The Founding Fathers felt that free speech and free press were absolutely essential for a democracy. As soon as any political viewpoint imposes restrictions on political speech or text, the country has begun to lose its freedoms. So silencing the far right and far left undermines our democracy more than even those organizations are able to. Hate speech is protected, but hate crimes comes with stiffer penalties than similar crimes without the “hate” component. This is the careful balance our democracy tries to maintain.
When “hate” groups go beyond “hate” speech to using acts of violence to intimidate other Americans who do not agree with them, then it is time for the government to take action against those groups whether on the right or the left. As I have written before… you can’t defend acts of violence as acts of “justice” in a free society.
The problem is people don’t agree with the Founding Fathers principals with regard to free speech and free press. The principal was very simple. If people have access to all information and all opinions, then collectively (not individually) they can be trusted to make the “right decision” for the country whether you agree with that decision or not. If you can’t trust Americans as a group to make the right decision, then you have fundamental issues with democracy… think about that…
It is perfectly within the context of how our country makes decisions for individuals to try to influence what the “right decision” is through their speech and writing. But it becomes dangerous when individuals try to restrict the other side from trying to influence decisions through their speech and writing. Only slightly less harmful to our democracy is when the media tries to deny access to information in order to influence people.
We protect the media in this country not so it can deny people access to information but rather because we want them to feel safe providing people access to information. As social networks begin to act more and more as information disseminating media and not just as a place people share selfies and personal experiences, they take on the responsibilities of the press.
I do think the media should be measured against whether they are providing platforms for the dissemination of information on a non partisan basis, if yes, then they are protected… if not, then they lose the protection that is normally provided the “free” press… The exception would be the clearly labeled “opinion” page where the media outlet would have the ability to clearly label as opinion and express their opinion on an issue provided they also allowed for dissenting opinions to be published…
