Sometimes words have consequences that demand action
| Monday, Jun 29 2009 10:31 AM
Last Updated Monday, Jun 29 2009 10:31 AM
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By CHRISTOPHER MEYERS / I am an avid free speech proponent, deeply committed to the view that it is only through the robust, even raucous, exchange of competing ideas that we come closer to accessing truth.
But I'm not an absolutist. Instead, I take my cue from one of history's most eloquent libertarians, John Stuart Mill. After a lengthy chapter in which he provides a powerful defense of liberty of thought and expression, he steps back, acknowledging that words have consequences and may sometimes be rightly restricted or punished:
"... Even opinions lose their immunity, when the circumstances in which they are expressed (produce) a positive instigation to some mischievous act. An opinion that corn-dealers are starvers of the poor ... ought to be unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled before the house of a corn-dealer ... The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited: he must not make himself a nuisance to other people."
By "nuisance" Mill had in mind those actions, including speech or writing, which represent, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes put it 50 years later, a "clear and present danger" to others' rights. Defining what counts as such danger is a slippery exercise, as daily courtroom struggles reveal; determining the causes of harm even tougher. But as Mill and Holmes attest, using words that instigate others to violence certainly qualifies.
Which brings us to Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and the like.
As we sit in the shadow of the cowardly murders of Dr. George Tiller and Holocaust Museum guard Stephen Tyrone Johns, it is reasonable to ask whether these commentators' often hateful and inflammatory words meet the "clear and present danger" standard.
I do not suggest that they directly spoke to Tiller's and Johns' murderers, or even that they wished for those outcomes. But I do say Coulter, et al, helped create the narrative; they are the co-authors of a story in which murdering innocent persons engaged in legally sanctioned activity is not seen as outrageously beyond the moral pale.
Here are a few examples of that story line:
* Speaking in 2007 before the "Reclaim America for Christ" conference, Coulter said of murdered health care workers who participated in the provision of legal abortions, "Those few abortionists were shot, or, depending on your point of view, had a procedure performed on them with a rifle." This is the same talk in which she referred to then-presidential candidate John Edwards as "a faggot" and called for the forcible conversion of Muslim leaders to Christianity.
* O'Reilly had long targeted Tiller for criticism: "If you want to kill a baby, you hire Tiller. You've got to pay him $5,000 up front, and he'll kill the baby." "No question Dr. Tiller has blood on his hands ... I wouldn't want to be these people if there is a Judgment Day." Even the day after Tiller's murder, O'Reilly backed down not an inch, blaming "the far left (for) exploiting -- exploiting -- the death of the doctor. Those vicious individuals want to stifle any criticism of people like Tiller." Not even a hint of contrition, of acknowledgment that branding someone as a "baby killer" and making references to a "Judgment Day" might motivate a whacko to take on the role of final judge.
* Limbaugh used a recent interview with Sean Hannity to repeat his hope that President Barack Obama would fail and to add that the president is as great a threat to the U.S. as terrorists: "If al-Qaeda wants to demolish the America we know and love, they better hurry, because Obama is beating them to it." The day after John's murder, Limbaugh astoundingly tried to brand the alleged killer, ultra-nationalist and white supremacist James von Brunn, a leftist: "This guy is a leftist if anything; this guy's beliefs, this guy's hate stems from influence that you find on the left, not on the right."
Do these and the many more examples meet Mill's and Holmes' standard? While it would be a stretch to claim a direct causal role to subsequent violence, there is no question they helped foster a culture in which hatred is the norm, in which it's OK to talk about performing murderous "procedures" on doctors and nurses, to describe a dedicated physician as a "baby killer," and to equate your president with terrorists.
Should they be held responsible? Again, I turn to Mill, who recommends in such cases loud social disapproval. Fortunately, that can easily be achieved in a way that hits Coulter, et al, right where they live: Change the channel.
Christopher Meyers is professor of philosophy and director of the Kegley Institute of Ethics at CSUB. The ideas expressed are his own.
