"Freedom of speech in it rudimentary form is the amiable right to do or say what you like no matter what the circumstances."
Freedom of speech can be defined in many ways. The reality is that liberal democracies such as the UK pride themselves in tolerance of diverse views but still do not allow absolutely anything in terms of anti-social behaviour in any context. Here are some examples A person gets drunk and stands outside a police station at 3-00 am using loud foul languge. They will probably be arrested for disturbing the peace. Claiming free speech would be no serious defence. A person goes round a neighbourhood shouting abuse through people's letter boxes on a routine basis. Could be put under an anti-social banning order which prevented them going into that neighbourhood. A person says things deliberately designed to stir up racial hatred. In the UK that is against the law. Spamming is against the law. Is that not just exercising a right of free speech in writing? A person broadcasts and encourages people to become suicide bombers and blow up innocent people on the London Underground. That too would not be tolerated as just exercising freedom of speech However anyone can set up a display outside the houses of parliament and protest about any issue in a non-violent way. Ultimately lines have to be drawn and the juudgement will be made independently on the basis of whether the action is fundamentally about freedom of speech or about simply being a nuisance to other people. With rights come responsibilities and being irresponsible can lead to forfeit of rights as in people getting locked up, children being excluded from school and clubs revoking someone's membership. "We the people do not have the right to pass judgement on someone just because that which they have said offends us." Quite right, not just because what they say offends us but if what they say is allied to invective and is designed primarily not to inform but to irritate, incite, unfairly disturb etc then we do have the right to put a stop to it and the law is invoked to do exactly that. If someone stands up in Washington saying they were planning to blow up the Whitehouse, no-one would do anything about it? A young person goes into a theatre in the middle of a performance and starts shouting and swearing, they would not be removed? There is a time and a place. No-one is preventing Chad from saying whatever he wants to *if* he does it politely and quietly. He can start his own web site if he wants, why I think ODF sucks and Bill Gates is a sound chap. If its popular he will get a lot of hits and he can be as anti-social on his own site as the law allows. The degree of tolerance of anti-social behaviour does depend on the environment. I guess it would be more tolerated here in social for example than on the discuss list. -- Ian Lynch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ZMSL
