5-16-03

By Jerry Eicher

Dear Editor,

I would like to respond to the issues on freedom that have been raised in the past weeks, practically as it relates to the freedom of speech. Freedom is such a broad issue, but it was used to defend the right of protesters to lie down in the streets blocking traffic in their attempt to influence a public policy issue. In this case it was about the war in Iraq. It is my understanding that it does not work to use freedom to defend an action that harms other people either in their economic or moral activities, unless it can be brought under the freedom of speech protections of the constitution. Is this lying down in the street then a form of speech and under the protection of the constitution?

Amendment I to the Constitution of the United States forbids any abridging of freedom of speech, or as it has lately been interpreted to mean, any expression of oneself. Yet do I have the absolute right to express myself in any way that I wish? The answer is no, even under the Constitution of the United States. There are two primary qualifications which all speech and expressions must meet. They are; first it must be true, and second it must do no harm to others. If the first test is met then the second test does not apply. If the second test is negative then it does not matter whether it was true.

What does this mean? Let’s say John Doe feels the need to express himself at the local theater by shouting fire. If he travels down to the theater while a movie is in session and yells fire, do you think the Constitution protects him from the results as people run out of the building? It does only if there really is a fire. If there is no fire, John Doe goes to visit at the local jail, and the judge tells him when he can leave. All this because it was not true, and it did great harm by the people rushing to the exit and the resulting chaos and possibly even death. Now if it does no harm then it does not matter whether the theater really is on fire. Such would be the case if John Doe feels the need to yell fire and goes outside in his own yard yelling, “The theater is on fire”. Providing his yard is far enough away from the theater as to be out of earshot than no harm is done other than to the neighbor who wastes his gas and time rushing down to the theater to see the sights. John Doe is let off the hook even though he told a lie since no harm was done. All of this applies under the Constitution of the United States.

Let’s say neighbor X tells the other neighbors that farmer Joe is selling rotten tomatoes at his road side stand. If it is true that the tomatoes are rotten than the neighbor is not held responsible for the resulting harm to farmer Joe’s sales. Even if it turns out to be a false report most of the other neighbors will have probably gone down to see for themselves, and so little harm will be done other than to neighbor X’s reputation. Now let’s say the local paper publishes the report that neighbor Joe’s tomatoes are rotten. Because of the widespread influence of the paper, and the fact that most people do not know farmer Joe or will not be able to check out the claims themselves, much harm will be done to farmer Joe. The paper can claim all the freedom of speech rights that they wish, and it will not protect them from neighbor Joe’s lawsuit unless the report was indeed true, shall be say by the mouth of two or three witnesses. If the tomatoes are really rotten than the paper is not held responsible for the harm done to farmer Joe’s sales.

What then about these protesters lying in the street blocking traffic? Are they really protected under the Constitution of the United States? I know that they are tolerated, but are they really entitled to protection? One must ask the second question first because it determines the relevance of the first question, because if they are doing no harm than it does not matter whether it is true. Are they doing harm? The answer is yes, they are doing harm to the economics of other people’s lives. Traffic is held up, appointments and maybe planes missed, money is lost. We then move to the first question to see whether they can be held liable for their actions. Is it true? This is harder because what is to decide whether their feelings on the war are indeed true or not. We are into the area of opinions and many opinions can be truly held. I suppose this is why they are tolerated.

But let us go back to farmer Joe. What if neighbor X is fully convinced that farmer Joe’s tomatoes are rotten while he may just have gotten a bad one from the bottom of the basket. The law in that case has what I believe is called ‘malicious intent’, which means that neighbor X is not held responsible for the harm done unless it can be shown that he knew the tomatoes were not rotten. Neighbor X does not need to show any actual proof just that he truly feels so. The standard goes up though for the newspaper. There some evidence must be shown of actual proof as to why they thought the tomatoes were rotten, otherwise ‘malicious intent’ is assumed.

To what standard should these protesters be held? Must they show actual proof that they are right? Most responsible governments would say yes, because we are no longer in the neighbor to neighbor level. These protests are doing harm in large cities, but since we are into the tolerance era, and I guess the harm can be easily absorbed, little is done about them. But under normal circumstances no one is allowed to harm another person even under first amendments rights, unless proof can be showed that he or she is right.

Even in the case when it can be shown that he or she is in the right, there have been times when even this government has not respected it. The civil rights era could be given as a recent example. In the early times of that movement there were honorable and courageous men and women who chose to suffer for what was right. This has always been the action of those who know they are right and believe strong enough in it to act, even when they are not recognized by the government to be right. Through history is has been the willingness of the great to suffer which has brought victory to them, and caused them to prevail. It was the faith of those in the early civil rights movement who faced suffering for the cause which they knew to be just, who were among those who brought great advancement and change to this culture. That is true freedom of speech, for it includes the willingness to suffer when one is convinced he or she is right, and therefore cannot be silenced.

I ask you simply whether these protester lying in the streets look like they are willing to suffer for their cause. They look more like spoiled brats to me, depending on the compassion of a soft society to accommodate their temper tantrums. There is little of the dignity of greatness around them like there is around those who really know that they are right.

All of this can be applied to much more than just people lying in the streets or rumors about someone’s tomatoes. There is much going on in our culture in the name of freedom of expression which is harmful to society. The proliferation of pornography, the deterioration of the arts, the imposition of tolerance itself, are not being promoted by people who know that they are right. There is nothing they have to justify the harm being done to others and to society by their behavior; therefore their appeal to our own sense of right and wrong in the matter of free speech. We must not let justice fall on it’s own sword. What must be awakened again is the moral conscience of the people. If we no longer believe that anything is right or wrong, than there is no control on the destruction to ourselves or to our culture. As simple as it may seem, farmer Joe cannot protect his good tomatoes unless people believe in good and bad tomatoes. Neither can any culture protect the good if nothing is good or bad. This country did not become great because of freedom of speech; it has freedom of speech because it was founded by greatness. If we loose our greatness, we will lose our freedom of speech. For vise is never free.