Freedom - I Do Not Think That Word Means What You Think It Means

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Come on, you guys.  He's a very sensitive prophet

UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon is confused.  First he said that the silly and amateurish movie trailer that seems to have excited so much consternation among Muslims represents a "disgraceful and shameful act".  Which it is, without a doubt.  Then he follows that up by saying "My position is that freedom of expression, while it is a fundamental right and privilege, should not be abused by such people, by such a disgraceful and shameful act..."  Let's be very clear here, because this is important in the way that provincial arguments over the second amendment or property ownership rights are not.  It is not possible to "abuse" one's freedom of expression, or freedom of speech, and it is constructs like this that lead to limitations on individual liberties that themselves lead to tyranny.  Not the kind of tyranny the tea partiers are always panicking about, the real kind with people rotting in brutal prisons for something they said.

Come on.  Just about every expression of controversial ideas will be seen by someone as an abuse of freedom.  Freedom of speech is, pretty much by definition, a right to express what you believe.  Oppressive and totalitarian regimes, along with theocracies, have laws that control speech.  They place limits on journalists, and allow prosecutions for insulting the political or religious leadership.  But in a democratic nation that guarantees freedom of expression, the idea that you can 'abuse' that freedom is a null construct.  It creates a limit on speech and expression that is every bit as toxic as actually criminalizing speech determined to be offensive.

We all know all the rote arguments.  Bad speech is best countered not by censorship, but by good speech.  We protect speech we find offensive, because expression of ideas we find to be benign needs no protection.  All these things are, and will remain, true.  But it's much, much deeper than that.  Free speech rights will always be fragile - everyone is all for them until it's their ox being gored.  Then they immediately demand the offending words and images be silenced, the speakers punished.  Unlike so many other inalienable rights, the right to say what you wish is always under question, with various groups at various times demanding that limits be placed on what can be said.

But that is unworkable.  The only way that freedom of expression can survive in any society is to define it's reach and limits up front, and then defend those parameters without question or hesitation as an absolute and unwavering human value, and when making judgments to always err on the side of more speech, not less.  Here in the US we have some common sense limits on speech and expression, including a prohibition against the incitement of violence.  This is only logical.  But now, if we allow religious groups to intimidate us into silence over the taboos in their quaint mythologies, we are accepting de facto limits on our rights as free human beings.  And that is not only intolerable, it is dangerous.
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