A look at the cost of free speech

[ficwize]

Given some of the meta flying around the old El Jay at the moment, I've become intrigued by the knowledge that not all democratic/republican governments (and, no, I am not talking about the American political parties here) allow free speech.

I will be upfront in my own bias and admit that that realization rocked me on my feet. While I grew up hearing that the First Amendment was a wonderful thing, as an adult (and as a lawyer), I got to look at it and see for myself.

And I came down on the side of free speech. But that's neither here nor there, really. I want to know what you guys think, if you'll tell me.

On the one hand, you hear stories about people being prosecuted for things like drawings of people engaged in illegal sex practices (which, to me is utterly ridiculous) and on the other, you hear about Neo Nazis being allowed to adopt a highway.

Given that most of the wank on the internet (ETA: "about which I am speaking now") centers around slash writing (and to some extent RPS, I guess?), I'm curious to know what people think. It seems to me that the same people got up in arms about Strikethrough as are now up in arms about people saying that they have the "right" to write whatever they want.

The internet, of course, isn't the United States government and isn't governed by those laws. So, when is the cost of free speech too high? Or is it never too high and should be endured even at the cost of listening to ridiculous, stupid, and/or hateful things being said?

Comments

[milleniumrex.livejournal.com]

Not necessarily, but they seem to get a lot less leeway from law enforcement, because everyone knows what they're up to. Someone else might not get charged, but if they step one foot over that line, they'll get hammered.