This semester is going to be fucking awesome.
Con. Law II (which at UB is entirely about the First Amendment) is the class I have been waiting over a year to be able to take. And if last year's Con. Law I course and today's class are any indication, Professor Closius will be the best person I could hope for to teach this class.
He was literally getting in students' faces and yelling "fuck you!"
Just to make a point, of course.
We had a nice discussion about why "fucking" is considered offensive but "freaking" isn't. We listened to some oldies. We talked about hate speech. (Yes, I was the only one who said we shouldn't limit it.) We talked about pornography. And, y'know, we talked about levels of scrutiny and all that dry legal stuff from last semester, too.
One thing Closius said I don't quite agree with. I get his point, but I wouldn't have made nearly as broad a statement as he did. He said that today, everyone is a First Amendment liberal.
"Everyone"?
The example he gave was the song linked above, "Rhapsody in the Rain" by Lou Christie. (It's an excellent song. I grew up hearing it on the radio and if you don't like it, fuck you.) If you don't feel like listening to it and aren't familiar with it, it's a late-60s teen love ballad about two unmarried youths fucking in the protagonist's car. Not in so many words, mind you, but that is very clearly what the song is about.
Closius polled the class, asking if any of us found the subject matter of the song to be offensive. Of course, no one did. He then told us about the reaction to the song back in 1966 and how very very few radio stations would dare play it because it was scandalous. He then claimed that no one would find that song offensive nowadays.
Um, yes, there are plenty of people in the US who would find that song offensive today, many of whom were born well after the song was released. Try polling some rural evangelicals rather than urban law students and see what sort of unanimity you end up with.
So that example is bunk, but let's focus on something other than sex for a minute (it's only one minute, it won't kill you).
Let's look at Milo Yiannopoulos's book. I seem to remember a lot of angry people saying it shouldn't be published. Some were merely advocating boycotting the book or the publishing company. Others would prefer that such things be banned entirely in our country. Are they First Amendment liberals? Seems no different to me than calling for a song to be banned from the radio (worse, actually, since radio is passive consumption, whereas reading a book requires active participation with said book).
Let's look at flag burners. I distinctly remember people among my Facebook friends saying that one shouldn't be allowed to do that (most of them were actually saying that it is currently illegal to burn the flag, an inaccuracy with which they vehemently agreed). I distinctly remember a couple of my Facebook friends saying that anyone who does that should be shot, that if they saw someone burning the flag, they personally would shoot that person. Are they First Amendment liberals? Fuck no, that's about as illiberal as you can get.
The problem with making absolute statements is that a single counterexample refutes the whole thing. That's why we're taught in law school to couch statements with words like "maybe," "probably," etc. Even a seemingly-obvious statement like "every person is human" isn't really right all the time, because many see their cats and dogs as "people," myself included. Words are squishy things, which makes law difficult and nuanced.
Closius is known for hyperbole, and he is right that, as a general culture, we are a lot more liberal on free speech issues now than we were in the 60s (probably, anyway. If you've got some poll numbers from the 60s, please send me a link). However, his bold claim that everyone is a First Amendment liberal is, unfortunately, incorrect. Plenty of people in this country seek to censor what they find offensive, some seek to kill over it. Let's not go around applying the word "liberal" to those people.
Con. Law II (which at UB is entirely about the First Amendment) is the class I have been waiting over a year to be able to take. And if last year's Con. Law I course and today's class are any indication, Professor Closius will be the best person I could hope for to teach this class.
He was literally getting in students' faces and yelling "fuck you!"
Just to make a point, of course.
We had a nice discussion about why "fucking" is considered offensive but "freaking" isn't. We listened to some oldies. We talked about hate speech. (Yes, I was the only one who said we shouldn't limit it.) We talked about pornography. And, y'know, we talked about levels of scrutiny and all that dry legal stuff from last semester, too.
One thing Closius said I don't quite agree with. I get his point, but I wouldn't have made nearly as broad a statement as he did. He said that today, everyone is a First Amendment liberal.
"Everyone"?
The example he gave was the song linked above, "Rhapsody in the Rain" by Lou Christie. (It's an excellent song. I grew up hearing it on the radio and if you don't like it, fuck you.) If you don't feel like listening to it and aren't familiar with it, it's a late-60s teen love ballad about two unmarried youths fucking in the protagonist's car. Not in so many words, mind you, but that is very clearly what the song is about.
Closius polled the class, asking if any of us found the subject matter of the song to be offensive. Of course, no one did. He then told us about the reaction to the song back in 1966 and how very very few radio stations would dare play it because it was scandalous. He then claimed that no one would find that song offensive nowadays.
Um, yes, there are plenty of people in the US who would find that song offensive today, many of whom were born well after the song was released. Try polling some rural evangelicals rather than urban law students and see what sort of unanimity you end up with.
So that example is bunk, but let's focus on something other than sex for a minute (it's only one minute, it won't kill you).
Let's look at Milo Yiannopoulos's book. I seem to remember a lot of angry people saying it shouldn't be published. Some were merely advocating boycotting the book or the publishing company. Others would prefer that such things be banned entirely in our country. Are they First Amendment liberals? Seems no different to me than calling for a song to be banned from the radio (worse, actually, since radio is passive consumption, whereas reading a book requires active participation with said book).
Let's look at flag burners. I distinctly remember people among my Facebook friends saying that one shouldn't be allowed to do that (most of them were actually saying that it is currently illegal to burn the flag, an inaccuracy with which they vehemently agreed). I distinctly remember a couple of my Facebook friends saying that anyone who does that should be shot, that if they saw someone burning the flag, they personally would shoot that person. Are they First Amendment liberals? Fuck no, that's about as illiberal as you can get.
The problem with making absolute statements is that a single counterexample refutes the whole thing. That's why we're taught in law school to couch statements with words like "maybe," "probably," etc. Even a seemingly-obvious statement like "every person is human" isn't really right all the time, because many see their cats and dogs as "people," myself included. Words are squishy things, which makes law difficult and nuanced.
Closius is known for hyperbole, and he is right that, as a general culture, we are a lot more liberal on free speech issues now than we were in the 60s (probably, anyway. If you've got some poll numbers from the 60s, please send me a link). However, his bold claim that everyone is a First Amendment liberal is, unfortunately, incorrect. Plenty of people in this country seek to censor what they find offensive, some seek to kill over it. Let's not go around applying the word "liberal" to those people.
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