Yelling 'Fire' in a Crowded Planet -- by Frank Garcia, Professor, Boston College Law School

[Jessy169]

Professor Garcia makes the point that we cannot afford to protect the "free speech rights" of those who abuse that right to purposely incite violence and stoke racial/religious tensions around the world.

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Ever heard the reference to yelling fire in a crowded theater? That comes from the Schenck case, where Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes ruled that speech can be regulated when it presents a "clear and present danger" of serious public harm -- in other words, you can't just say anything you want if a lot of people might get hurt. While the Schenck test has evolved into the risk of imminent lawless action, the metaphor lives on as a powerful example of the dangers of reckless speech in volatile situations, and the law's ability to respond while still protecting our own cherished First Amendment rights.

We face another important moment now with the anti-Mohammed video, and the rioting and acts of terrorism that have followed. No matter how offensive speech may be, such actions are never justified, and of course local leaders can manipulate crowds for their own purposes, but that misses the point. Globalization and the telecommunications revolution have fundamentally changed the way information moves throughout the planet since the Schenck days. Our notions of proximity, distance, even imminence must be re-examined. Reckless or inflammatory words can be uttered ten feet away, or ten thousand miles away, and the distinction is meaningless: YouTube and Twitter mean they are heard, felt and responded to on the other end of the globe instantaneously.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-j-garcia/innocence-of-muslims-protests_b_1912834.html?utm_hp_ref=world

[patrice]

1. If everyone does not have a right to not be a victim of such speech, then no one has a right to not

be a victim of such speech and anyone can say anything, even for the express purpose of getting you killed.

[patrice]

2. The only practical recourse I can think of is somekind of fairness doctrine, so that Innocence of

Muslims et al does not occur without a reciprocal piece that expresses the opposite, authentically respectful, and non-biased characterization of that same culture/issue, whatever.

At least then, for what/who -ever is involved, we could ask why, of the two opposite opinions, the negative one is taken as the more significant and, ergo, justification for violence or other harmful behavior.

[Bluenorthwest]

4. I just saw a pretty good movie about the founding of Islam from 1976, Anthony Quinn

in a leading role. 'Mohammad, Messenger of God' was made both in English and Arabic and take the very difficult chore of telling the life story of a man who they could not portray on film out of respect for the traditions of that faith. They did well with that and the film is pretty good. No image or nor voice of the Prophet nor of his wives and closest companions.

It is extremely interesting to note that when the film was premiered in the US in 1976, the DC branch of B'ni B'rith was subjected to protests from an extremist group who had been told that Anthony Quinn played Mohammad in the film. They wanted the film to be cancelled, threatened to blow up the building, a couple of people died. Sounds really familiar, does it not?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Hanafi_Siege

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad,_Messenger_of_God

[Bluenorthwest]

5. I expect no response from you or from the OP...

nt

[patrice]

7. ? . . . k, but I was thinking I'd like very much to see that movie.

[Bluenorthwest]

8. Well you were calling for material to balance the graffitti level video and yet that

material is met with violence as well. Why? Because exploitative power mongers lied about the film. If nothing else, it is interesting history of this very issue, which most folks pretend does not exist.
I think it is pertinent that that film was also misrepresented and violently opposed. I thought you might find that fact worthy of comment....are they in the right no matter what is in the film they protest? Was it ok to kill because they THOUGHT Quinn played the Prophet? Do the people who lie about these things to their people hold no culpablity, no matter how many times they pull the same old ploy?
These are important questions for those of you who wish to truncate artistic and other expression to please extremists.

[patrice]

11. Having not seen the Quinn film, I didn't comment. I will look for it. Question:

The issues between advocates of free speech and those who would take advantage of free speech as an excuse to do _____________________ aside, please tell me about the rights of people who have NO pony in that show to expect that their lives will not be damaged or ended by the struggle between those who do?

Explain to me why their right to life is of lesser value than anyone else's right to free speech.

Don't you think that's an interesting/worthy problem, especially since we encounter it in the same environment in which what efforts that are possible to identify those who are likely to use the right to free speech as an excuse for violence are ALSO under attack?

I really am just exploring why the possibility that innocent persons who don't give a rat's ass one way or another about something like The Innocence of Muslims, or, say, Piss Christ, apparently have no rights whatsoever to their expectations not to be killed or harmed compared to the advocates of what is referred to as "free" speech, especially since those advocates of free speech know full well what can happen and, in some cases, even engage in their right to "free" expression BECAUSE of what is likely to happen.

If someone has a gun to someone else's head and you have a variety of options for how to react to that and you choose the single option that will most likely result in the trigger being pulled: 1. Why is that not at least accessory to murder? & 2. Why must we honor your behavior as a necessarily FREE action, when there were so many other things that you COULD have just as "freely" chosen to do?

If the justification for an action is that it is a FREE expression, shouldn't it actually be free? Or is it okay that what some people say is free expression is actually as bound by certain kinds of outcomes or consequences, which can include violence, as any other form of oppression?

[msongs]

3. fear of religious bullies and thugs is not a good way to live nt

[patrice]

6. I'd bet that the by far greatest majority agree with you. The question is what is the

best thing to do about that, given the very real fact that certain kinds of actions produce results, whether they should or not, that give those bullies even deeper roots, so we end up fighting an even bigger deeper problem than before we __________________ in order to make that problem smaller and less well rooted.

[Bluenorthwest]

9. This is why you need to address the film I mentioned...you say 'certain kinds of

actions produce results' but the fact is that the violence comes not matter what the actions, if the people framing the issue lie to their angry people. 'Jews made this' and 'Quinn plays the Prophet for laughs' are not content of those pieces they are shit said about them falsely by assholes wanting violence.

[patrice]

12. I get that. You don't want our behaviors ruled by what they are going to do ANYway. And I'm saying

if freedom is the criteria, the highest value, well then that includes the freedom not only to do what they don't want you to do, but also the freedom to not to do what they don't want you to do, i.e. the freedom and power to be autonomous rather than reactionary, one way or the other, about doing or not doing anything that they say.

It's just as slavish to be compelled into certain behaviors BECAUSE other people don't want you to do them as it is to not do what others don't want you to do because they don't want you to do it.

I yield the point that it's extremely difficult to know exactly why anyone is doing or not doing whatever, but if freedom of speech means anything, it includes the right to raise these questions about "freedom" of speech.

[JoeyT]

10. It's funny how the people that drag out that

fucking Holmes quote never bother to mention what he's talking about with it, probably because they know it will make any sane person on the left nervous about weakening the first amendment.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0249_0047_ZO.html

We admit that, in many places and in ordinary times, the defendants, in saying all that was said in the circular, would have been within their constitutional rights. But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.

That's the fire in a crowded theater argument. You can protest war as long as we're not currently in one.

So yeah, "Fire in a crowded theater" was spoken by a man advocating squelching dissent during a time of war. The same thing everyone that quotes it is pushing for, whether they know it or not.

[patrice]

13. Yes and this applies to war too, "But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances

Last edited Sat Sep 29, 2012, 04:32 PM - Edit history (1)

in which it is done" i.e. there are wars and then there are wars, so some protests are about the circumstances of a given war, especially dishonest circumstances that very likely will result in prolonged death and an increase in the chances of dying for anyone and everyone in that war. Protest in those circumstances don't increase danger to troops, they decrease the probabilities of danger by shouting fire when there actually IS a fire and people are going to die one way or another anyway.

Other wars, at least hypothetically but WW II is the most common example, do not meet that criteria, so one's freedom of speech could be determined differently.

In the greatest number of cases, I think it IS the individual's responsibility to make honest decisions about what circumstances are relevant to what one say/does. And I recognize the possibility that there are certain highly specialized sets of circumstances involving highly specialized information that, no matter how freely a given individual chooses whatever s/he says/does, there can be other factors that outweigh that choice and that's the responsibility of those to whom that decision making capacity has been delegated, so we should choose such persons very carefully, that is, by some means other than the letter that does or does not follow their name on some political roster.