-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.
Bob, Esq.,
Got it
id707,
Just trying to forestall one of your “I’ll play dumb and see if I can get Blouise to bite” moods. I see it didn’t work. I really would have been interested in discussing the insight you exhibited in your comment but I guess you’re more comfortable with the who-can-be-more-clever game.
So … how’s the food in Sweden?
Ken at Popehat
Mob violence against disfavored speech shouldn’t result in a timorous “we’re sorry you were offended” from the United States government. That encourages more violence, thus endangering people everywhere, and reinforces a view of speech that I will very deliberately call inferior and barbaric. You have no business whatsoever underming perhaps the most important American civic value.
From Ken at Popehat:
I argued last week that the message of the U.S. Embassy in Cario was awful because its context and content accepted the censors’ narrative (that speech can “hurt religious belief” and that the film is an “abuse” of speech, which usually is another way to say “not free speech”).
Pat,
Playing the service vet card and kicking below the belt. Fine, but got news for you.
I did my two years in ’60-62. My roommate at the USA
Signal Officer course at Ft. Monmouth got assigned to 322nd Sig Bn and went with them to Vietnam.
Most of what I did was Secret classed.
So what is your brag, ol’ vet. Where did you do combat duty?
Blouise & Gene,
Check your email.
GeneH,
Thanks. What is your favo dictionary. I use Google to start with, but it leads to poor sites.
Mike S.: “This was a speech meant to convey a diplomatic message, not to restate the American position on free speech.”
Yep; and therefore not even remotely ‘deplorable.’
Per the Executive branch’s inherent duty to “feed the dogs” consider this quote from Patton
“Now I want you to remember that no basterd ever won a war by dying for his country. You won it by making the other poor dumb basterd die for his country.” -Gen. Patton Speech; 3rd Army Speech – England; 31 MAY 1944 – 6th Armored Division
Gotta look after the dogs and make sure you help the dogs look after themselves.
I.e. ‘feed the dogs.’
QED
Blouise,
Why congratulate me and then challenge me with this sentence: “Now, if I have to explain the difference between the two responses to you, then we have nothing to talk about.” Instead of my rushing off to read them and relate them for your approval, let me ask you instead to see my rebukes to Darren et al for there thick-headed críticisms of the school principal who spoke for sensitivity to other cultures. The only stupid thing they did not say was: if they don’t like PNB&J sandwichs let’em go back to Somalia.
But you are right, I don’t dig you people who’ve been in Rome all these years. We in Britannia still speak Latin, but poorly. Some of us have married Brit wives and have pensioned ourselves here.
And I am not crying over your grove “nothing to talk about”. Kick for kick is only fair. I think I gave some lately. Hee hee.
W=^..^
If by that do you mean “isn’t that what the Feds are trying to do to Julian Assange” then my answer is “yes”. It is also unequivocally wrong. I think he provided a valuable public service as a whistleblower exposing criminals in government and industry for what they are. That the DOJ “unofficially/officially” wants to bring him to justice and yet refuses to prosecute the war criminals from the the current and previous administration or the white collar criminals on Wall Street for their role in the CDS debacle is merely a symptom of how corrupted by money and the hidden agendas of those clearly not interested in upholding the rule of law or in actual justice our government has become. Would be tyrants don’t like it when their machinations are exposed. And to them? I give the finger. In a just world, Julian Assange and Bradley Manning would be testifying before Congress as the heroes they are instead of persecuted by the shadow government they have worked to expose.
Blouise:
Hillary bashing is still a sport that many find attractive and engage in with great enthusiasm.
Since HRC must follow the policies of the Obama Administration, what may appear to be Hillary bashing is actually Obama policy bashing.
——————————————————————–
Oh come on, Nal … do you honestly expect me to buy that? I will accept that it was Obama policy bashing but check out that which you included and that which you excluded when it came to the matter of Hillary speaking.
I’m not going to repeat what Bob Esq wrote because I can’t improve on it … suffice it to say that I agree with him.
As to the Hillary bashing … I was thinking more of Darren Smith’s post when I wrote that.
“An American acting in America even when on an international forum such as the WWW is subject to domestic law.”
“You should not be accountable for breaking the law of a country you are not in nor are a citizen thereof.”~ Gene H.
______________________________________
Julian Assange?
“Now I realize that the right choice was made by the DNC et al in the primaries.. The nation was half men, all opposed to a woman President.
Whereas, only a much smaller fraction are opposed to a nominally black president.” (id707)
Center shot on target. You are 100% correct! And that is the reason the DNC opened their arms to the man who just happened to be black. You will find those who stomp, scream, and shout that that is not at all the case … they are denying the reality of this, the actual American culture. Note Darren Smith’s response to Nal’s post as opposed to Gene’s response. Darren Smith’s response is in the majority, Gene’s is not. Now, if I have to explain the difference between the two responses to you, then we have nothing to talk about.
Idealist,
Bush has ben gone a long time.
What has Obama accomplished??? Less Jobs, More Debt And higher Taxes to come.
And to answer your question, If I was physically able I would gladly serve again. So that you and others may enjoy
the freedom others fought for while you have it.
id707,
The word you are looking for is
intractable \(ˌ)in-ˈtrak-tə-bəl\, adj.,
1: not easily governed, managed, or directed
2: not easily manipulated or wrought
Nick,
That’s amore, as Dean M. used to sing. There was a pizza somewhere there. Wasn’t the world better then or were we still naive and horny? “—bigga pizza pie!
Gotta go beddy bye. Have a nice evening all.
please send notice of posts
Pat,
Attaboy. When are you volunteering, or sending your kids/grandkids?
Have you finished paying off the loans Bush” took to finance the Iraq murder session? He was of course avoiging taxing his buddies.
Expensive training for our future police state troops.
Nick,
A piece has another meaning in NC.
The pundits called it cathartic? For whom? They take too much WH laxatives. Yeah, I know what cathartic means but who takes cathartic medicines—very seldom good for constipation, maybe for poor old Martin Luther. Catharsis should not be sought in the speeches of foreign dignitaries. Particularly Mussolini’s in Abyssinia. And if State thought it would erase the Crusades and all since then, then they are nuts.
The administration continues to kiss their ass.
Screw them!! The drone is mightier than the sword.
They only understand violence, give them some.