A question for Americans

[Thaius]

I'm not sure that it's a matter of everyone in America being too sensitive, but rather it's a faulty way of dealing with things when that happens. We have a tendency to respond to a problem that one person has by correcting it for everyone. One person does something stupid, now it's illegal to be in the situation they were in when they did said stupid thing, even if it's completely innocent and safe. It's an irritating tendency that has been chewing away at our freedoms for a long time now...

 

[supermariner]

Just a question, do you really have free speech if the government decides what speech is protected or not? For instance, the government can decide that videogames aren't protected as free speech, and ban them. What's to say the government can't decide that films aren't protected as free speech. So my question for the day is, is your speech truly protected?

Us Brits hardly have free speech either mind
in fact i'd say no country has TRUE free speech
i guess it's just that we don't claim to have as much as the americans

 

[Vykrel]

cant say curse words in school, a few sentences arent allowed to be spoken at all, and many people are fired from their jobs over what they say.

no, we dont have freedom of speech.

 

[mechanixis]

It is a little hypocritical here and there, but it's much harder to get jailed for saying things in the States than in, say, North Korea.

Censorship is still an all-around bad thing, though, and should be unilaterally opposed. Instead of trying to collectively hide things from children (which generally fails spectacularly to control their development anyway), we should instead work to place things we find unseemly or socially repulsive in the proper context.

 

[Woodsey]

Free speech is a myth, and so it should be.

Not where i live...

I feel sorry for you...

I feel sorry for you if people are allowed to run around the streets inciting racial hatred and the like.

I feel sorry if you live in a world where people can be prosecuted for spreading what the government declares to be bad ideas (ideas that don't incite violence)

Where do you people live, fucking Narnia? It's not like we've got guns to our heads telling us what to say. There are perfectly reasonable laws in place to stop morons from inciting hatred against any and all groups.

 

[Woodsey]

Free speech is a myth, and so it should be.

Not where i live...

I feel sorry for you...

I feel sorry for you if people are allowed to run around the streets inciting racial hatred and the like.

oh my, here we go again...
Because you have the right to say what you want, doesnt necessarily mean that you have to.
And even if you do, you have to be ready to defend what you said..
Freedom of speech is not a holy shield that makes you immune to your surroundings. If you talk shit, you better get ready to eat shit.

As an example; if i were running around Copenhagen and yelling that i wanted to slaughter and eat all immigrants, i would propably be the one to be slaughtered. Why? Because only idiots "run around the streets inciting racial hatred and the like"... And we got other laws to handle them...

Such as?

And I was being literal with it, the point is you need a cap on it at some point to stop the inevitable mad men who really do believe the xenophobic shit they say, and who add fuel to any racial tensions (just using that as an example).

Such as the law against disturbing a public place, i think that would be a good law to start with...

So you don't have freedom of speech then. What's free about being told where and when you can say things?

And an ellipsis does not replace a full stop, stop using it on every sentence. /grammar rage

 

[shinigamisparda]

One thing that got me about the "Free speech" is that they aren't allowed to say "I want to kill the president, or something along those lines, unless it is to tell someone else they cannot say it >.>
Seems "Free" is defined by the government...
I think I'm within my rights to say I want to kill anyone, be it my neighbor, my cousin, some important government person, whoever. Lucky me. I just can't actually do so, even to protect myself :3

Appropriate.

Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

 

[Random Name 4]

Well, this question starts to get into some unusual areas in American Constitutional law. To give a basic, blunt answer: yes. Speech is protected by the First Amendment. If the government tried to break up a peaceful rally, there would be popular outrage and likely some impeachments.

However, media like films and games are not purely speech. They are, first and foremost, commercial products. As commercial products, they fall under the Commerce Clause, which gives Congress the power to regulate commerce between the several states. So for all of the clamoring from the industry about how their products are protected by the right to free speech, they can be regulated as commercial products. In that sense, video games and films are more like cigarettes than speech. There are many regulations to selling cigarettes and hypothetical future legislation may ban them, but for now they are legal.

So really, the government isn't deciding what speech is protected. They are deciding what is speech. Personally, I think any product whose primary purpose is to turn a profit cannot be called "speech". It's like trying to justify insider trading as "speaking out against regulation of the market". As as for their power to decide what is speech, there are many, MANY groups dedicated to keeping the government in line in regards to that. The ACLU, for as much as I detest them, is particularly useful in cases of free speech.

I hate to just say "yes", but that's how I feel about this comment. We have free speech. More so than most nations, even European ones.

In fact, I find it ironic that the OP is from the UK. Do you actually think you have more rights than we do? This country isn't the one known as the "nanny state" that watches us with cameras everywhere and doesn't allow us to protect our own property.

The UK is fucking shit for rights, the difference is that we don't loudly boast about them (and nanny state refers to something different)

 

[capnpupster]

Whether something falls under protected speech or not is supposed to be determined by American society at large, but since we're a democratic republic we leave deciding specifically on that to our elected representatives. Certain things have really never been protected speech, direct threats against another, for example. Other definitions of unprotected speech are more mutable. Anything that is "obscene" is not protected speech, but the definition of obscene changes every generation or so. That's why the legal definition is anything that the majority of the population would describe as obscene. You really need variable definitions like this in order to be sure the laws of the government will represent the values of it's society.
I still have enough faith in the judicial system to think it's a long shot for an entire medium to be deemed unprotected speech, but if it is it'll be the first clear sign that bloody revolution is needed, and coming.

 

[mechanixis]

Any film depicting sex or drug use is really hard to get an NC17. There's no way it'll get a lower rating.

I can't remember the last time I saw an NC17 rating on anything except hardcore porn. What America are you living in?

 

[Erana]

Well, I can still vote and go to school with black people, so we're making progress.
Just give us time.

 

[TheTurtleMan]

When has the government ever banned a video game or movie? The only thing they can do is raise the rating for it which seems appropriate because you wouldn't want a group of eight year olds going to see something like Scarface.

What's to say the government can't decide that films aren't protected as free speech. So my question for the day is, is your speech truly protected?

That's the MPAA, mate, and they're mostly religious right.
So anything that goes against traditional Christian values tends to get R/NC17 ratings.

Any film depicting sex or drug use is really hard to get an NC17. There's no way it'll get a lower rating.


Yet people running around shooting each other in the face is totally acceptable for younger folk.

If you spent maybe two minutes looking up R rated movies you would know that sex and drugs are used all the time in movies. I will agree that many movies might receive a higher rating than necessary for sexual scenes or images but that is all that will happen, a higher rating.

Also the vast majority of film companies and actors/actresses are liberal so I don't know how you got the idea that film or the ratings system in America was run by a Christian company.

 

[GWarface]

Free speech is a myth, and so it should be.

Not where i live...

I feel sorry for you...

I feel sorry for you if people are allowed to run around the streets inciting racial hatred and the like.

oh my, here we go again...
Because you have the right to say what you want, doesnt necessarily mean that you have to.
And even if you do, you have to be ready to defend what you said..
Freedom of speech is not a holy shield that makes you immune to your surroundings. If you talk shit, you better get ready to eat shit.

As an example; if i were running around Copenhagen and yelling that i wanted to slaughter and eat all immigrants, i would propably be the one to be slaughtered. Why? Because only idiots "run around the streets inciting racial hatred and the like"... And we got other laws to handle them...

Such as?

And I was being literal with it, the point is you need a cap on it at some point to stop the inevitable mad men who really do believe the xenophobic shit they say, and who add fuel to any racial tensions (just using that as an example).

Such as the law against disturbing a public place, i think that would be a good law to start with...

So you don't have freedom of speech then. What's free about being told where and when you can say things?

And an ellipsis does not replace a full stop, stop using it on every sentence. /grammar rage

There is a difference between talking and yelling... Yelling gets your voice into a wider area than just talking thus disturbing the public peace.. It doesnt really matter what you yell it will still be annoying to other people...

As for your gramma nazism, taken from wikipedia: "An ellipsis can also be used to indicate a pause in speech, an unfinished thought, or, at the end of a sentence "

Nuff said..

 

[WanderingFool]

The way I feel, We use too...

 

[SyphonX]

America doesn't have free speech at all. It's only reserved for those who have the privilege to have a lawyer or grand social status.

The United States is fast becoming (rather, already has) a war-mongering paranoid police state. As is the rest of the world. Would be kind of difficult to not say the leaders are in collusion with one another to break down each country's liberty. Whether it's the Patriot Act or the UK and it's corporate police, it's all there, and the world is definitely changing.

 

[Atmos Duality]

It obviously isn't all protected.
The concept is that speech that is directly harmful or offensive to society/public safety and serves absolutely no other purpose is not protected.

That includes Slander/Libel.

In practice, we have special interests groups of all flavors who try to twist and reinterpret the 1st Amendment for their own means.

Topical Example: Senator Yee has accomplished this brilliantly, and he dares to call himself an expert proponent of First Amendment Rights.

 

[Woodsey]

Free speech is a myth, and so it should be.

Not where i live...

I feel sorry for you...

I feel sorry for you if people are allowed to run around the streets inciting racial hatred and the like.

oh my, here we go again...
Because you have the right to say what you want, doesnt necessarily mean that you have to.
And even if you do, you have to be ready to defend what you said..
Freedom of speech is not a holy shield that makes you immune to your surroundings. If you talk shit, you better get ready to eat shit.

As an example; if i were running around Copenhagen and yelling that i wanted to slaughter and eat all immigrants, i would propably be the one to be slaughtered. Why? Because only idiots "run around the streets inciting racial hatred and the like"... And we got other laws to handle them...

Such as?

And I was being literal with it, the point is you need a cap on it at some point to stop the inevitable mad men who really do believe the xenophobic shit they say, and who add fuel to any racial tensions (just using that as an example).

Such as the law against disturbing a public place, i think that would be a good law to start with...

So you don't have freedom of speech then. What's free about being told where and when you can say things?

And an ellipsis does not replace a full stop, stop using it on every sentence. /grammar rage

There is a difference between talking and yelling... Yelling gets your voice into a wider area than just talking thus disturbing the public peace.. It doesnt really matter what you yell it will still be annoying to other people...

As for your gramma nazism, taken from wikipedia: "An ellipsis can also be used to indicate a pause in speech, an unfinished thought, or, at the end of a sentence "

Nuff said..

Not on every sentence (an ellipsis is also '...', 2 dots means nothing) - it's to indicate a longer pause such as a lost thought. It doesn't replace a full stop constantly.

You're really missing the point too - stop being so literal. People should not be allowed to make claims that incites hate or violence against others, no matter how they do it.

Oh, and I think you'll find Wikipedia actually says: "or, at the end of a sentence, a trailing off into silence (aposiopesis) (apostrophe and ellipsis mixed)."

It's for trailing off into thought which causes the end of a sentence, not a general way to end a sentence.

 

[Samus Aaron]

Just a question, do you really have free speech if the government decides what speech is protected or not? For instance, the government can decide that videogames aren't protected as free speech, and ban them. What's to say the government can't decide that films aren't protected as free speech. So my question for the day is, is your speech truly protected?

America was founded on the idea of little-to-no government intervention, something gained from the accumulation of people who came to the new world wanting escape from the controlling unitary government of Britain and governments elsewhere in Europe. Thus, people wanted free speech, freedom of religion, petition, assembly, and press, which they got with the first amendment.

However, these people didn't want anarchy (which is pretty much what you have to get in order to have true free speech), so they wanted a federal government to do nothing but protect the common welfare. This includes national defense and public safety. As a result, Americans are willing to curtail complete freedom of speech in cases where there is a possible danger that may occur from the use of said speech.

Thus, speech is only restricted when it has a chance of harming people. Cases in point:
-threatening the president, or anyone else for that matter if it is credible enough
-joking about bombs at an airport
-violent video games (the Supreme Court is deciding if this is actually capable of harming people)

Everything has the capacity to cause death or injury. However, the above exceed a certain margin of death or injury that the government is willing to allow.



TL,DR: If the government decides that something is dangerous to public safety, most people are willing to accept a certain level of curtailing of free speech TO A POINT.

This point is determined by our political culture, which is a whole 'nother subject

I could write a frikkin textbook about "Is your speech truly protected?"