well being.
Speaker 1: So get rid of them. Turn on them. And that's
Speaker 1: the whole point of saying, nobody can incite hatred through
Speaker 1: speech in these European democracies. Um, because the state has
Speaker 1: done 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,
Speaker 1: Well we'll come back here in a minute and get
Speaker 1: down to the nitty gritty of some of these court cases. Okay, sorry, gee,
Speaker 1: um large skid all right, trend um, So if you
Speaker 1: want to go back a little bit to justice Oliver
Speaker 1: Wendell Holmes Jr. Son of Sherlock, one of the famous
Speaker 1: justice is the United States. Uh, in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: but very specifically because everyone has sort of heard the
Speaker 1: the old thing that, Um, you can't yell fire in
Speaker 1: a movie theater and say that's free speech because that
Speaker 1: will In the case of in the nineteen nineteen case
Speaker 1: Shink the United States, UM, Charles Schenk was arrested for
Speaker 1: distributing material basically that said, hey, UM, don't the the
Speaker 1: US draft military draft is bs um, don't do it.
Speaker 1: Fight against it? Uh. And they said, you know what,
Speaker 1: that's that's espionage actually, And that went all the way
Speaker 1: to Supreme Court and they did not protect that right because,
Speaker 1: in the words of Oliver Winto Holmes, they said, did
Speaker 1: the words create a clear and present danger that they
Speaker 1: will bring about substantive evils? Congress has a right to
Speaker 1: prevent and that sort of in line. And later on
Speaker 1: in that same ruling, he was talking about yelling fire
Speaker 1: in a theater as an example, like, you know, you
Speaker 1: can't do that because I will insight panic if people
Speaker 1: will get stomped. Right, And in this case this kind
Speaker 1: of set the precedent for or the tone for all
Speaker 1: free speech cases to follow. UM. It's weighing the the
Speaker 1: individual right versus the public good, yes, or in this case,
Speaker 1: the individual right, says UM, creating some problem or evil
Speaker 1: as he put it, that Congress has a right and
Speaker 1: an interest to prevent a danger to the country, right. UM.
Speaker 1: In this case, really what they were saying was they
Speaker 1: were suppressing criticism of a government program, the Draft. UM.
Speaker 1: And then but Holmes was fine with that. But within
Speaker 1: a year I think he saw his UM, his test,
Speaker 1: you know, does it present a clear and present danger
Speaker 1: being used in a way to to squash descent when
Speaker 1: a bunch of anarchists who were just generally advocating the
Speaker 1: overthrow of the government. UM, rather than need to do
Speaker 1: this on this date at this time, UM, they were used,
Speaker 1: they were convicted under the test that Holmes created. So
Speaker 1: he took what was called the Great Dissent and actually
Speaker 1: dissented against his own former test and said, no, it
Speaker 1: has to present a clear and present danger, present meaning
Speaker 1: like it's about to happen or you know, the time
Speaker 1: that it's going to happen, and it's a clear danger,
Speaker 1: like this is what's going to happen. Because this person
Speaker 1: said that, so that that ultimately became the format for
Speaker 1: UM what we'll talk about in a little bit, which
Speaker 1: is inciting violence. Yeah, and that's not to say that UM,
Speaker 1: like The ruling there, like you said, was about a
Speaker 1: clear and present danger, not necessarily the fact that Charles
Speaker 1: Schenk was against the war, because we have a long
Speaker 1: history in this country of being able to uh be
Speaker 1: a wartime dissenter and talk about it and be protected. Um.
Speaker 1: During Vietnam War, there was a man who had he
Speaker 1: went through an l A courthouse and he had a
Speaker 1: jacket that said, you know, F the draft, but it
Speaker 1: was really spelled out. It's so ironic that we're censoring
Speaker 1: ourselves in this one, but it's uh F the draft
Speaker 1: and they um as you will always almost always see here.
Speaker 1: These people are, like you said, usually arrested, convicted, and
Speaker 1: then when they're well maybe hippies, you never know, and
Speaker 1: then that's when the courts take it up and potentially
Speaker 1: either a protect or don't protect the speech. In this case,
Speaker 1: the court said no, you're within your right because someone
Speaker 1: could see your jacket and then not look at it, right,
Speaker 1: And that's a good point. Like you you can just
Speaker 1: look away from the guy's jacket, right. You can also
Speaker 1: not take the pamphlet that the guys handing you. You
Speaker 1: can also you can also not rent the movie that
Speaker 1: um that you find offensive. You can also turn the
Speaker 1: TV station. You can also turn the radio down. You
Speaker 1: can also not go to the website. You can turn
Speaker 1: our podcast off. To me, well you shouldn't, so you could.
Speaker 1: To me, the alternative of not not receiving some speech
Speaker 1: that you find offensive like being able to get away
Speaker 1: from it. That to me is the ultimate test for
Speaker 1: for whether speech should be restricted or not. And since
Speaker 1: you can in virtually any situation get away from speech
Speaker 1: each except maybe skywriting, we should probably really regulate sky
Speaker 1: riding pretty pretty toughly. Now you can look down on
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 sheared, 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: could write a curse word and then do a drawing
Speaker 1: of Barney and that would satisfy that is Barney still
Speaker 1: a thing. I think Barney will always be a thing.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Uh So over the years have been,
Speaker 1: like we said, a lot of court cases that have
Speaker 1: kind 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 mailers. 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? Well,
Speaker 1: Landmark's waters watershed. I couldn't think of it. I was like,
Speaker 1: we did a podcast on it recently. It's an Intego
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 easy. Uh.
Speaker 1: In three, like I said, the Supreme Court heard the
Speaker 1: case and they found that his speech did not qualify
Speaker 1: for for protection. Um. But here's the hitch. They didn't
Speaker 1: rule on the obscenity. They ruled that, hey, we're protecting kids,
Speaker 1: and you can't just mail this stuff to a house
Speaker 1: because kids live in houses, and so it was inappropriate
Speaker 1: content for children. Um. And what it did as well
Speaker 1: is it is it specified a test for defining obscenity, which, boy,
Speaker 1: over the years, this has been a really tough thing
Speaker 1: and it seems like over the years of courts round
Speaker 1: me don't want any part of that. Now. If There's
Speaker 1: one thing too that as far as restricting free speech goes,
Speaker 1: that drives me up the wall. It's obscenity. The Court
Speaker 1: should not have anything to do with obscenity, and mostly
Speaker 1: they don't wantling on it. Right, There's this great quote
Speaker 1: from Hugo Black, who, as of this podcast has become
Speaker 1: my favorite Supreme Court justice of all time. He said
Speaker 1: in Michigan versus State of New York, Um, I wish
Speaker 1: once more to express my this is my Hugo Black,
Speaker 1: by the way, I wish once more to express my
Speaker 1: objections to saddling this court with the irksome and an
Speaker 1: inevitably unpopular and unwholesome task of finally deciding by a
Speaker 1: case by case, site by site personal judgment of the
Speaker 1: members of this court what pornography, whatever that means is
Speaker 1: too hardcore for people to see or read. Basically, they
Speaker 1: were tired of sitting in court and looking at like
Speaker 1: pictures of a B. C. At the least, and ruling
Speaker 1: on this stuff like what about this one? What about
Speaker 1: this one? What about? The thing is they were looking
Speaker 1: at like pulp pulp books Like Michigan was a guy
Speaker 1: who had a publishing house of pulp books that showed
Speaker 1: like B D S M or lesbianism or masturbation or
Speaker 1: whatever on the cover. He's like, this is this is
Speaker 1: actually pretty nice, right, They're like minutes 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 through the three pronged
Speaker 1: tests to determine what's obscene, came out of that Miller
Speaker 1: the California case, and it says this, It says that
Speaker 1: if the average person using contemporary community standards can look
Speaker 1: at something and says that this arouses the prurient interest?
Speaker 1: Does it meaning sexy time? Yeah? Uh, that's that's the
Speaker 1: wronged one. And you have to satisfy all three of them.
Speaker 1: Is this patently offensive sexual content or patently either one?
Speaker 1: I say patently And I got that from Mr Burns.
Speaker 1: Oh well, 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
Speaker 1: our stick? Right? Who? Who says? What's art and what's not? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And very famously, uh, Justice Potter Stewart the very very
Speaker 1: famous line when asking about obscenity or pornography said I
Speaker 1: know what when I see it? Right? But they they
Speaker 1: have long said like we we One of them said,
Speaker 1: we may be trying to define the indefinable. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: is indefinable. You ask a hundred people what pornography is
Speaker 1: and you'll get a hundred different answers. And so as
Speaker 1: a result, some courts have said, uh, yeah, this community
Speaker 1: the jurors decided that this is obscene, So people go
Speaker 1: to jail for depicting sexual acts or something like that
Speaker 1: that some jurors in that town found um distasteful because
Speaker 1: America has has long had a very puritanical hang up
Speaker 1: with sex and nudity. Uh, violence, bring it on, but
Speaker 1: nude bodies shame, shame. I think that's probably my issue
Speaker 1: with it too, is we're super like will 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 it's true,
Speaker 1: So hold on checked. 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 stand or because what what the someone thinks in Skokie,
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 obscenity too, but um, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: other facets of free speech that you might not really
Speaker 1: think about. In two thousand thirteen, that was a case
Speaker 1: Bland v. Roberts where there were these two dudes, um
Speaker 1: that work for a sheriff department. You know sheriff's are elected.
Speaker 1: They were running for office, and they were fired for
Speaker 1: commenting and liking UM on an opponent's Facebook page, which
Speaker 1: you know, this gets into in the digital age and
Speaker 1: the Internet age, a whole different slew of questions to
Speaker 1: be answered, And they appealed that case and then and
Speaker 1: one actually, yeah, Bland v. Roberts. As a result, Facebook
Speaker 1: likes are considered protective protected free speech under the First Amendment.
Speaker 1: Now yeah, but ibronic, well maybe not ironically, but Facebook
Speaker 1: and social media in general you can also, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's at their discretion whether or not they take something down,
Speaker 1: and you can't say, well, that's free speech, and it's like, no,
Speaker 1: this is our our private room. Essentially is our home.
Speaker 1: And inside a private home you can tell someone to
Speaker 1: shut up. Private home, private companies, Yeah, social media platform
Speaker 1: Like if you show up to work in uh F,
Speaker 1: the police shirt, they can fire you or tell you
Speaker 1: to change it. And if you say no, no, no,
Speaker 1: like this is my free speech, I'll go no, this
Speaker 1: is my business. This is not a free speech. So
Speaker 1: like like the mall, remember yeah, oh yeah, that's right,
Speaker 1: poor Victor Gruing. Uh And here's the thing too is
Speaker 1: and this isn't really section in our notes. But I
Speaker 1: get kind of a riffin here. I get kind of
Speaker 1: bugged these days with I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: have the notion that freedom of speech means also freedom
Speaker 1: from consequence, and those are two different things. Like freedom
Speaker 1: of speech means that you were not going to be well,
Speaker 1: you might even be arrested and convicted, but eventually it
Speaker 1: will be overturned. You'll be vindicated. But if a business
Speaker 1: or a comedian or a TV show does something that
Speaker 1: people find offensive or provocateur YouTube and someone wants to
Speaker 1: pick at them and shut them down or boycott them,
Speaker 1: and 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 free speech.
Speaker 1: But I think, yeah, I hear a lot. It seems
Speaker 1: 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
Speaker 1: guy Um who's a an expert on free speech at
Speaker 1: Penn State. I believe um. He said, we have a
Speaker 1: First Amendment to protect unpopular expression or the minority viewpoint,
Speaker 1: because we don't need a constitution to protect the majority,
Speaker 1: what the majority thinks. The majority takes care of itself.
Speaker 1: It's a good point. It's the people who everybody else
Speaker 1: hates and what they have to say. Um, that is
Speaker 1: protected by the Constitution. Yeah. And uh, Harvard law professor
Speaker 1: Noah Feldman, in a very Unharvard law like way, said, uh,
Speaker 1: if your feelings are hurt, then that's your problem, snowflake.
Speaker 1: You didn't say Harvard like JFK. He didn't say snowflake.
Speaker 1: I was kidding, no, but he he. What he was
Speaker 1: pointing out was basically the sentiment behind free speech in
Speaker 1: the United States that as long as you are not
Speaker 1: physically harming somebody you like, emotional harm is whatever. We're
Speaker 1: not even gonna it's not even in a 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 alright, So we've dabbled in an obscenity.
Speaker 1: Uh one of the other and we'll talk a little
Speaker 1: bit more about it. But one of the other things
Speaker 1: that um, you can you can have insulting speech, but
Speaker 1: there's something called fighting words, um that is not protected
Speaker 1: and it's can be difficult to determine. And again over
Speaker 1: the years the courts have tried to do so. But
Speaker 1: in ninety nine that was kind of a landmark case
Speaker 1: Brandon Burr v. Ohio, where Clarence Brandenburg was at a
Speaker 1: clan rally in Ohio and said, we are we're not
Speaker 1: a revengeent organization. But if our president, our Congress, our
Speaker 1: Supreme Court continues to suppress the white Caucasian race, please,
Speaker 1: it's 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, and make it neither
Speaker 1: us revenge it. Although I think it's in a video
Speaker 1: game now someone said, yeah, revengeance too, don't. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's called that. Revengeance two called our parentheses s
Speaker 1: I C right, what does that stand for? Again? Uh?
Speaker 1: Sick I can't remember, Like, that's so sick they got
Speaker 1: it wrong. I don't. I don't know remember now I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: somebody else send it in people who tend to write
Speaker 1: it after the stuff we write. We don't usually use
Speaker 1: it ourselves. Yeah. It's funny, though. I have this thing,
Speaker 1: you know, just the weird quirky things that everyone sort
Speaker 1: of does in their head in life. Whenever I see
Speaker 1: s I C written in an article, I always try
Speaker 1: and think of what word either they got wrong or
Speaker 1: were replacing in the article, you know, to make make
Speaker 1: more sense. Well, no, they use it too, because well,
Speaker 1: if it's a misspelling or if it's not a word,
Speaker 1: it's basically the writer or the editor saying this guy
Speaker 1: got it wrong, not me. Yeah, yeah, but am I
Speaker 1: thinking of a different was it? What is it? When
Speaker 1: they um, that's just when they put it in brackets
Speaker 1: and they put like there or something like the person
Speaker 1: lets it out. Sick also goes in brackets, but it's
Speaker 1: basically saying I'm aware that this is misspelled. Yeahs to
Speaker 1: show what a dummy this guy is. I think I
Speaker 1: do it in both cases, Like if it's a made
Speaker 1: up word, I'll try and think of what like they meant,
Speaker 1: or like the other one where there's just a parentheses
Speaker 1: and they just basically add something to make it more sense.
Speaker 1: I try and think of, like, what did they say
Speaker 1: to begin with? It's a weird thing. No, I know
Speaker 1: to mean in my head right now I have for
Speaker 1: your eyes only. I thought you go away. You're trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what I'm thinking. The brains brain does
Speaker 1: some terrible stuff. I had that in my head now too,
Speaker 1: because you came in singing it for your only? Why
Speaker 1: do you? Doesn't make any sense? It doesn't. I haven't
Speaker 1: heard the song in decades. A week long ear worm
Speaker 1: from a song you haven't heard in decades? Was it
Speaker 1: in a dream? I don't think so. You're dreaming about
Speaker 1: She and Easton again. That's a good movie though. Uh,
Speaker 1: what's the Connery one on it? No? No, that was
Speaker 1: Roger Moore? Are you sure? Yeah? You're sure? I think
Speaker 1: it was Sean Connery's last time? No, all right, I
Speaker 1: may be right here. Go to the map for that one.
Speaker 1: All right, Um, all right, Getting back to Brandenburg, the
Speaker 1: the clan member who who didn't know how to talk right? Um,
Speaker 1: he didn't talk good. He was arrested for ad dedicating violence,
Speaker 1: and he won. Supreme Court decided in his favor and
Speaker 1: thus began the history, the long history of the United
Speaker 1: States saying, you know what, the clan wants to have
Speaker 1: a rally out in the public town square and they
Speaker 1: apply for their permit, you gotta let him do it.
Speaker 1: But again that actually that the clans hate speech being
Speaker 1: protected was lumped together and came out of the civil
Speaker 1: rights movements freedom of speech being protected as well, because
Speaker 1: they were like, well, hey man, stokely Carmichael says that
Speaker 1: you know, we gotta like take take the take control
Speaker 1: from the white He's rise up and take control, like
Speaker 1: that's hate speech, and the Supreme Court says, you know what,
Speaker 1: you're right, and that's protected. So so it was what
Speaker 1: the clan saying, or Illinois Nazis and Skokie right, second
Speaker 1: time Skokie's made an appearance in this episode. Yeah, why
Speaker 1: not a third um the usual. So yeah, anyway, I
Speaker 1: think what you're you're saying is as a result, hate
Speaker 1: speech is has a decades long tradition of being protected
Speaker 1: at any and all costs unless you are using it
Speaker 1: to incite violence, and that ties in to that original
Speaker 1: prohibition on free speech that Oliver Wendell Holmes came up
Speaker 1: with is that it presents a clear and present danger.
Speaker 1: So rather than using that specifically to incite violence, you
Speaker 1: basically have to be saying it's not enough to um
Speaker 1: to say, uh, like, we black people need to rise
Speaker 1: up and take control of the United States, and if
Speaker 1: it has to be violent, it has to be violent.
Speaker 1: But we can't live like this anymore. Right, If if
Speaker 1: Stokely Carmichael saying something like that, or Malcolm X is
Speaker 1: saying something like that, that is protected speech, even though
Speaker 1: it makes a lot of people, or it made a
Speaker 1: lot of people uneasy to hear that kind of thing
Speaker 1: and they said, hey, they're trying to start a race war,
Speaker 1: it's still protected speech. On the other hand, if you said,
Speaker 1: or Stokely Carmichael said everybody needs to go get the
Speaker 1: shotguns and we're all gonna beet here on Tuesday and
Speaker 1: we're gonna take the streets Tuesday afternoon, that would not
Speaker 1: be protected because he would be directly inciting violence. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what what are the two things? That violence has to
Speaker 1: be likely and uh, it has to the advocacy for
Speaker 1: violence has to be um directed to inciting or producing
Speaker 1: imminent lawless action, and then it has to be likely
Speaker 1: to incite or produce such actions. So it's it has
Speaker 1: to it has to be happening at some point that
Speaker 1: you can point to next Tuesday. Something that's not vague
Speaker 1: or indefinable, like we should do this in the future
Speaker 1: if um, if we're not granted greater rights. So it
Speaker 1: has to be something specific, and it has to be
Speaker 1: likely to produce that effect. Right, So if somebody is
Speaker 1: a great order and the people they're telling to get
Speaker 1: their shotguns all own shotguns at home, that would probably
Speaker 1: make it likely. And then a few years after um
Speaker 1: that case. Another one has v Indiana from nineteen three
Speaker 1: to find imminent a little further and it said an
Speaker 1: advocacy of illegal action at some indefinite future time. That's protected, right,
Speaker 1: so likely and eminent? Yes, interesting? All right, Well let's
Speaker 1: take a likely and imminent break and we'll talk more,
Speaker 1: even more about obscenity after this. George Large, I was skid,
Speaker 1: all right, So did you see the movie Carneal Knowledge?
Speaker 1: I didn't. I thought, um, for some reason, my I
Speaker 1: was like body heats not that old that I thought
Speaker 1: the movie was? Wasn't that a sexy one. Body heat
Speaker 1: was quite sexy. I never saw that. One very good movie,
Speaker 1: was it? Kathleen Turner, Kathleen Turner. That is correct? Uh,
Speaker 1: Romancing the Stone Kathleen Turner Friends, Kathleen Turner, Romancing the Stones,
Speaker 1: Kathleen Turner. It doesn't matter either way. She's a delight
Speaker 1: body heat Kathleen Turner. Never saw it. It's good, very steamy.
Speaker 1: That was going to Palmer, right, I think so? Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think she's also the star of one of my
Speaker 1: favorite all time movies, which is the War of the
Speaker 1: roses Man. That is a great movie. I can watch
Speaker 1: that movie a thousand times and not get sick of it.
Speaker 1: That's on um alright. So Carnal Knowledge was the Mike
Speaker 1: Nichols film with Jack Nicholson, Candice Bergen, and Art car Funkele.
Speaker 1: Of all people, what is our gar Funkle doing in there?
Speaker 1: He sings in a false that out throughout it's very nice.
Speaker 1: All lines are in sing song. Um no, he he
Speaker 1: was he acted in it was good? Was he good? Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 1: It was great movie. He like Paul Simon good, well,
Speaker 1: 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 gar Funkle a little more
Speaker 1: uh tinder and um not as big of a womanizer,
Speaker 1: trying to decide how to put all this, and it
Speaker 1: kind of just follows him in three points of their
Speaker 1: life from like college to middle age and their sexual exploits. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it sounds kind of boring. Just really good movie, Yeah,
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 patently offensive sexual, sexually explicit material that
Speaker 1: has no artistic value. Yes, it fails the Miller test
Speaker 1: is what it's called. Yeah, it passes. I guess it
Speaker 1: would fail the Miller test because if you pass the
Speaker 1: Miller tests, could be it would be obscene. Right, It's
Speaker 1: 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. COPA 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: have a kids said, no, they're gonna this is the
Speaker 1: start of regulating the internet. The Internet is a free,
Speaker 1: open wild West and it should not be regulated, So
Speaker 1: don't try to regulate it. And again, everybody said except
Speaker 1: for child pornography, and the person talking said, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: except of course child preno. 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 there are protections that parents can put
Speaker 1: in 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 said that the what the government was considering offensive
Speaker 1: material would not would not pass the Miller test, so
Speaker 1: 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 without restricting
Speaker 1: anyone else's individual liberty right, so they said, see around copa.
Speaker 1: Uh and justice Even Bryer wrote in a concurring opinion,
Speaker 1: this is a good quote too, to read the statute
Speaker 1: as adopting the community standards of every locality in the
Speaker 1: United States would provide the most puritan of communities with
Speaker 1: a Heckler's veto affecting the rest of the nation, basically
Speaker 1: saying what many have said was, this is an impossible task,
Speaker 1: so don't even try. I wish they'd take that that
Speaker 1: idea with obscenity as well. Well. And here's the other
Speaker 1: thing when they struck down cope. And this is another
Speaker 1: 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: Lou 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 Amendment 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 courts, do
Speaker 1: you go with obscenity, I'm great with it with the
Speaker 1: courts have also kind of shaped um freedom of speech
Speaker 1: or protective freedom of speech by saying yes, certain types
Speaker 1: 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 print right. It's very I
Speaker 1: think it more has to do with slanders words that
Speaker 1: it is okay, so with libel laws, and I would
Speaker 1: guess slander falls under the same laws, right, don't so,
Speaker 1: But with libel laws, um, it's really difficult to prove
Speaker 1: liabel right because the person printing the libelous um information,
Speaker 1: which is basically you're defaming someone's character, and that's a
Speaker 1: really old, longstanding prohibition. I think even back in ancient
Speaker 1: Greece they had a certain amount of freedom of speech
Speaker 1: in Athens classical athens Um, but even even that was
Speaker 1: restricted as far as talking trash about someone's character. Right,
Speaker 1: So that's a that's a really old idea that you
Speaker 1: shouldn't You shouldn't put fake stuff about someone's character reputation
Speaker 1: out there. And if you do, then they have recourse.
Speaker 1: But to prove that that person said something libelous, they
Speaker 1: have to have had malice of forethought. They had to
Speaker 1: have um known that what they were printing was wrong
Speaker 1: or untrue. Yeah, that's the key. It has to be untrue.
Speaker 1: You can express an opinion about something and say someone's
Speaker 1: a big poopy pants, but you can't say someone's big
Speaker 1: poopy pants. Who did X, Y and z if that
Speaker 1: isn't true, right, exactly? Um, And so it's really tough
Speaker 1: to to prove to prove libel right. So it is
Speaker 1: unprotected speech, but it's also protected in that it's not
Speaker 1: very broad, it's very narrow. And then part and parcel
Speaker 1: with that is um, satire and parody are also very
Speaker 1: much protected in the United States, thankfully, and we have
Speaker 1: Larry Flint Hustler publisher to thank for that. Yeah, every
Speaker 1: I mean, people versus Larry Flint is a very good
Speaker 1: 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 campari 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: sure he han drawn. I'm sure he had that too.
Speaker 1: But this what the court case was. It was like
Speaker 1: a campari and there was like a campari um ad
Speaker 1: campaign where people talked about their first time they had
Speaker 1: campari or whatever, and Jerry fall Wells was, uh, he
Speaker 1: and his mother got drunk on campari and had sex
Speaker 1: in the outhouse and that was actually how he lost
Speaker 1: his virginity. Jerry Falwell didn't like that, of course, so
Speaker 1: he sued um. He sued Larry Flint, and Larry Flint
Speaker 1: won that case. It went all the way up to
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. Yeah, it was a case and they said, Nope,
Speaker 1: this is parody. There's a satire. It's protected. If any
Speaker 1: reasonable person um sees it and would know that it's
Speaker 1: not true, it's protected. And and Larry Flint said, or
Speaker 1: no reasonable person, right, pervert frack. That was yours is
Speaker 1: better than mine? That was good? Oh yeah, what was
Speaker 1: that going? Yeah? He sounded like what he Harrelson doing
Speaker 1: Larry Flint, which is right on the money. In my head,
Speaker 1: I sound like a muppety tenor doing what do he
Speaker 1: Harrelson do? Great movie The Muppets people versus 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 it's when you
Speaker 1: start like poking at that and the onion and you
Speaker 1: know some of the great satirical publications that's that goes
Speaker 1: down a bad road, you know. So took One of
Speaker 1: the things that's coming up now that we're connected globally
Speaker 1: is this idea that what we talked about at the beginning,
Speaker 1: the US has very broad free speech protections some other
Speaker 1: countries don't. There's like the the U N Universal Declaration
Speaker 1: of Human Rights, right, some of that has has some
Speaker 1: free speech protection in it. Not everybody signed on to it,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people think there will never be
Speaker 1: any way to to protect freedom of speech worldwide. Normally,
Speaker 1: up to say the nineties, that wasn't that big of
Speaker 1: an issue unless like Salman Rushdie published a book or
Speaker 1: something like that, UM, because each country had its own standards,
Speaker 1: and what what's said in one country typically stayed in
Speaker 1: that country, even if it was offensive to another country.
Speaker 1: Right the the the the two didn't collide. Now that
Speaker 1: the internet's here, what's said in one country can be
Speaker 1: carried immediately to another country, and the offense can be taken.
Speaker 1: And this went out of hypotheticals and into real world,
Speaker 1: well into the real world. UM. Back in two thousand twelve,
Speaker 1: when a guy named Nakula Baseli Nakula released a fourteen
Speaker 1: minute video called The Innocence of Muslims. Do you remember that?
Speaker 1: I don't. It was extremely incendiary. If you, um were
Speaker 1: a Muslim, you were going to be offended by this
Speaker 1: because it basically said the prophet Mohammed was a fraud. Uh.
Speaker 1: It had him as a flander, a womanizer, I think,
Speaker 1: a pedophile. It was like, and the people who were
Speaker 1: in it were scared to death because of the reaction.
Speaker 1: There were riots around the world once it was translated
Speaker 1: into Arabic and released. What they think was going to happen,
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't know, like I don't, I don't
Speaker 1: remember if the person was a provocateur on purpose or
Speaker 1: if these were their real beliefs son Islam. Regardless, they
Speaker 1: were um Egyptian American, so the video was protected, even
Speaker 1: though elsewhere in the world they were literally rioting the
Speaker 1: streets and people were dying because this video existed. They
Speaker 1: were so upset by it. But in the US t
Speaker 1: s and as far as I know, it's still up
Speaker 1: on YouTube right because it's protected by free speech. Well,
Speaker 1: that's a that's a great example of should the US
Speaker 1: have the freedom of speech that is going to cause
Speaker 1: harm in another country now that those two countries are
Speaker 1: connected via the Internet. There's no easy answer to that.
Speaker 1: That was basically a rhetorical question at this point, but
Speaker 1: it's one that I think is going to have to
Speaker 1: be decided more and more and what goes to the
Speaker 1: heart of his blasphemy in this case. Yeah, blasphemy specifically
Speaker 1: means insulting God or any religious or holy person or thing. Uh,
Speaker 1: it means different things in different religions. Um, it's actually
Speaker 1: still illegal in some states in the US. Um. Oh is,
Speaker 1: I thought the last one was struck down in two
Speaker 1: thousand seven. H okay, well but two thousands up until
Speaker 1: two thousand seven. Um, yeah, yeah, had laws until two
Speaker 1: thousand seven. That's right again two thousand seven. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: But the last conviction for blasphemy in the US was
Speaker 1: in night. So because these were laws that were sort
Speaker 1: of on the books that no one did much about. Well,
Speaker 1: there's a dude. It was in Little Rock, Arkansas, and
Speaker 1: he was an anti religious atheist, this white supremacist who
Speaker 1: um had an office and in the office there was
Speaker 1: a sign out front I guess it was a storefront office,
Speaker 1: and it said, um, evolution is true, the Bible is
Speaker 1: a lie. God is a ghost. And he got arrested
Speaker 1: and convicted for blasphemy. So again, this is night and
Speaker 1: there were blasphemy laws on the books until two thousand seven,
Speaker 1: and yeah, is it's it's really surprising to think that
Speaker 1: the United States ever had blasphemy laws, but they were
Speaker 1: fairly recent. Yeah, and you know when it comes to religion,
Speaker 1: like the United States protects Westboro Baptist Church and they
Speaker 1: say you can go out and you can have uh,
Speaker 1: offensive messages on signs at military funerals if you want um,
Speaker 1: because as 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? Yeah, and he makes really great He
Speaker 1: didn't even make a case, he just kind of presented
Speaker 1: both sides well, and what he did was he was
Speaker 1: a quote. And I think you're right on the money
Speaker 1: with that um, with that summation, because he said, Um,
Speaker 1: repressing speech has costs, but so it does allowing it.
Speaker 1: And the only mature way to the system is to
Speaker 1: look at both sides of the ledger. Right. That really
Speaker 1: kind of says it all. Yeah, And he's basically saying
Speaker 1: like it's not enough to be to say freedom of
Speaker 1: speech exists because we have free speech in the U.
Speaker 1: S America is a free country. You have to examine
Speaker 1: why and you have to defend it or else it's
Speaker 1: just a privilege, and privileges are always subject to attack,
Speaker 1: but actual freedom is should be defensible, and so he
Speaker 1: says we need to defend it, especially based on another
Speaker 1: op ed that he was actually talking about by a
Speaker 1: law professor from fordom Thane Rosenbaum said, Um, no, there
Speaker 1: are actual harms to speech. It does cause physical or
Speaker 1: it does cause emotional harm that can in some cases
Speaker 1: exceed physical harm. It can be longer lasting, it can
Speaker 1: have a greater impact on more people at once. Um.
Speaker 1: And so why do we allow hate speech in the
Speaker 1: United States? And Garrett Ups doesn't have the answer, He
Speaker 1: just examines the whole question. I think really well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought it was interesting. I mean, you know, he
Speaker 1: makes a point that the same laws that allow for
Speaker 1: strides of civil rights and feminism and gay rights groups
Speaker 1: over the years are the same laws that protect the
Speaker 1: people that have done them such harm over the years. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, like you said, you gotta look at
Speaker 1: both sides of the ledger. It might cause harm and
Speaker 1: there 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 Garrett 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 gays
Speaker 1: in America have 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 going to exist, So
Speaker 1: allow the speech so it can be publicly refuted and
Speaker 1: just smacked down. Yeah, yeah, I thought. I think that's
Speaker 1: probably the asked explanation for freedom of speech. I've ever
Speaker 1: heard a good way to close to huh Man, Thanks
Speaker 1: a lot, 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, yeah, doing great, and
Speaker 1: wants to intern and wrote us a letter and we're
Speaker 1: gonna try and get him in here. Oh yeah. And
Speaker 1: he wouldn't be our intern specifically'd be for how stuff works.
Speaker 1: But um, we're going to burn a lot of currency
Speaker 1: to make sure he gets this job. Yeah. I hope
Speaker 1: it happens. It'd be great. It was good to hear
Speaker 1: from him and sounds like college is going great. His
Speaker 1: resume was stacked, buddy. Uh. And the other thing is,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you saw this because I did
Speaker 1: the Facebook, but um, Katherine Mary Stewart of Night of
Speaker 1: the Comet played the older sister Reggie. Uh and was
Speaker 1: also in the Last Starfighter and we kened to Bernie's
Speaker 1: and you know it was, you know, sort of the
Speaker 1: darling in the nineteen eighties and nineties. Uh. And it's
Speaker 1: still an actor today, does theater, working stuff and movies
Speaker 1: and TV and radio. She does it all. Uh. She
Speaker 1: got in touch with us. She listened to the Malls
Speaker 1: podcast posted on Facebook that we shouted her out and
Speaker 1: also her hometown Edmonton Mall and I was just knocked
Speaker 1: out and told her to email us. She email that
Speaker 1: thinks she lives in New York, and I said, hey,
Speaker 1: listen next time. We do a show at the Bell House.
Speaker 1: I want to act out week end up, Bernie, I'll
Speaker 1: play I'll play the dead guy, and you and Josh
Speaker 1: can just pup it me around. Uh Now. It was like,
Speaker 1: you know, come and bring your family. We'd love the
Speaker 1: guest list you. Maybe you can hop up on stage
Speaker 1: and we can chit chat for a minute. Nice. I
Speaker 1: took the liberty of doing that. It was very nice.
Speaker 1: You're like, no, she can't get on stage. We need
Speaker 1: to edit that part out. I just thought that was
Speaker 1: very cool. Yes, very cool. Thanks for writing in Katherine
Speaker 1: Mary Stewart. Yes, and boys, she's found the fountain of youth.
Speaker 1: She looks exactly the same. Oh yeah, yes, uh and
Speaker 1: Sam too, he looks exactly the same. It's like twenty
Speaker 1: looked like he did when he was seventeen. Well, thanks, dudes. Oh,
Speaker 1: we haven't even done listener mail yet. No, so listener mail. Um, well,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna read it. It's called would you rather?
Speaker 1: I feel bad for Jerry. She's not gonna know where
Speaker 1: to put the listener mail China. That's all right. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: just finishing listening to soil It And uh, I thought
Speaker 1: I had a surefire argument starter for you guys. Josh's
Speaker 1: rant about the pros and cons of cooking and sharing meals.
Speaker 1: I don't rain reinforce my position on the subject. I'd
Speaker 1: like to know what you think about it. Here's how
Speaker 1: you play would you rather and it's not the sexy one? Okay,
Speaker 1: you get to forego one thing that humans need to
Speaker 1: do in order to live, either eating, sleeping, or breathing.
Speaker 1: You can do the thing that you choose to forego,
Speaker 1: of course, you just don't need to in order to live,
Speaker 1: and you remain neutral in terms of pleasure or discomfort
Speaker 1: caused by the lack of the necessity. So you don't
Speaker 1: feel hungry, you don't feel sleepy, you don't feel affixiated.
Speaker 1: Stop out to me. So he wants to know what
Speaker 1: would we rather do without? Um mine is easy. I
Speaker 1: would easily read 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 up. Well, Andrew said he would need 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
Speaker 1: mean 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 have to sleep enough to sleep.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I also enjoy sleep too, he says. Plus, I
Speaker 1: could eat socially every now and then under these terms
Speaker 1: if I wanted to. But who would just take a
Speaker 1: nap if you don't feel refreshed afterward? Yeah, well I would.
Speaker 1: I love to sleep. And then the non breather are
Speaker 1: just like deep sea diving and exploring volcanoes and stuff.
Speaker 1: I guess, oh, what do you think about that perk? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you just go swimming all the way at the bottom forever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's clearly breathing is the answer. It's not even
Speaker 1: a 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 work too. Yeah. Nice, I
Speaker 1: just want to see you're a sucker for not eating though. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you want to try to stump us but fail
Speaker 1: at it like Andrew did, you can tweet to us
Speaker 1: at s y s K podcast. You can join us
Speaker 1: on Facebook dot com. You can or slash Stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know. You can send us an email to stuff
Speaker 1: Podcast at how Stuff Works dot com and it's always
Speaker 1: joined us at at home on the web. Stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know dot Com. Stuff you Should Know is a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
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