Constitutional Law, Free Speech, Politics, Religion, Supreme Court

Deplorable

-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger

A press statement issued in the name of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, condemns the attacks on the mission in Benghazi. Also include in the statement is:

The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.

What is deplorable is that nowhere in the statement is a commitment to free speech that goes back to the very beginning of our nation.

Our embassy in Cairo issued a statement saying that it “condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims.” The Constitution is clear, the First Amendment guarantees the right to religious “free exercise.” There is no right protecting religious feelings from getting hurt. There is no right protecting religious beliefs from denigration.

The freedom of speech in this case involves a movie that ridiculed the prophet Mohammed. While it would be reasonable to condemn the movie based on its fallacious arguments, criticizing the movie because it “hurt the feelings” of Muslims is pandering. Don’t hold your breath waiting for Romney to criticize the State Department for pandering to religious sensibilities.

Others have called the movie an “abuse” of the freedom of speech. The movie is an exercise of the freedom of speech and would only rise to an “abuse” if the rights of others have been violated. Since there is no right protecting your feelings from getting hurt, free speech, that only hurts feelings, is protected.

Debate in the marketplace of ideas leads inevitably to the denigration of ideas. If this denigration is valid, it should not be condemned but exalted. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. wrote in his dissent in Abrams v. United States:

… the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That, at any rate, is the theory of our Constitution.

Those who oppose free speech do so because they fear their own beliefs are incoherent. After a millennia of arguments from the greatest minds, religion is no more coherent today than when it was invented.

H/T: Eugene Volokh, William Saletan.

178 thoughts on “Deplorable”

  1. Years ago I spent my time in a remote fishing village. The only fishing gear we had was Bush-Cheney, rod and line. The rod was good, the lines, well, the tangled and snapped just when you needed them the most.

  2. Actually I am like a Roman citizen returning to Rome after 40 years in Brittania as a merchant.

    He attempts to regale with the tales from their and engage in criticizing the earlier political decisions, or which he learned of only indirectly and vaguely in what passsed for media then. And he has lots of opinions of current politics as well.

    Hubris.

  3. Dredd,

    Great evocative vid. Wondered first what MikeS would feel on seeing it with his background. And then I remembered that you all, from some POV, were involved in those times. They were potentially gut-wrenching times, unless you somehow were detached. Even detaching meant it effected you initially, to decide to detach yourself from it all.

    The ’68 Stockholm college students revolt, aping the one in Paris, was universes apart from the American revolt and the French one. For me, I was only concerned with MY survival.

    Today, it is gut-wrenching. The images were not availbale here then, nor the media bombardment, nor internet.

  5. Swm,

    We all make mistakes. Except you????

    What did you do yesterday, or rather today is the right question. Obama promised lots, and still we accept his lapses. If only for he is the lesser of evils, certainly not a saviour of our rights or constitution.

  6. Swarthmore mom 1, September 15, 2012 at 10:21 am

    I read something interesting about Greenwald the other day. ….. he was an Iraq war supporter. Is not writing for the Guardian a move up?
    ==============================================
    Yes, many let their guard down following 9/11 … but by the same token many have now recovered from that lapse.

  7. Glenn Greenwald, the political columnist who joined Salon.com in 2007, is moving to The Guardian.

    Greenwald, a former constitutional and civil rights lawyer based in Rio de Janeiro, will move his blog en masse to the Guardian’s website on Aug. 20, and will also write a formal weekly column that will occasionally appear in the Guardian’s print edition.

    “Salon has been and remains an ideal place for me to write, but the Guardian offers the opportunity to reach a new audience, to further internationalize my readership, and to be re-invigorated by a different environment,” Greenwald told POLITICO. “Salon has fully supported my work in every possible way, which makes it difficult to leave, but I’m an admirer of the Guardian’s journalism and concluded that it was a great match.”

    At the Guardian, Greenwald will join other high-profile American columnists who have come on board over the last year — including Ana Marie Cox, Naomi Wolf, and Michael Wolff — as the progressive British paper has sought to broaden its reach in the United States.

    “We’re really, really happy with the people that we’ve signed; they’re all good at attacking what they do in different ways,” Janine Gibson, the Guardian’s U.S. editor, told POLITICO. “Glenn has written for us before, and he is a really good fit. We love the way he talks to and with his readers.”

  8. I read something interesting about Greenwald the other day. ….. he was an Iraq war supporter. Is not writing for the Guardian a move up?

  9. idealist707 1, September 15, 2012 at 10:12 am

    Dredd,

    Has Greenwald left his old place for the Guardian?
    =========================================
    I have been pondering that myself, and naturally had some suspicions that certain powers began to breathe down his back, so he had to seek shelter:

  10. Hillary Clinton: “We Do Not Prohibit Free Speech, Regardless Of How Distasteful.”

  11. Dredd,

    Has Greenwald left his old place for the Guardian?

    Thanks for the quote. Amazing the congruence of expressiion in USA media.

    Does anyone recall who deposed the Egyptian king, imposed a secular and socialist negime, established a trial to par-arabism, and whose life and work was terminated by a heart attack caused by a “poison” attack. Nassar.
    How much freedom to vote he brought with him. ???????

    But one thing is certain USA supported the Generals after him, who had no space for it or for democracy on their programs. But they were stable, and that is what we like, and what business likes.

    Cost of business can always be passed onto the customer with proper government support, cartellization, and hegomonized supply side.

    Voilá.

  13. Bob. Esq.

    If anybody can be counted to come in with his head on backward you can.

    Am I attacking you? Damn right, since you are attacking NAL behind the cover of a couple of doctrines, whereas your vitriol is quite clearly meant to sear him.

    Let us return to civis discoourse, if you will.

    Hillary, has as her prime duty to defend the constitution, all pregnatically decisions made behind scenes can be what they are. She has a duty to define America and its values and its constitutional duties as written—-including the major one on freedom of speech.

    She did not, thus she is remiss in NOT doing her prime duty. Addressing America’s message to the world, not pandering to mobs and their leaders.

  14. Another take on the feigned surprise that the U.S. would be lamed for a video across the world’s Islamic nations, or that religion is the issue:

    Given the history of the US in Egypt, both long-term and very recent, it takes an extraordinary degree of self-delusion and propaganda to depict Egyptian anger toward the US as “ironic” on the ground that it was the US who freed them and “allowed” them the right to protest. But that is precisely the theme being propagated by most US media outlets.

    (Glenn Greenwald, Guardian).

  16. I love the story I read that Obama was suggesting that YouTube take a look at its policy…..come on…. Is that suppression of speech or at least attempted?

  17. “The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.”

    Nal: “What is deplorable is that nowhere in the statement is a commitment to free speech that goes back to the very beginning of our nation.”

    Nal,

    So Hillary Clinton’s free speech rights shall now be curtailed by you? Has she called for any state action to curtail free speech? No. Yet she should be compelled to abandon the doctrines of utilitarianism and pragmatism, in any attempts to alleviate the aggression outside U.S. Embassies abroad, just to make you happy?

    Could you be any more childish?

  18. The video is a propagandist ruse.

    The government saw this coming:

    “it should have been clear deposing Gaddafi was the easy bit
    …
    The assassination in Benghazi of the American ambassador to Libya is an appalling act – and one foreseen by his employers. On 27 August, the state department warned US citizens against all but essential travel to Libya, painting a picture of a country beset by increasing instability and fraught with danger.

    Once again, the western powers have started a fire they cannot extinguish.
    …
    Post-Gaddafi Libya lacks viable national political leadership, a constitution, functioning institutions, and most importantly, security. Nationwide parliamentary elections are still a year away. The east-west divide is as problematic as ever. Political factions fight over the bones of the former regime, symbolised by the forthcoming trials of Gaddafi’s son, Saif, and his intelligence chief, Abdullah al-Senussi.

    Effective central control, meanwhile, is largely absent. And into this vacuum have stepped armed groups – whether politically, religiously or financially inspired matters little – all claiming sectional suzerainty over the multitude of fractured fiefdoms that was, until Nato barged in, a unified state.”

    (Guardian, emphasis added). The contrast before and after NATO destroyed Libya over oil is stark:

    Libya provides a complete education to all students free of cost to them, from the kindergarten level up through the university level.

    At least it did before it was invaded.

    Libyans can purchase gasoline for their automobiles at a cost of 14 cents a litre.

    At least they could before their nation was invaded.

    Libya provides complete health care coverage to all of its citizens free of cost to them whatever their age.

    At least it did before it was invaded.

    Libya provides good labor laws “for workers’ compensation, pension rights, minimum rest periods, and maximum working hours.”

    At least it did before it was invaded.

    That means women in that Islamic nation get a complete education for free, are cared for at no cost when their health is an issue, and can work in humane conditions, and wonder of wonders, women can drive automobiles in Libya.

    At least it was that way before Libya was invaded.

    Libya was categorized by the United Nations as a “High human development” country.

    In that U.N. ranking, Libya even ranked above Saudi Arabia, for example (Saudi Arabian women cannot drive automobiles, or vote).

    At least it was that way before Libya was invaded.

    Libya provided $50,000 to newlyweds, and zero interest home loans to the citizens of that nation.

    At least it did before it was invaded.

    (MOMCOM And The Sins of Libya, links above removed). Mike S today posts about the sins of Saudi Arabia, a nation that did not have the humane elements Libya did, and a nation given to supporting 9/11 terrorists.

    We destroy Libya but cover-up for Saudi Arabia.

    Something is wrong with this picture.

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