The Banning Of Geert Wilders And The Real Reason You Can't Yell Fire In A Crowded Theater

So Geert Wilders goes to the UK after all, even though he was warned that he would be kicked out--as indeed he was. Here is one example of the British government defending what it did:

Foreign Secretary David Miliband told the BBC's Hardtalk: "The home secretary made a decision on an individual case as she is required to do."

He added that the film contained "extreme anti-Muslim hate and we have very clear laws in this country".

Mr Miliband also said: "We have profound commitment to freedom of speech but there is no freedom to cry 'fire' in a crowded theatre."

Mark Steyn quotes from a note from John Hinderaker of Powerline on the analogy:

Even among American constitutional law scholars, the "fire in a crowded theater" analogy is generally understood to be dumb. I took Constitutional Law from Paul Freund, one of the great scholars in the field—among other things, he was the guy who worked with John and Bobby Kennedy to lay the constitutional foundation for the Civil Rights Act. Anyway, he pointed out in class that yelling "fire" in a theater is exactly the same as pulling the fire alarm. It isn't really "speech" for First Amendment purposes at all, any more than pulling a fire alarm is "speech." Or, to take another example that I came up with, if a mobster says "Shoot him, Bugsy," and Bugsy shoots him, and the mobster is prosecuted for murder, he doesn't have a First Amendment defense.

The First Amendment is intended to protect debate and discussion about issues of public concern—e.g., your books—not the giving of orders or false fire alarms. [emphasis added]

The "yelling fire" analogy is a straw man that allows the enemies of free speech--or at least those who fear it--to claim to point to a generally accepted example of free speech that everyone can agree needs to be curtailed. Of course, once you can get agreement on one 'example' of free speech that needs to be curtailed, you can always find more.

The "Bugsy analogy" brings to mind another comparison that has also been badly abused: one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. This claim that you can justify the deliberate murder of defensive civilians has tied the UN in knots and has ensured that no meaningful definition of terrorism will ever be agreed upon and no concerted action against terrorism will ever come out of that organization. 

The claim is an especially cynical one, considering that it comes from the same people who point indignantly at the Geneva Convention when they accuse Israel of collective punishment, yet apparently feel that fighting occupation and arbitrarily murdering innocents trumps that self-same Geneva Convention.

No, yelling "fire" in a crowded theater is not an example of free speech--and killing innocent civilians is not the act of a freedom fighter worthy of the name.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

Technorati Tag: Free Speech and Geert Wilders and Terrorism.