Good government versus good manners

Because I am such a (high quality only) news junkie, I listen to a lot of NPR, PBS, and BBC in-depth analysis shows. The problem this week is that they have all been about the Charlie Hebdo attack.  As a result, I have heard dozens of experts from all over the world and all over the political spectrum opining about freedom of speech and freedom of expression.  Some of these shows have call-in blocks, so I have also heard a few dozen “man-on-the-street” thoughts on the topic.

Of course, there has been a wide variety of opinions.  There are die hard freedom of expression extremists who believe that anyone should be able to say anything as long as no one is physically and directly harmed.  There are “protectionists” who believe we need to prevent anyone from being offended for (almost) anything, not just to prevent retaliation but for moral and ethical reasons.  The middle ground, at least in this case, seem to be those who believe that the exception to free speech should be to prevent offending a set of protected categories such as race, religion, gender – kind of like the US list of non-discrimination categories. 

I have my own position on this spectrum, but I can respect that other people might have other views.  I believe that putting hateful speech out in the open is a more practical and effective way of fighting it.  So it goes beyond just a philosophic belief in freedom.  I also worry that excepting expressions that offend religious beliefs is problematic because where to you draw the line on what is a religious offense?  There are lots of streams within each religion that seem to have lots of offending concepts.  Do we ban all of these in all cases, including news, satire, and academic debate? 

But with all of that preface, I have a different point to make today.  Even the most well respected experts seem to mix up government regulation from good manners.  They make the claim that when people don’t use offensive speech because they don’t want to offend their neighbors, that is somehow a constraint on freedom.  Just the opposite.  That is a great example of this individual exerting his right to freedom of expression by personally choosing what to say and what not to say.  I would never burn a US flag in protest because I think it is an ineffective form of protest, not because my freedom is constrained.

If a group of people find the Charlie Hebdo cartoons offensive, the best thing for them to do is to protest, picket, and try to convince the public not to purchase the magazine.  That is a form of expression that equally deserves freedom.  If the magazine loses its readership, it will disappear soon enough. They have the right to their freedom of expression, but not the right to stay in business without any sales.  People who are now planning to buy the magazine as a way of supporting freedom of expression are doing it wrong.  Buying the magazine supports the specific expressions in the magazine, not the freedom itself.  Supporting freedom of expression would require you to go around expressing things you believe in.  Or choosing not to express them because you don’t think they warrant expression.