Tag: Free Speech

No, I’m not blacking out my web page today, but I certainly support those who do. As Diana Hsieh explains, bills recently considered by Congress threaten to subject the internet to pervasive government controls.

Yes, I support intellectual property rights. But the bills in question threaten intellectual property rights in the name of protecting them. Censorship is never the answer to any problem, real or imagined.

For more, see SOPAStrike.com.

True to their word, the folks at Wikipedia blacked out their site to protest the bills in question.

James Taranto just doesn’t get it with respect to “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day,” which I have endorsed and promoted.

Here are the essential lines of Taranto’s April 26 column entitled, “Everybody Burn the Flag: If we don’t act like inconsiderate jerks, the terrorists will have won!”

[H]olding an “Everybody Burn the Flag Day” would be stupid, obnoxious and counterproductive if one seeks to persuade others that flag burning should be tolerated.

“Hate speech”–for example, shouting racial slurs, positing theories of racial supremacy or denying the Holocaust–is illegal in Canada and many European countries. In the U.S. it is protected by the First Amendment–but it has been known to provoke a violent reaction. … This column is also of the opinion that hate-speech laws are pernicious and that the First Amendment does and should protect the expression of even ugly and false ideas. But we would not endorse or participate in an “Everybody Shout a Racial Slur Day” or an “Everybody Deny the Holocaust Day” to make the point.

Why is “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” different? Because the taboo against depictions of Muhammad is not a part of America’s common culture. The taboos against flag burning, racial slurs and Holocaust denial are. The problem with the “in-your-face message” of “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” is not just that it is inconsiderate of the sensibilities of others, but that it defines those others — Muslims — as being outside of our culture, unworthy of the courtesy we readily accord to insiders. It is an unwise message to send, assuming that one does not wish to make an enemy of the entire Muslim world.

Taranto is totally wrong in all of his comparisons. (He is right to defend the First Amendment even in troublesome cases, so he gets full credit for that.) Drawing Mohammed is not remotely like burning the flag, shouting racial slurs, or denying the Holocaust. Nor does drawing Mohammed to protest Islamist death threats have anything to do with defining Muslims as cultural outsiders.

Even though people have the right to burn the American flag, it is the wrong thing to do because burning the flag is an expression of hatred against America, in its essential founding principles of liberty the greatest nation in the history of humanity. Shouting racial slurs, while properly legally protected, is wrong because racism is immoral and rooted in irrationality. Denying the Holocaust, again while properly legally protected, is wrong because the Holocaust is an objective fact of history, and denial of it is inextricably tied to racism (antisemitism).

In contrast, there is nothing inherently immoral about drawing Mohammed or any other religious figure. The Islamic taboo against drawing Mohammed is sheer irrationality and utterly ridiculous. Therefore, not only is drawing Mohammed properly legally protected, it is entirely morally proper, unlike burning the flag, shouting racial slurs, or denying the Holocaust.

For Taranto to miss this key distinction is simply stunning.

(Update: however, I can think of a hypothetical circumstance in which burning a U.S. flag would be acceptable, if unsavory. Let us say that some Americans were making death threats against some leftist group or some Muslim group for burning the flag. Let us further say that such a threat had actually been acted on or carried out, as is the case with Islamist threats, and that there was a legitimate fear of more murders. In that case, burning the flag with the express purpose of protesting the death threats and alleviating the plight of the threatened parties (by providing moral support and by spreading the risk) would be acceptable. In that case, burning the flag would not be a sign of hatred for America, but an act of solidarity for the core principles of America, which involve the protection of individual rights. Similarly, if the U.S. passed “hate speech” censorship laws, there might be a way to violate the technical aspects of the law without actually endorsing racism or Holocaust denial. Notice that no such contextual nuance is possible regarding an outright taboo against drawing Mohammed, precisely because such a taboo is by its nature inherently irrational.)

Now, I also went out of my way to make my drawing of Mohammed otherwise blasphemous, in that I refer to Mohammed as a “false prophet.” However, in my view, Mohammed really is a false prophet, and in reality Mohammed in no way represented any god.

My wife, by contrast, drew a great picture of Mohammed that is not on its face blasphemous, beyond the fact that any drawing of Mohammed is considered by Islamists to be blasphemous. (Whether scholarly Islam in fact prohibits any and all drawings of Mohammed is a theological point beyond my interests.)

A free society requires a clear distinction between what is moral and what is legally protected, and Taranto largely grasps this critical point. People properly have the legal right to do all sorts of immoral things, ranging from getting roaring drunk and lying to their mother to expressing racist views. What is properly outlawed is any action that violates the rights of another individual by initiating force or fraud.

Taranto is noting a superficial similarity between drawing Mohammed, expressing racist views, etc. — namely, that all those things are properly legally protected — and inappropriately drawing a moral equivalence between all those things. But expressing racist views is inherently immoral, while drawing Mohammed is inherently within the bounds of morality. Taranto grasps that not everything that should be legal is moral, but he fails to notice that, in the case of drawing Mohammed, what is properly legal is also perfectly moral.

Regarding the alleged definition of Muslims as outsiders, Taranto is simply Making Stuff Up. While perhaps some who participate in the “Everybody Draw Mohammed” campaign may wish to define Muslims as outsiders, there is nothing involving the campaign itself that does so. Taranto seems to forget that plenty of U.S. citizens are Muslims. Taranto also seems to assume that all Muslims everywhere think it’s wrong to draw Mohammed. I’m sure that lots of Muslims throughout the world regard the taboo against drawing Mohammed as stupid, irrational, and counter to an enlightened religious view.

Regardless, what is relevant is that some Muslims (who happen to be American) have made death threats against other human beings. While I am especially motivated to participate in the campaign to draw Mohammed because the most recent threats were made against people from my home state, the point of the campaign is to protest such death threats, regardless of where they are made and against whom they are made.

If (counterfactually) it were the case that drawing Mohammed made “an enemy of the entire Muslim world,” that would only prove the irrational hatred and violence of the entire Muslim world — hatred and violence that would be sparked by any number of faux “offenses.” But, thankfully, Taranto is wrong; a significant portion of the Muslim world — particular within the U.S. — is more enlightened than to display hostility over some drawing. However, obviously violence and rights violations are all too common in the Muslim world, and we have a moral responsibility to condemn that.

* * *

Taranto also quotes Ann Althouse as condemning the “Everybody Draw Mohammed” campaign because it “doesn’t show enough respect and care for the people who are trying to tolerate the expression that outrages them.”

By that logic, the recent works of the “new Atheists” never should have been published, because those works did not adequately respect Christians.

Althouse’s argument is bunk.

The primary and overriding purpose of free speech is to allow us to express our ideological views without fear of punishment or reprisal. I think Platonism is false. I think Kantianism is false. I think Christianity is false. I think Islam is false. And by God I’m going to say as much, and I’m not going to be intimidated into silence because Platonists, Kantians, Christians, or Muslims may be offended by my statements.

I’m certainly not going to refrain from drawing some religious figure because of an absurd, antirational, ignorant taboo.

I do not believe that it is a sign of respect to someone to pander to his or her blatant irrationalism. I believe it is a profound sign of disrespect. For, apparently unlike Taranto and Alhouse, I believe that Muslims, as people with a rational capacity, are potentially open to reason, rather than hopelessly mired in insane superstitions.

While it is true that a drawing of Mohammed, as such, is not an argument, it is also true that my drawing contains an explicit message, and that a drawing can point toward a rational argument.

It is precisely because I define Muslims as “insiders” — as fellow members of the human race — that I insist on engaging them in reasoned dialog and refuse to accept their threats of violence as substitute.

It is Taranto and Althouse who disrespect Muslims and define them as outside the realm of reason.

* * *

Taranto does provide some useful background on the matter. While I had credited Dan Savage with the idea for “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day,” in fact he in turn picked up the idea from Molly Norris. Norris, it turns out, was quite surprised by the attention her little cartoon generated.

Of course, having seen Norris’s cartoon, I understood that her “group” was fictional and intended in jest. I had noticed the line from her cartoon: “Sponsored by Citizens Against Citizens Against Humor or CACAH (pronounced ca-ca).” I remember enough Spanish to understand that was a joke. Also, Norris drew the “likeness” of Mohammed as various silly objects, such as a coffee mug and a cherry.

Regardless of its origins as a jest, the “Everybody Draw Mohammed” campaign is a great idea, and it has a very serious purpose. The point of it, beyond illustrating the lunacy of prohibiting the drawing of a religious figure, is to provide so many targets that the violent Islamists cannot hope to intimidate everybody. They can send a handful of Danish cartoonists into hiding. They can suppress South Park. But they cannot intimidate, suppress, or harass all of us. Drawing Mohammed is a legitimate and important way to express our outrage over such death threats, to show our solidarity with the threatened, and to stand up for freedom of conscience.

For what it’s worth, here is Norris’s recent statement, as posted on her web page:

I make cartoons about current, cultural events. I made a cartoon of a fictional ’poster’ entitled “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!” with a nonexistent group’s name — Citizens Against Citizens Against Humor — drawn on the cartoon. It was in specific response to the recent censoring of a South Park episode, a desire to bring home the importance of the first amendment. I did not intend for my cartoon to go viral. I did not intend to be the focus of any ’group’. This particular cartoon has struck a gigantic nerve, something I was totally unprepared for.

Personally I can feel afraid of Muslims because I really have no idea if in their hearts they hate non-Muslims. There are so many interpretations of the religion that I hear told — sometimes it is a very extreme translation (that’s the scary part, the radicals that believe that Westerners should die), then at other times it sounds more peaceful.

I hope for the sake of this country that moderate Muslims will speak out with everyone else against any violent members of that or any other religion. That way I would know that there is a difference. Maybe this cartoon I made, this fictional poster of “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!” had such a wildfire effect because it is finally time for Muslims and non-Muslims to understand one another more.

I am going back to the drawing table now!

Thanks,
Molly

My response is this: Hang in there, Molly! You did nothing wrong. Those of us who have chosen to draw Mohammed have done so for our own reasons, and not because of you. I respect you for standing up for the First Amendment, and I encourage you to be even more bold in that stance.

The Minnesota Fox affiliate posted a follow-up story about Norris, which is a little sad:

In more fallout around the decision by Comedy Central to censor an episode of “South Park” that contained comedic depictions of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, a cartoonist has now censored herself. … Now Norris has backed off from that position. She no longer has the illustration on her website and she claims responses to the idea were overwhelming.

When did we get so damned afraid in this country speak our minds?

* * *

Throughout the debate over South Park, various commentators have been extremely sloppy in their use of the term “censorship.” That’s a real problem, because censorship is a horrible evil, but it’s hard to fight if people don’t even know what it is.

While in other contexts “censorship” can carry a broader meaning (as with the term “self-censorship”), in the political context censorship means the use of political force to ban or suppress expression. For example, if the government fines, arrests, imprisons, or harasses you for what you say or write, that is censorship.

The actions of private parties never constitute censorship. If a newspaper decides to fire a writer or pull a writer’s article, the newspaper is NOT censoring that writer. If I write a blog post but then intentionally erase it, that is NOT censorship.

While Comedy Central capitulated to terrorist threats and suppressed the expression of the South Park creators, Comedy Central did not technically censor the show. You can call the acting executives at Comedy Central damned cowards, but you oughtn’t call them censors. They have the right to broadcast whatever they want on their station, consonant with their contractual obligations.

To conflate government censorship with nonviolent private acts is to obliterate the very concept of censorship and to open the gates to actual censorship.

If somebody calls you on the phone or writes to you and threatens you over an article you’ve written (as I have been threatened), that certainly constitutes the criminal suppression of speech, something that is properly outlawed and that the government properly protects against. However, such criminal action is not properly considered censorship, a term that refers only to government action.

Now, a government can sanction the criminal suppression of speech, by failing to protect those who have been threatened, and that becomes censorship. Or, as with the case of the Taliban, the street criminals effectively constitute the government, so criminal suppression of speech amounts to censorship. Morally, government censorship and criminal suppression of speech are equivalent evils.

The U.S. government has, by my understanding, taken measures to protect the creators of South Park, even if those measures have been too weak. If President Obama has condemned the death threats, I have not heard of it.

It is absolutely critical that we understand and articulate the meaning of censorship, for there is nothing more important to the maintenance of a free society than the protection of free speech, which requires the eradication of criminal suppression of speech and of (government) censorship.

***

Comments

Charles T.April 27, 2010 at 8:09 AM
Hear hear. Well stated, Mr. Armstrong. And here’s a likeness of Mohammud for everyone to enjoy:

;-[

A.W. April 27, 2010 at 9:21 PM

Hey i posted this on your previous “everyone draw mohammed” post, but i am happy to do it twice. I have created a blog for the everyone draw mohammed protest, here:

http://everyonedrawmohammed.blogspot.com/

Aaron

Anonymous April 30, 2010 at 6:05 PM

Your discussion about what constitutes censorship is really quibbling over use of the word. MW indicates censorship is the act of censoring, which is “examining in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable”. There is no requirement that the censoring is being done by a government or some other group engaged in what you term criminal suppression. So use of the word censorship in the dialogue is not necessarily an indication of sloppy usage.

I would agree that censorship by those groups is more egregious as it represents some censoring being attempted by parties not otherwise party to any given speech. In this particular instance, I think those complaining about Comedy Central’s decision may have misdirected their ire.

Otherwise, not a bad article. Still have some mixed feelings myself about Everybody Draw Mohammed Day and undecided as to whether I’ll participate.

Ari April 30, 2010 at 6:45 PM

Anonymous is quite wrong about the meaning of censorship. I note that, in other contexts, it can have different meanings. But the key meaning is in politics, where censorship means only government action to suppress speech. Otherwise, censorship basically becomes a synonym for editing. Obviously we don’t want to ban editing, but we certainly do want to ban government suppression of speech. It is absolutely imperative to distinguish private action versus government action when it comes to the limitation of speech.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has imposed unjust new rules — “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising” — that take effect today.

Eric Robinson summarizes the nature of the rules:

[The FTC’s rules] suggest that bloggers or other consumers who “endorse” a product or service online may be liable for civil penalties if they make false or unsubstantiated claims about a product or fail to disclose “material connections” between themselves and an advertiser. (Although Richard Cleland, assistant director of the FTC’s division of advertising practices, told Fast Company that the Commission will focus on warnings and cease-and-desist orders, rather than monetary fines, and told PRNewser that the Commission will target advertisers for violations, not bloggers. Another FTC official reiterated this.)

The new rules pose a variety of problems. The FTC has no legitimate authority to issue such rules, which defy the First Amendment and constitute censorship and the chilling of free speech. The rules are extremely broad, ranging from free review copies of books to Twitter posts. The rules are arbitrary and ambiguous, such that their precise requirements and penalties cannot be determined in advance. The rules thus open the door to political abuses. The rules are discriminatory in that they subject bloggers to different standards than print journalists.

The FTC is acting in blatant defiance of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and therefore the FTC should be abolished and its rules rescinded.

First I summarize the basic arguments against the FTC’s rules. Then I link to other commentaries about those rules. Finally I review and analyze the rules in some detail.

FTC’s Rules Overreach and Violate Rights

1. The FTC’s rules constitute censorship and onerous controls.

Censorship consists not only of forcibly restricting what people may say and write, but forcing people to say and write things against their judgment. In this case, the FTC is forcing people to issue disclosures regarding communications that do not in any way violate anyone’s rights.

Edward Champion points to an article by Caroline McCarthy for Cnet News indicating that the FTC rules apply to Facebook and Twitter posts as well. The FTC’s Richard Cleland told McCarthy, “There are ways to abbreviate a disclosure that fit within 140 characters [Twitter’s limit]. You may have to say a little bit of something else, but if you can’t make the disclosure, you can’t make the ad.”

The FTC thus requires that any Twitter post that could be construed as an “endorsement” include a disclosure that meets the FTC’s guidelines, within 140 characters. Such a policy limits the amount of information a user can post to Twitter or discourages the use of Twitter for certain purposes.

Champion notes that even an “Amazon Affiliates link” might trigger the FTC’s disclosure requirements.

The FTC’s rules constitute onerous controls in that they require bloggers and others to spend time complying with the FTC’s rules. For example, the primary documentation of the rules runs 81 pages in length. The effort spent complying with the rules detracts from time available to write about other issues.

2. The FTC’s rules are capricious and nonobjective.

The FTC’s rules, by the agency’s own admission, cannot be decided in advance in all cases. Instead, the FTC will “consider each use of these new media on a case-by-case basis for purposes of law enforcement” (page 8. Unless otherwise specified, page numbers refer to the FTC’s documentation of the rules).

The FTC’s rules depends on what “consumers are likely to believe” about a communication, a subjective guideline that cannot be determined in advance (e.g., page 4).

The rules also extend to those who supply free samples or review books. Using the example of a video game manufacturer who sends a free copy of a game to a reviewer, the FTC states, “The manufacturer should advise [the recipient] at the time it provides the gaming system that this connection should be disclosed, and it should have procedures in place to try to monitor his postings for compliance” (pages 79-80). What constitutes adequate compliance, and under what circumstances a supplier might be subject to enforcement, the FTC declines to detail.

In an interview with Edward Champion, the FTC’s Richard Cleland offered only guesswork in answer to whether a free movie screening constitutes compensation: “The movie is not retainable. Obviously it’s of some value. But I guess that my only answer is the extent that it is viewed as compensation as an individual who got to see a movie.”

Cleland chose to “reserve judgment” on another matter. Champion writes, “In cases where a publisher is advertising one book and the blogger is reviewing another book by the same publisher, Cleland replied, ‘I don’t know. I would reserve judgment on that. My initial reaction to it is that it doesn’t seem like a relationship.'”

Cleland further told Champion, “These are very complex situations that are going to have to looked at on a case-by-case basis to determine whether or not there is a sufficient nexus, a sufficient compensation between the seller and the blogger, and so what we have done is to provide some guidance in this area. And some examples in this area where there’s an endorsement.”

Furthermore, as Champion reports, whether the FTC will target bloggers with fines — and how much the fines might be — remain points of ambiguity.

In other words, often there no objective way to determine when and how the FTC’s rules apply prior to an enforcement action by the FTC.

As Walter Olson notes, “FTC enforcers will engage in their own fact-specific, and inevitably subjective, balancing before deciding whether to press for fines or other penalties. In other words, instead of knowing whether you’re legally vulnerable, you have to guess.”

Moreover, Olson notes, the receipt of freebies can “after some ill-defined point” create a relationship requiring a blogger “to disclose that relationship whenever writing about the institution in question.”

Ann Athouse argues that the FTC has “deliberately made a grotesquely overbroad rule, enough to sweep so many of us into technical violations, but we’re supposed to feel soothed by the knowledge that government agents will decide who among us gets fined. No, no, no. Overbreath itself is a problem. And so is selective enforcement.”

The FTC’s rules will therefore have a chilling effect on free speech. Those who are not part of an organization with legal representation — and those who cannot independent afford to pay lawyers — will now face a serious risk in publishing commentary.

Moreover, book publishers and others will face increased costs associated with complying with the rules, increasing the difficulty especially of small firms to publish works and advertise via review copies.

3. The FTC’s rules open the door to further political abuses.

Political operatives inside government once turned to tax audits to punish ideological opponents. More recently campaign finance complaints have chilled free speech. The FTC’s rules will provide yet another opportunity for political attack dogs to harass their opponents by filing complaints with the FTC based on perceived technical violations of the rules.

Even if the FTC clears the accused party, fighting such complaints can consume considerable money, energy, and worry. The possibility for such politically-motivated abuses will further chill free speech.

The FTC’s Richard Cleland told Caroline McCarthy, “As a practical matter, we don’t have the resources to look at 500,000 blogs. We don’t even have the resources to monitor a thousand blogs. And if somebody reports violations then we might look at individual cases…”

McCarthy notes that “angry readers may use the regulations to attempt to get back at blogs they don’t like.” Ron Workman predicts that “the trolls will have a great time turning these offenders in.”

4. The FTC’s rules undermine the equal protection of the laws.

The FTC “acknowledges that bloggers may be subject to different disclosure
requirements than reviewers in traditional media” (page 47).

The FTC’s Richard Cleland explicitly acknowledged that the FTC’s rules subject bloggers to different standards than newspaper book reviewers.

5. The FTC’s rules violate privacy.

A blogger properly has the right to choose what information to disclose and what information to keep private.

In some cases, the FTC’s rules might require bloggers to disclose information that could compromise an individual’s privacy or safety. For example, following in the footsteps of America’s founders, someone might choose to write anonymously about a controversial political issue, such as abortion or homosexuality. A blogger with a material connection to the writer could not write about the anonymous work without disclosing personal information about the author.

The ability to write anonymously is central to the First Amendment, as it was central to American independence and the creation of the United States Constitution.

6. The FTC’s rules are unnecessary.

In clear-cut cases of a seller paying somebody to promote a product, generally those parties do have a moral obligation to potential customers to disclose the nature of the relationship. However, most things that are moral obligations ought not be forced by law.

Publications large and small generally implement policies to assure readers or viewers that their material is free from financial incentive, or that any incentive is disclosed. Bloggers have an incentive to disclose relevant material connections in order to build trust with readers, and consumers tend to promote reputable sources of information. Producers and consumers of information tend to interact voluntarily to resolve potential problems of disclosure.

Those who hide a clear bias generally suffer exposure and ridicule, as John Lott discovered after posting positive comments about his own work under an assumed name.

The government does have a legal responsibility to crack down on fraud. For instance, if someone claims to be an uncompensated reviewer but is in fact paid to write positive reviews, that would constitute dishonest fraud, properly the target of a criminal or civil suit.

However, short of fraud and overt calls for violence, what people say and write, and how they say and write it, is properly none of the government’s business.

The FTC’s rules rest on the fallacious doctrine that material conditions determine ideas. Granted that some people express views because of financial incentives, generally what matters most is a person’s ideological conclusions. While ideology is necessary to integrate ideas, it can adhere to the facts of reality or stray from them. Often the more dangerous bias arises not from financial incentives but from ideological blinders, and obviously no federal rule can address that vastly more serious problem.

Even a direct and substantial financial connection need not indicate any financial bias. Often a paid spokesperson already supported the product in question. The much weaker and distant material connections the FTC’s rules may also cover, ranging from free books to Amazon links, don’t pose any serious problem of bias, and certainly not any problem serious enough to warrant threats of federal enforcement actions.

Whether a substantial financial relationship is present or not, and whether it is disclosed or not, consumers of information and products have a responsibility to critically evaluate claims. A consumer who takes a single blogger’s weakly substantiated word about some product is frankly an idiot, and no federal rule can compensate for that.

The FTC’s rules continue the trend of infantilizing American adults. The FTC presumes that American consumers are just too stupid to check the facts for themselves and properly evaluate claims about products. Yet such rules tend to generate a self-fulfilling prophesy: they encourage consumers to rely on government bureaucrats to do their thinking for them. Such rules promote Homer Simpson’s mentality: “The whole reason we have elected officials [and their legions of bureaucrats] is so we don’t have to think all the time.” Thus, such rules undercut the self-responsible individualism that is the backbone of America’s success.

Links to Other Commentaries About the FTC’s Rules

Regulating Speech to Death
by Diana Hsieh
October 5, 2009

A double standard for online speech
by Vincent Carroll
October 14, 2009

Interview with the FTC’s Richard Cleland
by Edward Champion
October 5, 2009

FTC: Bloggers Must Disclose Payments for Reviews (NYT)
by Ron Workman
October 5, 2009

Yes, new FTC guidelines extend to Facebook fan pages
by Caroline McCarthy
October 5, 2009

Where Did You Get That Keychain?
by Walter Olson
October 16, 2009

New FTC Rules Aim to Kill the Buzz on Blogs
by Eric P. Robinson
October 8, 2009

The FTC going after bloggers and social media is like “sending a government goon into Denny’s to listen to the conversations in the corner booth and demand that you disclose that your Uncle Vinnie owns the pizzeria whose product you just endorsed.”
by Ann Althouse
October 6, 2009

Letter to the FTC on Guides Governing Bloggers>
by Laura Sell, Senior Publicist, Duke University Press
October 7, 2009

Disclosures

The document, “Ari Armtrong’s Disclosures Unjustly Compelled by the FTC,” has now been published. I will update it from time to time in an attempt to comply with the FTC’s unjust and rights-violating rules.

As I note in that document, “I do not expect that the FTC’s rules will be ambitiously enforced in the short-term. Many bad laws (and authorized rules) have no noticeable impact when they are first implemented. Often such laws and rules remain on the books for years before bureaucrats and prosecutors take advantage of them to actively violate people’s rights. That does not make their existence more comforting.”

Fox News reports:

Democrats in Congress have declared war on prayer, say conservative groups who object to a provision in the stimulus bill that was passed by the House of Representatives last week.

The provision bans money designated for school renovation from being spent on facilities that allow “religious worship.” It has ignited a fury among critics who say it violates the First Amendment and is an attempt to prevent religious practice in schools.

However, forcing people to fund schools that do allow “religious worship” violates their free speech rights. We have the right not to finance the propagation of ideas with which we disagree.

There is, of course, an obvious solution to this that violates no one’s rights of free speech. Reject the bailout.

Vincent Carroll describes a recent case of criminal libel, then concludes:

[J.P.] Weichel [of Loveland] may not be a very nice guy, but the answer isn’t to put him in jail for speech that doesn’t endanger a soul. If what he said was false, then the victims should sue him for libel.

But leave the district attorney out of it.

It is a horribly written, nonobjective law:

18-13-105. Criminal libel.

(1) A person who shall knowingly publish or disseminate, either by written instrument, sign, pictures, or the like, any statement or object tending to blacken the memory of one who is dead, or to impeach the honesty, integrity, virtue, or reputation or expose the natural defects of one who is alive, and thereby to expose him to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule, commits criminal libel.

(2) It shall be an affirmative defense that the publication was true, except libels tending to blacken the memory of the dead and libels tending to expose the natural defects of the living.

(3) Criminal libel is a class 6 felony.

Notice that the law expressly allows the possibility of true “libel,” though the more common sense of the term implies that a libelous statement is false. The first paragraph contains no test of truth.

We have every right — and indeed a moral responsibility — to “blacken the memory” of bad people who have died, as well as to impeach the reputations of the living insofar as they negatively impact the culture or polity.

Colorado’s criminal libel statute is an affront not only to free speech but to justice.

I hereby publicly declare that the politicians who supported the passage of this statute thereby violated liberty and justice and implemented an idiotic law. My express purpose here is to “blacken the memory” of those politicians. I further publicly declare that among the “natural defects” of Larimer County District Attorney Larry Abrahamson, who filed charges against Weichel, is a willingness to trample liberty and justice, insofar as he sanctions the criminal libel statute. I intend here to impeach his reputation, and I heartily encourage the public to heap upon him hatred, contempt, and ridicule for this case.

(While I hate to follow such a diatribe with a magnanimous note, Abrahamson may have inadvertently performed a public service by again bringing this unjust law to public light and giving the 2009 legislature another opportunity to repeal it. Now all Abrahamson needs to do to restore his reputation is to testify for the law’s repeal.)