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Sep. 18th, 2012
Free Speech and the Mideast Riots
Sep. 18th, 2012 12:00 pmStanley Fish gives us some interesting discussion on the Mideast riots over that anti-Islam movie that was made in America, going over the tension between Western free speech and Muslim religiosity.
_ _ _
So the entire package of American liberalism — the distinction between speech and action, the resolve to protect speech however distasteful it may be, the insistence that religious believers soften their piety when they enter the public sphere — is one the protesters necessarily reject. When they are told that the United States government had no part in the production of the video and deplores its content, educated Libyans and Egyptians reply (reporters tell us), “Well, if they think it’s bad and against their values, why didn’t they stop it or punish those who produced it?” The standard response is that we Americans don’t suppress or penalize ideas we regard as wrong and even dangerous; in accordance with the First Amendment, we tolerate them and allow them to present themselves for possible purchase in the marketplace of ideas.
But that means that protecting the marketplace by refusing to set limits on what can enter it is the highest value we affirm, and we affirm it no matter what truths might be vilified and what falsehoods might get themselves accepted. We have decided that the potential unhappy consequences of a strong free speech regime must be tolerated because the principle is more important than preventing any harm it might permit. We should not be surprised, however, if others in the world — most others, in fact — disagree, not because they are blind and ignorant but because they worship God and truth rather than the First Amendment, which not only keeps God and truth at arm’s length but regards them with a deep suspicion.
-- Stanley Fish at The New York Times
_ _ _
I especially love that last line about regarding 'God' and 'truth' with "a deep suspicion", for is that not the very key to understanding our appreciation for free speech and the open marketplace of ideas? It might be one thing if there was indeed one God and we were capable of knowing the one Truth about this God, but of course we know there is no such thing, or at least no such thing that we would agree on. So, you are free to pursue your Truth as well as your happiness, but you should not be able to close down anybody else's attempts to pursue their own, perhaps contrary, ideas, and you certainly should not kill them or beat them or burn down their places. You first have to be able to understand that the world does not revolve around you, and be able to appreciate that people who are different from you should enjoy a certain equality of respect.
Nevertheless, it could be said that the 'movie' in question, itself, does not treat others with that certain equality of respect, and for that, one can rest assured that it will not be shown in any respectable theaters or on television. Though, this is not to justify the violence. Personally, I am inclined to regard the movie as a kind of pornography, or a hate-pornography, which is perhaps something that anti-Israel Muslims can appreciate when they consider that they tend to enjoy their own brand of hate-pornography that abuses the Jews. I believe pornography should be protected speech, too. Hey, whatever gets you off! Pornography should just be a very private thing, something carried in a brown paper sack and enjoyed in your bedroom behind closed doors and closed curtains.
_ _ _
So the entire package of American liberalism — the distinction between speech and action, the resolve to protect speech however distasteful it may be, the insistence that religious believers soften their piety when they enter the public sphere — is one the protesters necessarily reject. When they are told that the United States government had no part in the production of the video and deplores its content, educated Libyans and Egyptians reply (reporters tell us), “Well, if they think it’s bad and against their values, why didn’t they stop it or punish those who produced it?” The standard response is that we Americans don’t suppress or penalize ideas we regard as wrong and even dangerous; in accordance with the First Amendment, we tolerate them and allow them to present themselves for possible purchase in the marketplace of ideas.
But that means that protecting the marketplace by refusing to set limits on what can enter it is the highest value we affirm, and we affirm it no matter what truths might be vilified and what falsehoods might get themselves accepted. We have decided that the potential unhappy consequences of a strong free speech regime must be tolerated because the principle is more important than preventing any harm it might permit. We should not be surprised, however, if others in the world — most others, in fact — disagree, not because they are blind and ignorant but because they worship God and truth rather than the First Amendment, which not only keeps God and truth at arm’s length but regards them with a deep suspicion.
-- Stanley Fish at The New York Times
_ _ _
I especially love that last line about regarding 'God' and 'truth' with "a deep suspicion", for is that not the very key to understanding our appreciation for free speech and the open marketplace of ideas? It might be one thing if there was indeed one God and we were capable of knowing the one Truth about this God, but of course we know there is no such thing, or at least no such thing that we would agree on. So, you are free to pursue your Truth as well as your happiness, but you should not be able to close down anybody else's attempts to pursue their own, perhaps contrary, ideas, and you certainly should not kill them or beat them or burn down their places. You first have to be able to understand that the world does not revolve around you, and be able to appreciate that people who are different from you should enjoy a certain equality of respect.
Nevertheless, it could be said that the 'movie' in question, itself, does not treat others with that certain equality of respect, and for that, one can rest assured that it will not be shown in any respectable theaters or on television. Though, this is not to justify the violence. Personally, I am inclined to regard the movie as a kind of pornography, or a hate-pornography, which is perhaps something that anti-Israel Muslims can appreciate when they consider that they tend to enjoy their own brand of hate-pornography that abuses the Jews. I believe pornography should be protected speech, too. Hey, whatever gets you off! Pornography should just be a very private thing, something carried in a brown paper sack and enjoyed in your bedroom behind closed doors and closed curtains.
Free Speech and the Mideast Riots
Sep. 18th, 2012 12:00 pmStanley Fish gives us some interesting discussion on the Mideast riots over that anti-Islam movie that was made in America, going over the tension between Western free speech and Muslim religiosity.
_ _ _
So the entire package of American liberalism — the distinction between speech and action, the resolve to protect speech however distasteful it may be, the insistence that religious believers soften their piety when they enter the public sphere — is one the protesters necessarily reject. When they are told that the United States government had no part in the production of the video and deplores its content, educated Libyans and Egyptians reply (reporters tell us), “Well, if they think it’s bad and against their values, why didn’t they stop it or punish those who produced it?” The standard response is that we Americans don’t suppress or penalize ideas we regard as wrong and even dangerous; in accordance with the First Amendment, we tolerate them and allow them to present themselves for possible purchase in the marketplace of ideas.
But that means that protecting the marketplace by refusing to set limits on what can enter it is the highest value we affirm, and we affirm it no matter what truths might be vilified and what falsehoods might get themselves accepted. We have decided that the potential unhappy consequences of a strong free speech regime must be tolerated because the principle is more important than preventing any harm it might permit. We should not be surprised, however, if others in the world — most others, in fact — disagree, not because they are blind and ignorant but because they worship God and truth rather than the First Amendment, which not only keeps God and truth at arm’s length but regards them with a deep suspicion.
-- Stanley Fish at The New York Times
_ _ _
I especially love that last line about regarding 'God' and 'truth' with "a deep suspicion", for is that not the very key to understanding our appreciation for free speech and the open marketplace of ideas? It might be one thing if there was indeed one God and we were capable of knowing the one Truth about this God, but of course we know there is no such thing, or at least no such thing that we would agree on. So, you are free to pursue your Truth as well as your happiness, but you should not be able to close down anybody else's attempts to pursue their own, perhaps contrary, ideas, and you certainly should not kill them or beat them or burn down their places. You first have to be able to understand that the world does not revolve around you, and be able to appreciate that people who are different from you should enjoy a certain equality of respect.
Nevertheless, it could be said that the 'movie' in question, itself, does not treat others with that certain equality of respect, and for that, one can rest assured that it will not be shown in any respectable theaters or on television. Though, this is not to justify the violence. Personally, I am inclined to regard the movie as a kind of pornography, or a hate-pornography, which is perhaps something that anti-Israel Muslims can appreciate when they consider that they tend to enjoy their own brand of hate-pornography that abuses the Jews. I believe pornography should be protected speech, too. Hey, whatever gets you off! Pornography should just be a very private thing, something carried in a brown paper sack and enjoyed in your bedroom behind closed doors and closed curtains.
_ _ _
So the entire package of American liberalism — the distinction between speech and action, the resolve to protect speech however distasteful it may be, the insistence that religious believers soften their piety when they enter the public sphere — is one the protesters necessarily reject. When they are told that the United States government had no part in the production of the video and deplores its content, educated Libyans and Egyptians reply (reporters tell us), “Well, if they think it’s bad and against their values, why didn’t they stop it or punish those who produced it?” The standard response is that we Americans don’t suppress or penalize ideas we regard as wrong and even dangerous; in accordance with the First Amendment, we tolerate them and allow them to present themselves for possible purchase in the marketplace of ideas.
But that means that protecting the marketplace by refusing to set limits on what can enter it is the highest value we affirm, and we affirm it no matter what truths might be vilified and what falsehoods might get themselves accepted. We have decided that the potential unhappy consequences of a strong free speech regime must be tolerated because the principle is more important than preventing any harm it might permit. We should not be surprised, however, if others in the world — most others, in fact — disagree, not because they are blind and ignorant but because they worship God and truth rather than the First Amendment, which not only keeps God and truth at arm’s length but regards them with a deep suspicion.
-- Stanley Fish at The New York Times
_ _ _
I especially love that last line about regarding 'God' and 'truth' with "a deep suspicion", for is that not the very key to understanding our appreciation for free speech and the open marketplace of ideas? It might be one thing if there was indeed one God and we were capable of knowing the one Truth about this God, but of course we know there is no such thing, or at least no such thing that we would agree on. So, you are free to pursue your Truth as well as your happiness, but you should not be able to close down anybody else's attempts to pursue their own, perhaps contrary, ideas, and you certainly should not kill them or beat them or burn down their places. You first have to be able to understand that the world does not revolve around you, and be able to appreciate that people who are different from you should enjoy a certain equality of respect.
Nevertheless, it could be said that the 'movie' in question, itself, does not treat others with that certain equality of respect, and for that, one can rest assured that it will not be shown in any respectable theaters or on television. Though, this is not to justify the violence. Personally, I am inclined to regard the movie as a kind of pornography, or a hate-pornography, which is perhaps something that anti-Israel Muslims can appreciate when they consider that they tend to enjoy their own brand of hate-pornography that abuses the Jews. I believe pornography should be protected speech, too. Hey, whatever gets you off! Pornography should just be a very private thing, something carried in a brown paper sack and enjoyed in your bedroom behind closed doors and closed curtains.
Sandwich vs. Sex
Sep. 18th, 2012 06:00 pm"9 times out of 10 id rather eat a sandwich than have sex with a hottie"
-- Anonymous
I have no sympathy for that statement; I just found it remarkably odd and striking. I cannot even really make sense of it, except to suppose it means that the speaker has tens and tens and hundreds of chances to bed a hottie and has come to find it incredibly boring. It is beyond my comprehension, and I am inclined to think that this statement was merely made for shock value. Or, on the other hand, a woman may have said it, probably a woman who is also a hottie herself, in which case the statment loses all its oddness and becomes quite ordinary.
-- Anonymous
I have no sympathy for that statement; I just found it remarkably odd and striking. I cannot even really make sense of it, except to suppose it means that the speaker has tens and tens and hundreds of chances to bed a hottie and has come to find it incredibly boring. It is beyond my comprehension, and I am inclined to think that this statement was merely made for shock value. Or, on the other hand, a woman may have said it, probably a woman who is also a hottie herself, in which case the statment loses all its oddness and becomes quite ordinary.
Sandwich vs. Sex
Sep. 18th, 2012 06:00 pm"9 times out of 10 id rather eat a sandwich than have sex with a hottie"
-- Anonymous
I have no sympathy for that statement; I just found it remarkably odd and striking. I cannot even really make sense of it, except to suppose it means that the speaker has tens and tens and hundreds of chances to bed a hottie and has come to find it incredibly boring. It is beyond my comprehension, and I am inclined to think that this statement was merely made for shock value. Or, on the other hand, a woman may have said it, probably a woman who is also a hottie herself, in which case the statment loses all its oddness and becomes quite ordinary.
-- Anonymous
I have no sympathy for that statement; I just found it remarkably odd and striking. I cannot even really make sense of it, except to suppose it means that the speaker has tens and tens and hundreds of chances to bed a hottie and has come to find it incredibly boring. It is beyond my comprehension, and I am inclined to think that this statement was merely made for shock value. Or, on the other hand, a woman may have said it, probably a woman who is also a hottie herself, in which case the statment loses all its oddness and becomes quite ordinary.
Interpreting the Constitution
Sep. 18th, 2012 09:00 pmI see the old American jurisprudential debate beats on, whether the U.S. Constitution can be interpreted by justices on strictly textual and historical grounds, or whether the Constitution embodies a living spirit that is to be interpreted by the best lights of each new generation. The subject was one of my passions during my own school days decades ago. It seems kind of dead to me now, but perhaps not entirely. The flashpoint in the debate today is between Justice Antonin Scalia and Judge Richard Posner. We'll get a taste of it from a third-party observer, albeit one who sides entirely with Posner, as I do, believing that 'conservatives' or right-wingers, such as Justice Scalia, simply like to claim more legitimacy and objectivity for their positions than is genuinely warranted and merited.
_ _ _
The sources of constitutional law are vague (due process, liberty, equal protection, etc.,), the history of provisions almost always contested (does the Second Amendment apply to just militias or to people), and the Court is not bound by its own cases and frequently the law of the Constitution changes as the Justices and their politics change. The reason why Justices Scalia and Ginsburg (they are friends) disagree on almost every contested issue of constitutional law is not because one applies better canons of construction than the other or one is a better legal interpreter than the other, but because they embrace different personal values and life experiences. Posner knows this, described how the Justices decide cases in his book How Judges Think, and being an appellate judge himself wants to set the record straight when it comes to the relationship between judicial discretion and the resolution of hard legal issues. Posner knows that Scalia's public misstatements on this issue carry a great cost.
The drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment did not believe racial preferences for blacks violated the Equal Protection Clause yet Scalia, despite his alleged devotion to originalism, has never voted to uphold an affirmative action program. The drafters of the First Amendment believed that corporations had no legal status separate from the rights given them by the state, yet Scalia claims corporations have the same First Amendment rights as natural persons. And, just to be politically neutral about all this, the founding fathers would not have recognized flag burning as "speech" protected by the First Amendment, yet Scalia voted to reverse the conviction of a flag burner on First Amendment grounds. Scalia relies no more (or less) on text or history than any other Supreme Court Justice; he just indignantly claims that he does.
-- Eric Segall at The Huffington Post
_ _ _
The sources of constitutional law are vague (due process, liberty, equal protection, etc.,), the history of provisions almost always contested (does the Second Amendment apply to just militias or to people), and the Court is not bound by its own cases and frequently the law of the Constitution changes as the Justices and their politics change. The reason why Justices Scalia and Ginsburg (they are friends) disagree on almost every contested issue of constitutional law is not because one applies better canons of construction than the other or one is a better legal interpreter than the other, but because they embrace different personal values and life experiences. Posner knows this, described how the Justices decide cases in his book How Judges Think, and being an appellate judge himself wants to set the record straight when it comes to the relationship between judicial discretion and the resolution of hard legal issues. Posner knows that Scalia's public misstatements on this issue carry a great cost.
The drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment did not believe racial preferences for blacks violated the Equal Protection Clause yet Scalia, despite his alleged devotion to originalism, has never voted to uphold an affirmative action program. The drafters of the First Amendment believed that corporations had no legal status separate from the rights given them by the state, yet Scalia claims corporations have the same First Amendment rights as natural persons. And, just to be politically neutral about all this, the founding fathers would not have recognized flag burning as "speech" protected by the First Amendment, yet Scalia voted to reverse the conviction of a flag burner on First Amendment grounds. Scalia relies no more (or less) on text or history than any other Supreme Court Justice; he just indignantly claims that he does.
-- Eric Segall at The Huffington Post
Interpreting the Constitution
Sep. 18th, 2012 09:00 pmI see the old American jurisprudential debate beats on, whether the U.S. Constitution can be interpreted by justices on strictly textual and historical grounds, or whether the Constitution embodies a living spirit that is to be interpreted by the best lights of each new generation. The subject was one of my passions during my own school days decades ago. It seems kind of dead to me now, but perhaps not entirely. The flashpoint in the debate today is between Justice Antonin Scalia and Judge Richard Posner. We'll get a taste of it from a third-party observer, albeit one who sides entirely with Posner, as I do, believing that 'conservatives' or right-wingers, such as Justice Scalia, simply like to claim more legitimacy and objectivity for their positions than is genuinely warranted and merited.
_ _ _
The sources of constitutional law are vague (due process, liberty, equal protection, etc.,), the history of provisions almost always contested (does the Second Amendment apply to just militias or to people), and the Court is not bound by its own cases and frequently the law of the Constitution changes as the Justices and their politics change. The reason why Justices Scalia and Ginsburg (they are friends) disagree on almost every contested issue of constitutional law is not because one applies better canons of construction than the other or one is a better legal interpreter than the other, but because they embrace different personal values and life experiences. Posner knows this, described how the Justices decide cases in his book How Judges Think, and being an appellate judge himself wants to set the record straight when it comes to the relationship between judicial discretion and the resolution of hard legal issues. Posner knows that Scalia's public misstatements on this issue carry a great cost.
The drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment did not believe racial preferences for blacks violated the Equal Protection Clause yet Scalia, despite his alleged devotion to originalism, has never voted to uphold an affirmative action program. The drafters of the First Amendment believed that corporations had no legal status separate from the rights given them by the state, yet Scalia claims corporations have the same First Amendment rights as natural persons. And, just to be politically neutral about all this, the founding fathers would not have recognized flag burning as "speech" protected by the First Amendment, yet Scalia voted to reverse the conviction of a flag burner on First Amendment grounds. Scalia relies no more (or less) on text or history than any other Supreme Court Justice; he just indignantly claims that he does.
-- Eric Segall at The Huffington Post
_ _ _
The sources of constitutional law are vague (due process, liberty, equal protection, etc.,), the history of provisions almost always contested (does the Second Amendment apply to just militias or to people), and the Court is not bound by its own cases and frequently the law of the Constitution changes as the Justices and their politics change. The reason why Justices Scalia and Ginsburg (they are friends) disagree on almost every contested issue of constitutional law is not because one applies better canons of construction than the other or one is a better legal interpreter than the other, but because they embrace different personal values and life experiences. Posner knows this, described how the Justices decide cases in his book How Judges Think, and being an appellate judge himself wants to set the record straight when it comes to the relationship between judicial discretion and the resolution of hard legal issues. Posner knows that Scalia's public misstatements on this issue carry a great cost.
The drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment did not believe racial preferences for blacks violated the Equal Protection Clause yet Scalia, despite his alleged devotion to originalism, has never voted to uphold an affirmative action program. The drafters of the First Amendment believed that corporations had no legal status separate from the rights given them by the state, yet Scalia claims corporations have the same First Amendment rights as natural persons. And, just to be politically neutral about all this, the founding fathers would not have recognized flag burning as "speech" protected by the First Amendment, yet Scalia voted to reverse the conviction of a flag burner on First Amendment grounds. Scalia relies no more (or less) on text or history than any other Supreme Court Justice; he just indignantly claims that he does.
-- Eric Segall at The Huffington Post