Shut yer trap

Exercising "free speech" seems to cost a lot in legal fees lately...

Exhibit A:

The court, split 5-4, upheld an appeals court ruling that an anti-abortion group should have been allowed to air ads during the final two months before the 2004 elections. The case involved advertisements that Wisconsin Right to Life was prevented from broadcasting. The ads asked voters to contact the state's two senators, Democrats Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl, and urge them not to filibuster President Bush's judicial nominees. Feingold, a co-author of the campaign finance law, was up for re-election in 2004.

Exhibit B:

Marriage is the foundation of the natural family and sustains family values. That sentence is inflammatory, perhaps even a hate crime. At least it is in Oakland, Calif. That city's government says those words, italicized here, constitute something akin to hate speech and can be proscribed from the government's open e-mail system and employee bulletin board. And, predictably, the ineffable U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has ratified this abridgement of First Amendment protections. Fortunately, overturning the 9th Circuit is steady work for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Exhibit C:

After noticing more and more examples of people getting fired or being shunned for their political affiliation, activism, or speech, Bruce Barry, a professor of management and sociology at the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University, set out to research free speech in the workplace. What he discovered, he says, is that employers have much more power over our personal lives than ever before. The culmination of his research is the recently published Speechless: The Erosion of Free Expression in the American Workplace [Berrett-Koehler Publishers, June, 2007). In it, Barry demonstrates the problem through examples -- including a woman in Alabama who lost her job for having a John Kerry bumper sticker on her car -- and offers viable solutions. But if you're looking for conspiracy theories, don't look to Barry's work. He admits that there's no rampant movement by managers to censor everyone or fire every person who keeps a blog. But he is concerned when free speech is stifled.

The validity and accessibility of speech cannot be based on convenience or personal feelings. That way lies tyranny. Only by allowing all thoughts to be expressed, and careful, rational examination to sort wheat from chaff, can a free, civil society function. It's not always pretty, and it means people will hear that with which they disagree. But then, free speech isn't really "free." If some can die to defend it, surely the rest can live with it. Can't they?