Free Speech Can Be Costly

On February 21st, much of the music industry gathered at the Shrine theatre in Los Angeles for the 43rd annual Grammy Awards. Before the production of this show got started the party was crashed by a group known as GLAAD, or Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. The group gathered to demonstrate against the multi nominated rapper Eminem. GLAAD has been giving a lot of heat to the Detroit rapper and his label, Interscope Records, because of his lyrics promoting violence against gays and others. In September, GLAAD also protested the MTV Video Music Awards outside Radio City Music Hall in New York, where Eminem took home two trophies.

A member of the GLAAD organization said "It's not OK for people to throw around words like fag and dyke, the kind of climate we live in, in terms of prejudice and discrimination and even violence..., people need to understand that it starts with that kind of language. We've never said that Eminem should not be allowed to make his music or even say what he wants, but the bottom line is if that kind of speech is out there, then we have an obligation for the entire community to stand up and speak out about it. So it's really not about his free speech, it's about our own free speech and our ability to get our voice out there. It's not a less-speech but a more-speech argument, which I think is the only one with any integrity." Here she is trying to take away the freedom of speech of Eminem, and at the same time she is trying to support her own freedom of speech criticizing him. She is basically saying free speech is an absolute right, unless of course you happen to be saying the wrong things.

If you really look close at the phrase “free speech” you may realize it is overly used, poorly/loosely defined, and somewhat vague. Speech itself is one of the first things discovered by humans and it was accompanied by things such as cursing, slander, and other negative aspects. All speech was free until someone objected to it due to all of these negative aspects. This is when objections are enforced by violence or other consequences brought upon by some form of government. This would have been when the first free speech dispute would have occurred.

In the United States we are guaranteed a number of rights to specific things due to the first amendment of the constitution. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. In some other countries such as China, this is not very much of a concern, although communication possibilities of today can greatly affect free speech in numerous ways. No matter how you look at it, freedom of speech can and will eventually be affected in every country.

Some of the affects of free speech in these countries may be caused by the idea of censorship. Censorship is often looked at as the other side of free speech and is commonly defined as “the suppression of free speech”. There is nothing wrong with this definition but it seems a little too loosely defined and too fuzzy to really understand censorship or even free speech. Due to this I will search