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Samizdata quote of the day – free speech edition “Speech is not violence. Words cannot injure or compel a person to hate or riot. Consequently, the state has very little business policing it, and the outcomes are usually dire when it tries.”
– Institute of Economic Affairs, in an emailed newsletter it sends out. It refers to recent commentaries such as here and here.
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“Speech is not violence”.
Just think back to those cosy chats by Hitler, Stalin, numerous Union members, politicians, and Muslim radicals, in the UK and abroad, telling listeners how everyone can live in harmony.
Riots occur because some numpty used words to incite violence, which can lead to property destruction, injury, murder, and even genocide. If anyone thinks the Palestinian supporters marches, recent riots, and demonstrations were spontaneous, then I have a bridge in London I can sell you.
I assume the author of that initial comment is educated, but would suggest, is not necessarily intelligent.
Perseivat: Violence is action directed at persons or things. Speech is just words and nobody is compelled to act on mere utterances, regardless of who utters them.
Pensevivat – try reading the article before you comment upon it, you have made a mistake that I sometimes make myself – just reading the quote without clicking on the link (sometimes I do not notice there is a link) and reading the article.
The authorities could not give a toss about the BLM Marxist riots or the Islamic ones – it is “right wing” riots they hate.
And the “numpties” that the authorities target are often people who had nothing to do with the riots – but are “right wing” – people such as Nigel Farage or Elon Musk (who was a life long Democrat and a fan of Barack Obama – but is now denounced as “far right”) or Rupert Murdoch (all put on the front page of the despicable “Private Eye” magazine as “ringleaders of the riots”).
Even the “right wing” Daily Mail did this sort of thing – targeting people who did NOT support rioting (indeed were not even in the country). By doing this it was engaged in what Katie Hopkins calls “self pres” (self preservation) – throwing other people under the bus, saying “we are not really right wing – we hate these right wing people as much as you do, beat them! throw them in prison! do anything you like to them!, just please do not hurt US”.
“Self pres” (self preservation by betraying other people to the left) is a common feature of the British right (if it even deserves to be called “the right”) – for example Conservative Central Office has been dominated by this approach for many years. They never stand up for Freedom of Speech – and always crawl to the Guardian and the BBC (and so on).
So your own comment Penseivat rather misunderstands the situation.
At least the IEA (Institute of Economic Affairs) is standing up for Freedom of Speech – having criticised them for various things, such as their lack of opposition to the utterly insane and tyrannical Covid policies, it is only fair to praise them for this stand in defence of Freedom of Speech.
And I praise the Institute of Economic Affairs for making a stand for Freedom of Speech.
Penseivat: did you read the article?
Johnathan Pearce – no he clearly did not, as I say this is sometimes a mistake I make myself (sometimes because I just do not see the link) – you did make if very clear that you were linking to a couple of articles.
There is always a spark, and there is always a powder keg. You need both to get to the situation we’ve had here in Britain over the last few weeks.
Our government and our legacy media will only ever talk about the spark. They would have us believe, in the case of the recent rioting, that the cause of the unrest was the fake news posted on X that purported to identify an illegal immigrant as the perpetrator of the Southport stabbing outrage. Britain was primed to explode over something even if the Southport incident had never occurred.
The more important thing to talk about is the powder keg. This is made up of a million different resentments built up over many years. Long-held grievances that cannot be quickly abated.
I urge you to reach out to your conscience to consider your resentments. Is it grooming gangs? Is it July 7th? Is it the Manchester Arena bombing? Is it illegal immigration? Whatever it is, there’s the powder keg – right there – inside us all.
When the spark and the keg come together, it explodes.
Consequently, any attempts by the government to suppress the sparks by controlling our speech whilst, at the same time, doing nothing to slow the ever-growing size of the powder keg is dangerously irresponsible.
Emphasis added.
As everyone knows, anything “which can lead to” something else is exactly as bad/good as that something else.
Now I’m no great fan of Noam Chomsky but, as I’ve posted here before, he was right on the money when he observed:
“If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.“
All the intellectual arguments matter a damn.
What matters is constitutional protections against the state that we create ourselves. Currently we have no protections. The state can do anything it likes.
I think it’s not quite that simple. If someone says, “Give me your wallet or I’ll shoot you,” and makes off with the wallet, that’s armed robbery, which is a crime of violence. If someone says, “I’ll pay a hundred thousand to be rid of Tom Becket,” and Becket is killed, the killers are agents of the person who offered to pay, and that payer is a murderer, also a crime of violence, even though they never lifted their own hand to anyone. There are some cases where the use of language IS violence. I think they may fall under the heading of J. L. Austin’s “How to Do Things with Words.”
Would we want to go over to a version of criminal law where the cases I described did not count as punishable offenses?
In the US, even with our Constitution/BOR providing explicit protection for speech, the situation has never been absolute.
Following the Brandenburg decision (of the USSC) back in 1969, there is no protection for speech that is ” . . . directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action”.
The key word in that phrase has always been “imminent.” You can say things such as “Eskimos should be forced to leave”, but you cannot say “kill that Eskimo now!” In order for US government to interfere with speech, it must be THAT immediate of a threat.
As with all such phrasings, the enforcement ends up as a subjective test, performed by some judge who has some underlying principles and preconceptions.
So, no, there has never (in the US) been a strict protection of any and all speech.
But that harm is interpreted much more broadly in the UK. “Eskimos are bad” would never satisfy a US test of threatening immediate serious harm – but it would get you jailed in the UK.
So there is some tension between the two views expressed above – but they both contain their nuggets of truth.
Windypants,
Absolutely. There is always stressors and preceptors (although your terms are catchier). These sudden outbreaks of violence obviously didn’t come from nowhere and I’m not calling them riots as such because riots tend to have a specific reason. These were sudden and inchoate. There were no “masterminds” or “devilish plots” hatched on social media*. People had just had a gutful of being treated as second-class citizens in their own country. It absolutely wasn’t organised. If it had been they would have at least worn face-coverings and been better tooled-up than using bricks and wheelie-bins! For all their many sins I suspect Elon Musk and Vladimir Putin could concoct something a bit more “pro” than that!
*Note: the trad press loves any opportunity to give social media a kicking.
William H. Stoddard: Why don’t you cite some examples of when the use of language IS violence. The ones in your comment, namely robbery and murder, are actual violence, the words leading up to them aren’t.
Henry: In the robbery I described, the robber never actually inflicts bodily harm on the victim; the threat of bodily harm is sufficient. And the threat is expressed in language. If you are calling that “actual violence” it seems that you are agreeing that language can be violence. If that’s not what you mean, please specify what element other than the spoken words you consider to be “actual violence.”
Similarly in the murder, the godfather (or whoever) has not struck a blow against the victim of the killing; he has only made a statement about his willingness to reward the person who does so. Making the offer seems to be language. What feature do you think is other than language in his actions?
WHS: I already specified that the robbery and the murder are the violence.
As for the threat of robbery, that is only violence if it is carried out.
Same for saying “I’ll pay someone to kill XXX”. If nobody does the deed there is no violence, if someone does then you have violence.
@bobby b
But that harm is interpreted much more broadly in the UK. “Eskimos are bad” would never satisfy a US test of threatening immediate serious harm
I think you should revise that to say “has not so far satisfied a US test of threatening….”. Who knows what happens when Kamala gets her hands on the USSC. If we had a USSC dominated by Sotomayor type justices I cannot imagine what would be left of most of the bill of rights.
Though there is a certain consistency: the dumbest person to ever sit on the USSC multiplied by the dumbest person to ever be president, presumably due to the dumbest electorate in history.
bobby b – a couple of appointments to the Supreme Court and the United States will have no protection at all for Freedom of Speech.
You know what sort of “Justices” a “President Harris” would appoint – and the Senate will not obstruct the “historic first women President” (indeed a “woman of color” as well). There is already DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion – the ideology that Henry Cavill is trying to stop the Amazon Corporation imposing) – with a “President Harris” there will be Herbert Marcuse style Marxist “Hate Speech” doctrine as well.
As for the United Kingdom – well it is gone.
Henry: So you’re saying, then, that if A threatens to shoot B unless B hands over their valuables, and B complies, and A makes off with the valuables and leaves A unharmed (but poorer!), there has been no violence and no robbery? That would seem to make it open season for robbers.
WHS: I’ll repeat what I said above, now for the third time: robbery is violence.
“Threat of violence” is a crime in and of itself, even when no actual violence has occurred, so long as the threatened violence is reasonably believable and imminent.
Holding a gun pointed at a head while demanding compliance is reasonably believable and imminent.
Holding a sign that says “deport all Eskimos at gunpoint” is not.
(At least, so far, in some places.)
Many of you are correct. I did not read the accompanying texts, and assumed they were more of the same. In ranting as I did, I accept that I was, in fact, one of the numpties I referred to.
Sorry about that
Penseivat – it takes a person of good character to admit they made a mistake.
Well done.
Are we moving in the direction of seditious libel territory?
Stuart Noyes – we are already in “seditious libel territory”.
Our rulers, unelected rulers – and now elected rulers as well, hate and despise Freedom of Speech and all other basic liberties – in the sense of limits on state control.