
Free Speech Matters, Even When It’s Not Protected by the First Amendment - tomohawk
https://quillette.com/2019/08/18/free-speech-matters-even-when-its-not-protected-by-the-first-amendment/
======
eesmith
More Quillette nonsense.

Look, the First Amendment isn't only about "free speech". It also includes the
right to assembly. Quoting
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_assembly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_assembly)
, "Freedom of assembly is often used in the context of the right to protest,
while freedom of association is used in the context of labor rights and in the
Constitution of the United States is interpreted to mean both the freedom to
assemble and the freedom to join an association."

Thus, when Richwine at Quillette writes:

> "I should not have to worry that White will lobby my employer to fire me"

That's an objection to the First Amendment right to free speech. It is direct
example of White's complaint that "the “spirit of free speech” people want a
world where people can be consequence-free assholes: where there’s a set of
rules of civility and high-minded discourse that apply only to the responses
to racist billboards, not to the racist billboards themselves. This is a
legally and philosophically incoherent view and encourages, I think, people to
view free speech arguments with suspicion and contempt."

And if we replace Richwine's use of "mob" in the following ("mob" carries with
it the sense of being a "bent on riotous or destructive action", quoting
Wiktionary) with the more generic "group of people":

> "or encourage a mob to protest outside my house"

then it's an objection to the First Amendment right to assembly peacefully.
(There are already manner restrictions on free speech which prohibit 'riotous
or destructive action'.)

When Richwine argues:

> Of course, the First Amendment restrains only the government, but if we take
> the wisdom of it seriously we should value its principles more broadly.

we must therefore _also_ value its full set of principles, and not elevate
free speech protections above all others.

> As chilling effects go, “I would speak out, but I don’t want to risk going
> to jail” is not all that different from “I would speak out, but I don’t want
> to risk losing my friends and my livelihood.”

John Stuart Mills addressed this quite directly, in "On Liberty", saying:

"""We have a right, also, in various ways, to act upon our unfavourable
opinion of any one, not to the oppression of his individuality, but in the
exercise of ours. We are not bound, for example, to seek his society; we have
a right to avoid it (though not to parade the avoidance), for we have a right
to choose the society most acceptable to us. We have a right, and it may be
our duty, to caution others against him, if we think his example or
conversation likely to have a pernicious effect on those with whom he
associates. We may give others a preference over him in optional good offices,
except those which tend to his improvement. In these various modes a person
may suffer very severe penalties at the hands of others, for faults which
directly concern only himself; but he suffers these penalties only in so far
as they are the natural, and, as it were, the spontaneous consequences of the
faults themselves, not because they are purposely inflicted on him for the
sake of punishment."""

The "not bound .. to seek his society" means "he may lose friends." The loss
of "livelihood" can indeed be one of the "very severe penalties at the hands
of others" which Mills argues is an exercise of our own individuality.

