I am a free speech absolutist (and a big fan of your work), and find el gato’s post on this topic very compelling. I would love to see what you have to say about it.
Good clarifications! As to "...no law respecting an establishment of religion...", why wasn't it until 1978 that the Natives (who are actually not "American" or "Indians") got the benefits of "The American Indian Religious Freedom Act"? (rhetorical).
By trying to blame the “MAGA gang” for the death of Charlie Kirk, Jimmy Kimmel was wrongly accusing a group of innocent people of murder. I do not see any humor in his comment. When someone has a large audience the least they can do is tell the truth about murder. The “joke” was not only in bad taste but blamed innocent people of a horrific murder. Did the audience know it was not true? This comment just encourages people to hate a group of people and dehumanize them. Is that really what we want in a free speech society? To encourage murder? Living with hate has been bad enough but living with people who love murder is unacceptable. I’m beyond fed up with people loving the murder of Charlie Kirk.
Freedom of Speech protects the people only from Government punishment for their speech. It does not protect peoples' jobs or protect them from other non-government consequences. Employers can and should fire employees who say things that reflect badly on the business/institution or prove they are a poor fit for the business. The teachers who lack compassion are clearly not a good fit for a job working with children. Ultimately, if anyone thinks their freedom of speech has been violated, they can file a lawsuit, and take it to the court.
As for Jimmy Kimmel, ABC uses the F.C.C. regulated public broadcast spectrum, which restricts broadcasts to those in the interest of the public. Kimmel's comments do not seem to be in the public's interest. Our courts have supported similar F.C.C. intervention in the past. Kimmel's free speech is not violated because the government is not preventing him from saying those things. He can say them all day long, just not on the platform he was using.
To those who have slandered and libeled Charlie Kirk in celebrating his political assassination, while they may be protected from Government action by the Frst Amendment, this does NOT protect them from the policies, procedures, and judgements of private entities. ABC and others may choose to remove an employee for behavior that violates their standards and/or damages their bottom line. Those public employees such as teachers can be judged as having insufficient judgement of their own regarding communicating private feelings publicly that may violate educational behavioral standards—not dissimilar to the Hatch Act for the military. Yes, some actions may be going “too far”, but those borders can be decided in the courts. In general, common sense births sincere speech. No matter one’s personal feelings, whether based in fact or misinformation or prejudice, “taste your words before you spit them out”.
Here is my two cents in these interesting exchanges.
I can agree with you on one point: quoting Chomsky (with great regret, given the suspicions of his ties to Epstein), that freedom of expression that applies only to ideas that suit us is not freedom of expression.
But.
If, for example, "someone" said to me, "I'm glad your mother died because she was a dirty racist Nazi." Under the pretext of protecting the freedom of expression of this "someone", would this not be accepting a serious attack on me and the memory of my mother? Aren't these destructive words very violent and hurtfull?
No, we cannot tolerate this kind of gratuitous malice, even in the name of sacrosanct tolerance. This is not justified.
I see too much right-thinking in academics and in your article. Too much wishful thinking.
As some have pointed out here, we are in the midst of a vicious political fight between the "forces of good and evil", whether we want to see it or not. Should predators be protected because they are also people who are suffering? Or should vulnerable children be protected first? A choice is necessary here.
I think, to quote Lily in another Substack, if we flood the public square with so much information that we have "information obesity", then we make people so exhausted by this volume of "noise", that we will accept anything to make it stop. And that's why the impulse to control our thoughts, is the desire to prevent any thinking. So the corollary to your statement Mattias, in my view, beyond sincere speech, is to stop resisting doing the actual thinking altogether. That takes energy to do, as the distractions have become emotionally exhausting and painful derailments. Thinking is work.
For more than decades I live in a world where the moon doesn’t exist when I don’t think about it. Who’s Charlie Kirk never heard of him, should I know him? Do I miss something in my life where the moon is absent when my mind is not focused on him?
Trump has not set up a Ministry of Truth or any other "ministry" to control speech or information dissemination, and it's likely that the parents of the school children pressured for the firing of said teachers. Remember these parents were already primed to look for lunatics after watching and listening to the activist teachers on a screen during covid. They pushed the trans mythology and now they push assassination is okay. No sympathy from this corner.
People are talking, guessing ... Political leaders have ethics on the last place ...
The art of sincere speaking and sincere listening takes time to be widely accepted (it would be wise to learn it at primary school) till then the world is ruled by money (capital, profits ...).
This is simple. Hardly any doubt Desmet works for that most unreal of places, an educational institution. There is a continual misunderstanding of the employer-employee relationship.
If you say something publicly or privately - like a post - your employer doesn't like, employers have a right to fire you if they believe it has a negative effect on them. Doesn't matter if it is said in church, at a soccer game, or on a street corner. Amendments to the U.S. Constitution have nothing to do with it.
As usual, this generally revered by me author blithely spreads kumbaya nostrums with no accounting for the 30% of the population that is Socio/Psychopaths. It is this group that is the root of most evil, not people who protect themselves from them. The last chapter of his books/articles mimic his call to universal acceptance - the call for a downright unsurival response that can only be motto of all the vanished civilizations of history.
I totally understand your points and agree with a portion of them. Most political violence has come from the left in the United States, actually for decades. I lived through the early 1970s. After Charlie’s assassination, I thought that surely a statesman from the left would step forward and condemn without qualifiers, and say it’s been wrong to call Trump and the MAGA crowd Nazi, etc. Unfortunately, this has not happened. Letting the chips fall where they may and turning the other cheek has gotten us to where we are today. I believe in consequences over retribution, but would Kimmel’s show have been canceled for low ratings? It hadn’t been up to this point. Thanks for your thoughtful opinion, Mattias.
Kimmel spread a conspiracy theory about the murderer of Kirk, by claiming he was MAGA. The groyper theory has swirled all around lefty world internationally since the murder, both to absolve themselves of any blame but also to kneecap a sympathetic response to the murder.
By placing the blame on MAGA, a permission structure is being set up for lefties to not care at all about the murder, to ridicule it. MAGA killing MAGA makes for a laugh, allowing them to look within for any doubt about how they are approaching politics and their political enemies.
That's why ABC can't let this stand. It's a completely irresponsible thing to say while many are still grieving. Conspiracy talk about a political assassination can't be something they front.
Good point.
I am a free speech absolutist (and a big fan of your work), and find el gato’s post on this topic very compelling. I would love to see what you have to say about it.
https://open.substack.com/pub/boriquagato/p/free-speech-and-free-association?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=r5qa
Good clarifications! As to "...no law respecting an establishment of religion...", why wasn't it until 1978 that the Natives (who are actually not "American" or "Indians") got the benefits of "The American Indian Religious Freedom Act"? (rhetorical).
By trying to blame the “MAGA gang” for the death of Charlie Kirk, Jimmy Kimmel was wrongly accusing a group of innocent people of murder. I do not see any humor in his comment. When someone has a large audience the least they can do is tell the truth about murder. The “joke” was not only in bad taste but blamed innocent people of a horrific murder. Did the audience know it was not true? This comment just encourages people to hate a group of people and dehumanize them. Is that really what we want in a free speech society? To encourage murder? Living with hate has been bad enough but living with people who love murder is unacceptable. I’m beyond fed up with people loving the murder of Charlie Kirk.
I agree with your assessment of the current firings.
Freedom of Speech protects the people only from Government punishment for their speech. It does not protect peoples' jobs or protect them from other non-government consequences. Employers can and should fire employees who say things that reflect badly on the business/institution or prove they are a poor fit for the business. The teachers who lack compassion are clearly not a good fit for a job working with children. Ultimately, if anyone thinks their freedom of speech has been violated, they can file a lawsuit, and take it to the court.
As for Jimmy Kimmel, ABC uses the F.C.C. regulated public broadcast spectrum, which restricts broadcasts to those in the interest of the public. Kimmel's comments do not seem to be in the public's interest. Our courts have supported similar F.C.C. intervention in the past. Kimmel's free speech is not violated because the government is not preventing him from saying those things. He can say them all day long, just not on the platform he was using.
To those who have slandered and libeled Charlie Kirk in celebrating his political assassination, while they may be protected from Government action by the Frst Amendment, this does NOT protect them from the policies, procedures, and judgements of private entities. ABC and others may choose to remove an employee for behavior that violates their standards and/or damages their bottom line. Those public employees such as teachers can be judged as having insufficient judgement of their own regarding communicating private feelings publicly that may violate educational behavioral standards—not dissimilar to the Hatch Act for the military. Yes, some actions may be going “too far”, but those borders can be decided in the courts. In general, common sense births sincere speech. No matter one’s personal feelings, whether based in fact or misinformation or prejudice, “taste your words before you spit them out”.
Here is my two cents in these interesting exchanges.
I can agree with you on one point: quoting Chomsky (with great regret, given the suspicions of his ties to Epstein), that freedom of expression that applies only to ideas that suit us is not freedom of expression.
But.
If, for example, "someone" said to me, "I'm glad your mother died because she was a dirty racist Nazi." Under the pretext of protecting the freedom of expression of this "someone", would this not be accepting a serious attack on me and the memory of my mother? Aren't these destructive words very violent and hurtfull?
No, we cannot tolerate this kind of gratuitous malice, even in the name of sacrosanct tolerance. This is not justified.
I see too much right-thinking in academics and in your article. Too much wishful thinking.
As some have pointed out here, we are in the midst of a vicious political fight between the "forces of good and evil", whether we want to see it or not. Should predators be protected because they are also people who are suffering? Or should vulnerable children be protected first? A choice is necessary here.
I think, to quote Lily in another Substack, if we flood the public square with so much information that we have "information obesity", then we make people so exhausted by this volume of "noise", that we will accept anything to make it stop. And that's why the impulse to control our thoughts, is the desire to prevent any thinking. So the corollary to your statement Mattias, in my view, beyond sincere speech, is to stop resisting doing the actual thinking altogether. That takes energy to do, as the distractions have become emotionally exhausting and painful derailments. Thinking is work.
Thank you for not falling prey to the partisan mind worm that is destroying the remnants of democracy and free speech!
For more than decades I live in a world where the moon doesn’t exist when I don’t think about it. Who’s Charlie Kirk never heard of him, should I know him? Do I miss something in my life where the moon is absent when my mind is not focused on him?
Trump has not set up a Ministry of Truth or any other "ministry" to control speech or information dissemination, and it's likely that the parents of the school children pressured for the firing of said teachers. Remember these parents were already primed to look for lunatics after watching and listening to the activist teachers on a screen during covid. They pushed the trans mythology and now they push assassination is okay. No sympathy from this corner.
There are vatious theories and explanations regarding C. Kirk; e.g.: George Galloway (UK) interview with Jackson Hinkle (USA) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24cuypqkYco
People are talking, guessing ... Political leaders have ethics on the last place ...
The art of sincere speaking and sincere listening takes time to be widely accepted (it would be wise to learn it at primary school) till then the world is ruled by money (capital, profits ...).
This is simple. Hardly any doubt Desmet works for that most unreal of places, an educational institution. There is a continual misunderstanding of the employer-employee relationship.
If you say something publicly or privately - like a post - your employer doesn't like, employers have a right to fire you if they believe it has a negative effect on them. Doesn't matter if it is said in church, at a soccer game, or on a street corner. Amendments to the U.S. Constitution have nothing to do with it.
As usual, this generally revered by me author blithely spreads kumbaya nostrums with no accounting for the 30% of the population that is Socio/Psychopaths. It is this group that is the root of most evil, not people who protect themselves from them. The last chapter of his books/articles mimic his call to universal acceptance - the call for a downright unsurival response that can only be motto of all the vanished civilizations of history.
I totally understand your points and agree with a portion of them. Most political violence has come from the left in the United States, actually for decades. I lived through the early 1970s. After Charlie’s assassination, I thought that surely a statesman from the left would step forward and condemn without qualifiers, and say it’s been wrong to call Trump and the MAGA crowd Nazi, etc. Unfortunately, this has not happened. Letting the chips fall where they may and turning the other cheek has gotten us to where we are today. I believe in consequences over retribution, but would Kimmel’s show have been canceled for low ratings? It hadn’t been up to this point. Thanks for your thoughtful opinion, Mattias.
Kimmel spread a conspiracy theory about the murderer of Kirk, by claiming he was MAGA. The groyper theory has swirled all around lefty world internationally since the murder, both to absolve themselves of any blame but also to kneecap a sympathetic response to the murder.
By placing the blame on MAGA, a permission structure is being set up for lefties to not care at all about the murder, to ridicule it. MAGA killing MAGA makes for a laugh, allowing them to look within for any doubt about how they are approaching politics and their political enemies.
That's why ABC can't let this stand. It's a completely irresponsible thing to say while many are still grieving. Conspiracy talk about a political assassination can't be something they front.