From: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Mon Dec 15 2003 - 19:02:54 GMT
Platt, all,
Platt said:
There can be little doubt that the reform bill engages in "speech regulations" and thus on its face, threatens free speech rights.
Matt:
Of course it limits speech. That's not the question. As Stanley Fish famously argues, there's no such thing as free speech and its a good thing, too. Why? Well, lets have my favorite turn of the century pragmatist/law professional, Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, have the first word:
"[T]he character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.... The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic...."
So there are always limitations on speech, no matter how you cut it. Platt is simply wrong when he says, "the First Amendment to our Constitution expressly forbids Congress
from passing ANY law 'abridging the freedom of speech.'" It may say it, but every law professional knows that it ain't true, nor should it be true.
So, what kind of speech should we allow, what should our regulating rule of thumb be? The first restriction is Holmes' rule of "clear and present danger". Us leftists also vote for something like "fairness" based on the American ideal of "equality of opportunity," which last time I checked most people still pay homage to. But Platt shows his colors:
Platt said:
What is evil in the MOQ is for "fairness," a social pattern, to devour "free speech," and intellectual pattern.
Matt:
Well, there it is. "Fairness" in Platt's taxonomy is a social pattern. I'm not so sure it is, but even if it were that's not what Platt's argument hinges on. We all know that Pirsig says that the upper levels need the lower levels to exist. I'm not sure if Pirsig says this, but to me I find it pretty convincing to suggest that the lower levels also need to be "in order" for the upper levels to do their thing, i.e. the lower levels need to be, to some degree, clicking on all cylinders. If the body has cancer and dies, that particular intellect would disappear, no more ideas, no more free speech. If the US was taken over by a dictator, if democracy disappeared, their would be no more free speech. To me, if we accept Platt's taxonomy, Platt's argument hinges on whether "fairness" is really devouring free speech in this particular case.
I don't think it is. I think this because who are the people who have access to free speech? Rich people. Madison's vision of a plurality of competing interests all keeping each other in check against a tyranny of the majority is fatally flawed because he didn't account at all on the influence of money. As Schattschneider famously said about four decades ago, "The flaw in the pluralist heaven is that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upper-class accent." Why did Madison neglect the role of money? Because the only interests the Framers were speaking about and interested in all had enough money to have their interests heard because the only people that could vote, the only people who were allowed into politics, were rich, landed white guys. We do have a tyranny, but it is not by a majority of individual people, but by the people who have the majority of money.
I'm not interested in condemning the past. The only weak thing that needs to be said is that Madison's idea was limited by his historical context. But I emphatically say that THIS IS NOT THE WAY THINGS ARE NOW. Everybody is technically allowed into politics, but the reality is far from this. To help the reality of our situation match with the hopeful vision of our rhetoric, we need to allow poor people into the marketplace of ideas and one of the currently conceivable ways to do that, one of the hard fought for compromises, a real politik, reform conclusion reached by both a conservative and a liberal, is to restrict some of the money being spent by the rich, just as we had already decided was legitimate to do 30 years ago.
Why would the rich not want this? For the same reason that Madison and the other rich white guys didn't want to give democracy to everybody else: they were afraid of the poor taking away all their stuff. Its conceivable that Madison should have feared this possibility. Fact of the matter is, though, their are very few Commies out there now in this day and age who want to abolish private property. I for one think it is a bad idea. But I do think some measures of redistribution, like free health care, should be in order, would in fact be a great thing. Is that taking away all of the rich people's money? No. Would it be a slippery slope? I doubt it. As long as we keep teaching the kids Hayek and the failures of communism, nobody will think its a good idea and nobody will want it.
Matt
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