Should there be restrictions on speech? I’m not talking about in someone’s home (they can tell you to leave), but anywhere (the government uses force against you). For example, should you be punished for writing a letter to the president that says “I’m gonna kill you!”? What about “slander”?
Force and threats of force are both categorized as crimes. Slander is a civil wrong resolved by a civil suit, not a crime.
Force and threats of force are both categorized as crimes. Slander is a civil wrong resolved by a civil suit, not a crime.
Ok, but do you think about restricting speech?
Force and threats of force are both categorized as crimes. Slander is a civil wrong resolved by a civil suit, not a crime. Libel is the same as slander, except it involves written and printed material.
This is correct and good. This would continue to be the law in a more objective and Objectivist world.
I really don’t know if you’re pulling my leg or not.
I’m asking if YOU think there should be restrictions on expression, and if so or not, WHY so or not.
He answered your question. What kind of pompous attitude assumes that this is not HIS thinking on the matter?
He answered your question. What kind of pompous attitude assumes that this is not HIS thinking on the matter?
There’s a pretty standard convention on this forum: when people start a thread and ask for people’s opinions on something, we’re also implicitly asking for justifications for those opinions. So far, all Grames has said (other than informing me of the fact that there are laws restricting speech, which I never asked about) is “This is correct and good.”
It is a standard convention on this and all other forums, and for all other forms of writing and speaking, that the opinions expressed are the author’s own. The exception to this is so remarkable and important that it has its own convention: quoting.
I gave my own opinion. There should be no restrictions on speech beyond threats and slander/libel, and those restrictions are valid.
I suppose if i stretch my imagination I think of more things that might be described as “restrictions on speech”: protecting classified information, ‘no-compete’ clauses in employment contracts, intellectual property, judicial ‘gag’ orders and sealing of records, injunctions in general. There are probably more.
What is your real question, the one you haven’t asked yet?
What is your real question, the one you haven’t asked yet?
Why should there be any restrictions on speech (or, more appropriately, communication/expression)? By what standard do you judge when someone should get forced used against them for their expression and when they shouldn’t? Why is it aggression/similar if I write a letter to the president saying I’m going to kill him?
Threats are restricted because they are acts of force. A more pointed question is to ask is “why are threats acts of force?”
Not all threats are acts of force. Usually in discussing this subject it is assumed that the threat is of the specific type that is an act of force. The legal term of art is “terroristic threat”. http://definitions.u…oristic-threat/ gives an example from Texas statutes:
TERRORISTIC THREAT
(a) A person commits an offense if he threatens to commit any offense involving violence to any person or property with intent to:
- cause a reaction of any type to his threat by an official or volunteer agency organized to deal with emergencies;
- place any person in fear of imminent serious bodily injury;
- prevent or interrupt the occupation or use of a building; room; place of assembly; place to which the public has access; place of employment or occupation; aircraft, automobile, or other form of conveyance; or other public place;
- cause impairment or interruption of public communications, public transportation, public water, gas, or power supply or other public service;
- place the public or a substantial group of the public in fear of serious bodily injury; or
- influence the conduct or activities of a branch or agency of the federal government, the state, or a political subdivision of the state.
Ayn Rand explains why force and the threat of force are wrong in several quotes available at the Lexicon entry for physical force.
A stated intention to boycott a shop unless it starts to carry better merchandise, or to vote for a congressman’s opponent in the next election unless he votes a certain way are not threats. See the ordinary definitions of threats.
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There should be restrictions on speech, for instance in music using someone else’s lyrics would be theft. But in terms of threats, no I do not think it should be censored as it is actions that are the problem, threats is to broad a term to censor as “threats to the establishments” could then be censored and we all know what that leads to.
Should there be restrictions on speech? I’m not talking about in someone’s home (they can tell you to leave), but anywhere (the government uses force against you). For example, should you be punished for writing a letter to the president that says “I’m gonna kill you!”? What about “slander”?
Threats are not “speech” in either an epistemological or a constitutional sense - threats are force.
Slander - deliberate falsehoods about another person - are also force. They cause harm to a person’s reputation with no basis in reality.
Speech means the expression of ideas - restriction of speech refers to limiting the right of someone to attempt to persuade another person. It doesn’t mean standing up in a crowded room and shouting fire in order to cause a panic which could kill someone.
I think threats are probably force (I’m open to persuasion here). If someone calls you up and says “I’m coming to kill you!”, then you’re going to worry about whether or not that’s true, thereby forcing you to react.
I think you can argue threats are force along the same lines that fraud is force:
(this is from a pro-Rand website)
" Suppose a man reads an advertisement for a used car and goes to check it out. The owner assures the man that the car’s odometer reading is correct; this, however, is not true, and the owner knows it because he turned back the mileage himself. As far as the man can tell, though, the owner is being honest, and everything seems to be in order; so he buys the car and drives it away. But notice that the man is not driving the car he bargained for; he is not driving the car he was willing to buy. Unbeknownst to him, he is driving a different car—one with higher mileage than the one for which he was willing to pay. By lying to the man about the car’s mileage and by selling it to him on the basis of that false information, the crook has defrauded the man. Because the man’s willingness to exchange his money for the car was based partly on the crook’s lie, the crook has gained and is now keeping the man’s money against his will. In so doing, the crook is physically forcing the man to act against his judgment. By fraudulently taking and keeping the man’s money, the crook is physically preventing him from spending or saving it as he otherwise would.
Fraud, the act of gaining or keeping someone’s property by means of deception, is a form of indirect physical force. It is physical force, because, although indirect, it physically impedes the victim’s ability to act fully on his judgment. Other types of indirect physical force include extortion, the act of gaining or keeping someone’s property by distant threat of force; copyright and patent infringements, acts of misusing someone’s intellectual property (and thus impinging on his ability to act on it); slander, the act of making false statements that damage a person’s reputation (and thereby retarding his ability to act on it); unilateral breach of contract, the act of refusing to deliver goods or services one has agreed to deliver; and so forth. In all such cases, although the force is indirect, it is still physical: When and to the degree it is used, it physically prevents the victim from acting according to his judgment.
Whether direct or indirect, physical force used against a person stops him from living fully as a human being: To the extent it is used, it prevents him from employing his means of survival—the judgment of his mind. "
As for slander, I convinced that is not a crime. First of all, there’s not necessarily going to be harm to a person’s reputation if someone slanders (it’s possible no one will believe him/her). And second, suppose your reputation is diminished. So what? It’s only because a bunch of people believe the slanderer, but you’re not forced to change your behavior and injured in a tangible way. If slander in the conventional sense is wrong, then what about any opinion expressed that diminishes your reputation (for example, getting demolished in a public debate, or someone saying “I think so-and-so is a terrible person because of X statement we all already know they made”.
Slander and libel are both torts premised on the idea that a professional reputation is traded on as a livelihood, which means it is property. Damaging that property with malicious falsehoods is the tort. See more at http://www.enotes.com/everyday-law-encyclopedia/libel-and-slander.
Grames, you’re not attempting to persuade me that slander should be a crime–you just provided a link that goes over the concept without attempting to justify it.
What are your responses to my arguments that slander is not a crime?
The lame examples you gave of people bitching when somebody said something bad about them would not even qualify as slander. Which is why you need first to understand what kinds of things are slander and what are not.
edit: Your ‘arguments’ are based off of examples which are not crimes, or torts. We are talking about torts here, not crimes. But they are not about slander either, so they fail to establish anything
Grames, what, then, do you think are the requirements of speech/communication in the general defamation as a tort violation and why? Is it just if they violate a contract? I’m asking (I shouldn’t made this more clear, I’m sorry) about speech which is illegal under any circumstances (regardless of contracts).
The only ones I can think of are which seem bad to me are threats, and distribution of information which involved a violation of privacy and/or child pornography. Should there be more? (i.e. Yelling “fire” in a crowded theater, which I have no problem with, unless there’s a rule by the owner not to do that).
The earlier link gives a good overview of the requirements:
A plaintiff who wishes to sue an individual or entity for libel or slander has the burden of proving four claims to a court: First, the plaintiff must show that the DEFENDANT communicated a defamatory statement. Second, the plaintiff must show that the statement was published or communicated to at least one other person besides the plaintiff. Third, the plaintiff must show that the communication was about the plaintiff and that another party receiving the communication could identify the plaintiff as the subject of the defamatory message. Fourth, the plaintiff must show that the communication injured the plaintiff’s reputation.
Defamation means injury to reputation. The concept of a reputation is the key concept of defamation law. I went looking for where I got the idea that reputation was property, but couldn’t remember where I originally got it. So here is a newer and good overview of the subject.
Post, Robert C., “The Social Foundations of Defamation Law: Reputation and the Constitution” (1986). Faculty Scholarship Series.
Paper 217. (53 pages)
http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/217/
The first case covered by Post is reputation as property, and it is most applicable to a ‘market society’ which is the ideal society in my opinion as an advocate of Objectivism. Common law is old however, and has retained aspects of older conceptions of ‘reputation as honor’ and ‘reputation as dignity’. The legal precedent is somewhat of a mishmash but I am confident that the combination of ‘reputation as property’ plus objectivity is the valid basis from which a proper legal system could sort out the issues.
A commercial example of defamation would be a dentist accused of having some contagious disease which causes his patients to cancel their appointments. If there was an identifiable source or merely primary disseminator of the rumor such as a newspaper article or a television news report, then the dentist could sue that entity for the loss of business as damages.
The Everyday Law Encyclopedia also noted the defenses against defamation:
There are four general defenses to slander and libel. Truth is an absolute defense. Consent by the plaintiff for the publication of the defamatory statement is a defense. Accidental publication of the statement is a defense. Finally, the statements of certain defendants in certain circumstances, such as lawyers, judges, jurors, and witnesses, are protected from defamation for PUBLIC POLICY reasons. This type of protection is known as privilege.
If the dentist actually has the disease reported then he will lose his suit despite the fact that the damages are just as real. Objectively, the dentist’s loss of business is caused by the disease not the people who spread the news. If the dentist did not have a disease and lost business due to the defamatory reports then the cause can only be those people who spread the false reports, and the dentist should win the suit.
Grames, you keep telling me what this is without telling me why you think it should exist. I don’t see how reputation can be considered property. How do you argue that is?
Read the link to Post. There is no need for me to reinvent the wheel.
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