Re: Jim Moran, despite his oath, is still pushing to violate the 1st amendment
Posted by:
candide
()
Date: March 02, 2012 07:49AM
The social tradeoff of free speech is that not all of it has to be plastered everywhere
Photoshopping the heads of GOP candidate's heads onto the bodies of goose-stepping Nazis would be free speech, but should I be able to paste it on the side of every bus? Or porn?
The westboro baptists play this card right to the edge - but only get away with it because there are so few of them. If there were more, you'd see the public demanding legal limits, or outright violence
The benefits of Free speech generally outweigh the downsides, but social norms are necessary - history has shown us where the spiraling whirlpool of hate speech takes you. Listening to the Limbaughs, the faux news brigade, the Gingrichs and the Santorums makes you feel as if you're in the 1930's again - and we all know how that ended, Goebbels would be impressed.
Moran was right to call this one out.