Welcome to the porch, things will be a little bit different this evening on the porch as we gather to ponder any number of situations. This evening of all things it turns out that most of the guys here on the porch want to talk about and ponder free speech. This is a little deeper subject matter than what we get involved in here on the porch and to me it’s kinda like the old expression “opening a can of worms.” for those of you who are not familiar with that expression it simply means to attempt to solve one problem or to do something that creates a whole litany of other problems that were not there in the first place. OK the first thing right out of the can would be that the porch is dedicated to just pondering about something. You can even have an opinion, but we never ever have a solution. You just can’t get around the fact that many times when people get into discussions or debates about a situation sometimes, someone will always start hollering and screaming about free speech so let’s take a look at it a little closer as we ponder exactly what all this means. Freedom of speech is protected by the first amendment of the US Constitution, which states that “Congress shall make no laws abridging the freedom of speech.” The constitution itself provides a robust defense and protection of free speech, but like all things in our society today the right is not absolute and has limits and there are categories of speech that encourage violence, defamation, sin and true threats that are generally not protected. Now as we ponder this situation today on the porch, we don’t want to create a book that we have to get into to figure out what’s going on, so what exactly does the first amendment protect? Well, here’s a few… freedom of expression, political speech, the right not to speak, and some of the things that have been happening lately we see around platforms such as YouTube and the different ones like Facebook. The the first amendment applies only to government restrictions on speech, which simply means a private businesses and social media platforms and individuals can regulate or restrict speech on their platform.

The next thing to ponder would be the limitations on free speech. There are certain types of speech, which are not protected by the first amendment and government. So here is a list of a few here. Incitement to imminent lawless action, Obscenity, and Child Pornography, Defamatory statements, and threats of violence, also Fighting words which are likely to provoke an immediate violent reaction. Note, I wanted to be very specific with this one so this is a direct quote from an article I read as I researched for this weeks Porch…

  • Hate Speech: The U.S. Supreme Court has found that “hate speech”—expression that targets individuals or groups based on attributes like race, religion, or gender—is generally protected by the First Amendment unless it falls into one of the unprotected categories, such as a true threat or incitement to violence.

Our next ponder would be quite natural in the sense that we want to know exactly who decides all that who decides what’s free speech and what’s not. Well, in our research we found that the parameters of free speech are primarily decided by the US Supreme Court. It is their responsibility to interpret the first amendment to define what speech is protected and what falls into unprotected categories. So the long and short of all this is that while the first amendment protects nearly all speech, the Supreme Court has established that this protection is not absolute and can be limited in certain context, requiring a compelling government interest for any restriction. Consider this: words matter, whether they are spoken or written they’re kind of like the old rule that actions have consequences. While being on the porch today might be a little bit confusing, the bottom line is many of us here on the porch are a little long in the tooth so to speak. Back in the day, a man was judged by his words and actions, I grew up under the rule of treating people the way they treated me, old-fashioned, but effective. It’s really pretty hard to get a ponder out of all of this, but I guess if I were going to give you a ponder today, it would be this.

Ponder this… don’t let your words and actions overwhelm your ability to endure. Remember, there is no such thing as free and that includes Speech. 

Kurt