What I'd be protecting by crossing a picket line in order to make sure a newspaper was delivered on time would be the newspaper owner's property rights.
You can't divorce free speech from a speech-item like a newspaper. That's utterly ridiculous. But here's another example that doesn't involve speech-items. The Klan has come to town, because drunken Indian Ward Churchill has said bad things about white people. They have a permit to march and speak; of course, they end up surrounded by hundreds of working class people who plan to shout and chant and drown out the Klan's speech, then will fill the streets to prevent the Klan from marching over to the curb in front of Churchill's house.
Doug Lain, Free Speech Activist, will clearly side with the police as they sweep away the counter-protestors, and will happily club a few heads too, to ensure that Klan speech is not disrupted. After all, Ward Churchill might now know that the only good Indian is a dead Indian!
would you be willing to concede that there are times when protecting free speech is more important than working class solidarity?
no subject
Date: 2005-02-03 09:02 am (UTC)You can't divorce free speech from a speech-item like a newspaper. That's utterly ridiculous. But here's another example that doesn't involve speech-items. The Klan has come to town, because drunken Indian Ward Churchill has said bad things about white people. They have a permit to march and speak; of course, they end up surrounded by hundreds of working class people who plan to shout and chant and drown out the Klan's speech, then will fill the streets to prevent the Klan from marching over to the curb in front of Churchill's house.
Doug Lain, Free Speech Activist, will clearly side with the police as they sweep away the counter-protestors, and will happily club a few heads too, to ensure that Klan speech is not disrupted. After all, Ward Churchill might now know that the only good Indian is a dead Indian!
would you be willing to concede that there are times when protecting free speech is more important than working class solidarity?
Nope.