American Ideals: Aeropagitica and Freedom of Expression

In honor of the Fourth of July I am reposting something I first put up on December 10, 2007. It is a summary of the arguments contained in John Milton's Aeropagitica. This small book contains definitive and inescapable arguments against censorship. In this short post I summarized, often in Milton's own language, all of the major arguments contained in his classic work. And these ideas are important foundations of the spirit of America.

*****************************************
*****************************************

Monday, December 10, 2007

John Milton's Arguments Against Censorship
I had meant to summarize Milton’s Aeropagitica. But I no longer want to do that. I have set myself a more narrow goal. I intend to give summaries of Milton’s arguments defending freedom of expression. Often I have adjusted Milton’s arguments since his focus was on arguing against prior censorship.
ARGUMENT ONE Without freedom of expression our ability to think clearly is diminished by the lack of exercise imposed by the constraints of censorship. And our chance of acquiring new knowledge can only be limited by this lack of freedom. And sometimes the recovery of lost truth is nearly impossible.
ARGUMENT TWO If you are forbidden to hear your opponent’s beliefs and arguments this gives them advantage since they know both yours and theirs.
ARGUMENT THREE “Bad meats will scarce breed good
nourishment in the healthiest concoction; but herein the difference is
of bad books, that they to a discreet and judicious reader serve in
many respects to discover, to confute, to forewarn, and to illustrate . . .
how can we more safely, and with
less danger, scout into the regions of sin and falsity than by reading
all manner of tractates and hearing all manner of reason? And this is
the benefit which may be had of books promiscuously read.”
ARGUMENT FOUR How will it be decided who will be trusted to choose what speech will not be allowed? If some speech is disallowed because it is dangerous, how will the censors be safe?
(I would also ask if we would need overseers to make sure the censors act properly and if,  then we need overseer overseers creating an infinite regression.)
ARGUMENT FIVE “that this order of licensing conduces nothing to the end for which it was framed . . . See the ingenuity of Truth, who, when she gets a free and willing hand, opens herself faster than the pace of method and discourse can overtake her.”
ARGUMENT SIX “And how can a man teach with authority, which is the life of teaching;
how can he be a doctor in his book as he ought to be, or else had better be silent, whenas all he teaches, all he delivers, is but under the tuition, under the correction of his patriarchal licenser to blot or alter “
ARGUMENT SEVEN Some feel that making a book forbidden is just a sign something in the work is important, otherwise no trouble would have been expended over it.
ARGUMENT EIGHT When truth is first seen it is different enough from the truth we have known for a long time that this difference might lead us to think it a lie and censor it. “that if it come to prohibiting,
there is not aught more likely to be prohibited than truth itself; whose
first appearance to our eyes, bleared and dimmed with prejudice and
custom, is more unsightly and unplausible than many errors, even as the
person is of many a great man slight and contemptuous to see to. “
ARGUMENT NINE “For who knows not that Truth is strong, next to the Almighty? She needs
no policies, nor stratagems, nor licensings to make her victorious;
those are the shifts and the defences that error uses against her power.
Give her but room, and do not bind her when she sleeps . . . “
ARGUMENT TEN “ . . . we in the haste of a precipitant zeal shall make no
distinction, but resolve to stop their mouths, because we fear they come
with new and dangerous opinions, as we commonly forejudge them ere we
understand them; no less than woe to us, while, thinking thus to defend
the Gospel, we are found the persecutors”

Crime inc ~ Why Obama Needs to Control the Internet.

I find the assertion that Obaama might try and outlaw Tea Party events far fetched but the video is on the right track.

Let Freedom Ring -- Even If The Only Reply From The MSM Is, "You Racist, Homophobe, Sexist , , , "

We are in the midst of an explosion of free speech. The general populace turning its back on the alphabets and the big newspapers and news magazines is part of the growth of free speech. It was like they used to have it all locked down tight as a closed union town: if you didn’t work for one of them you were not allowed to express yourself. And they kept a close eye on who they allowed to talk and what they could say. Their basic ‘thing’ could be summarized as: work for us and talk about what we want the way we want or you are not part of the public discussion and if you cross us we’ll savage you in every possible way, just look at the corpse of Sarah Palin suspended in the town square. If you don’t believe Sarah is dead we’ll back stab and then pummel you just as bad.
As we all know there have been a lot of changes. Talk radio has grown in popularity and become even more widespread than ten or fifteen years ago. Fox News was founded and steadily gained viewers in spite of dire warnings from the union thugs and bosses. And the internet, oh the internet! Where would James O’Keefe’s work exposing ACORN be without YouTube? And where would YouTube fit in without the net? Because of O’Keefe, Breitbart, YouTube and the internet someday many, many Americans will be saying, “If it weren’t for O’Keefe we would never have grown to know what manner of organization Barack Obama strangely felt at home with and funneled never ending taxpayer money that that Congress of liars and thieves failed to provide oversight to.” No, the fat lady has not sung on that one yet and it’s because of the net, Fox and radio free America. And there are no thanks due to those who the founders hoped would protect free speech and give some oversight to Congress. Now the individual citizen has to join with other common citizens to give some motivation to Congress to do its job..
No the MSM is a large part of the problem. Of course, they long ago sold out on their constitutional responsibilities by shutting out and attacking those they disagreed with. They have become so frightened of losing their power and position that that they have begun to label their enemies as unpatriotic. But the accusations of lack of patriotism only came because they are finally discovering that, if you work for NBC and you call most anyone who doesn’t work for NBC a racist, homophobe, sexist, whatever, whatever that the main responses become people politely ignoring you or just laughing at you.
Of course the emotional extortion and strong arm tactics are all part of the whole closed union shop thing. When the union boss is afraid of his territory being threatened by another union or workers who don’t want a union, out come the thugs and the strong arm tactics. Thus Palin in the town square and Rush and Beck and any other loud voice in opposition or just not following the party line. This goes against the values most Americans hold to so this criminal activity is losing and will continue to lose. Just get ready for lots of name calling, yelling and screaming because the MSM thugs will not end it quickly or quietly.

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH So He Who Tells The Most Truth Becomes Misinformer of The Year

*******************************************************


h/t: NewsBusters

I'm at work on a larger post about the culture war. It will address the hypocrisy of naming Beck the Misinformer of the Year. Most basically he is awakening Americans to the threat of much greater socialism from within the Democrat party. They don't want people to know what they are trying to do so they are attempting to besmirch Beck so that fewer people will pay attention to him. I will put in a link to that post when I have finished it. Our ignorance is one of their main strengths.

OK, Granted, Obama doesn't have a clue about what he is doing.

OK, Granted, Obama doesn't have a clue about what he is doing. But that still doesn't give reporters the right to ask him difficult questions, does it? What do they think he is? Perez Hilton at a rap concert? No, he's the most powerful man in the world. Tapper and Garrett are just going to ruin it for the rest of us. If they don't back off, they'll push Obama too far. And he'll end freedom of speech for all of us. And it will be all your fault, Jake.

College Students Subjected to Propaganda and Intimidation

ht/Stop the ACLU

Victor Davis Hanson: Where the University Went Wrong

Some of the reasons why universities are often called socialist reservations. And he makes a great case for an old fashioned liberal arts education, which wins my heart every time.

Free Speech in Academia with Dennis Hayes

Shakedown - Ezra Levant - part 5

“The ‘right not to be offended’ trumps freedom of speech.”

Shakedown - Ezra Levant - part 4

Ezra Levant, Part 3

This might be considered old news since Mr. Levant's case is no longer before the human rights commission (he won). But we have not seen the last of such battles. The United Nations human rights council, while most people in the world lack the most basic human rights such as freedom of speech and assembly, has focused its attention on attacking as unacceptable free speech that offends Muslims. It is bizarre to read the reporting on this. It seems obvious that those passing these laws do even understand human rights and have been appointed by governments that deny basic human rights to their citizens. But those reporting this news for AP and the NYT and other such clueless organs recognize nothing unusual going on.

Ezra Levant, Part 2

Ezra Levant, Part 1

I've noticed that this site gets many Canadian visitors. I'm sure most of them have already seen this clip on Mr. Levant's site. But this issue is of great interest to everyone in the English speaking world that cares about our basic freedoms.

Victor David Hanson

The clip above is an excerpt from the longer clip below. His subject is Barack Obama and some of his policies. I will be putting the exalted ruler's name in the titles of posts less since I am convinced that I will thereby have fewer technical problems with my site. I call it the meaningless error message chilling effect that cuts traffic and makes it difficult for me to recognize my country. Apparently this chill blows off the lake into Chicago and is beginning to waft through the nation.




ht/Stop the ACLU

Set To Dylanesque Guitar, Here's A Manifesto From The Other Side

I'm not going to answer it now. I'm just going to lay it out there for people to gawk at.




ht/Constitytionalert

Nonbinding , Blinding. Babbling Insanity

Another excellent column by Christopher Hitchens. It is about the attempt by a bunch of Muslim nations to make it illegal to critisize Islam. And they want the UN to enforce this. Here is some of what Hitch has to say about it.

“. . . . it is the so-called mainstream Muslims, grouped in the Organization of the Islamic Conference, who are now demanding through the agency of the United Nations that Islam not only be allowed to make absolutist claims but that it also be officially shielded from any criticism of itself.
Though it is written tongue-in-cheek in the language of human rights and of opposition to discrimination, the nonbinding U.N. Resolution 62/154, on "Combating defamation of religions," actually seeks to extend protection not to humans but to opinions and to ideas, granting only the latter immunity from being "offended." The preamble is jam-packed with hypocrisies that are hardly even laughable. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“ In the same weeks that this resolution comes up for its annual renewal at the United Nations, its chief sponsor-government (Pakistan) makes an agreement with the local Taliban to close girls' schools in the Swat Valley region (a mere 100 miles or so from the capital in Islamabad) and subject the inhabitants to Sharia law. This capitulation comes in direct response to a campaign of horrific violence and intimidation, including public beheadings. Yet the religion of those who carry out this campaign is not to be mentioned, lest it "associate" the faith with human rights violations or terrorism. In Paragraph 6, an obvious attempt is being made to confuse ethnicity with confessional allegiance. Indeed this insinuation (incidentally dismissing the faith-based criminality of 9/11 as merely "tragic") is in fact essential to the entire scheme. If religion and race can be run together, then the condemnations that racism axiomatically attracts can be surreptitiously extended to religion, too. This is clumsy, but it works: The useless and meaningless term Islamophobia, now widely used as a bludgeon of moral blackmail, is testimony to its success. . . . . . . . . . . . .
“And this whole picture would be very much less muddied and confused if the state of Pakistan, say, did not make the absurd and many-times discredited assertion that religion can be the basis of a nationality. It is such crude amalgamations—is a Saudi or Pakistani being "profiled" because of his religion or his ethnicity?—that are responsible for any overlap between religion and race. It might also help if the Muslim hadith did not prescribe the death penalty for anyone trying to abandon Islam—one could then be surer who was a sincere believer and who was not, or (as with the veil or the chador in the case of female adherents) who was a volunteer and who was being coerced by her family.
“Rather than attempt to put its own house in order or to confront such other grave questions as the mass murder of Shiite Muslims by Sunni Muslims (and vice versa), or the desecration of Muslim holy sites by Muslim gangsters, or the discrimination against Ahmadi Muslims by other Muslims, the U.N. resolution seeks to extend the whole area of denial from its existing homeland in the Islamic world into the heartland of post-Enlightenment democracy where it is still individuals who have rights, not religions. See where the language of Paragraph 10 of the resolution is taking us. Having briefly offered lip service to the rights of free expression, it goes on to say that "the exercise of these rights carries with it special duties and responsibilities and may therefore be subject to limitations as are provided for by law and are necessary for respect of the rights or reputations of others, protection of national security or of public order, public health or morals and respect for religions and beliefs." The thought buried in this awful, wooden prose is as ugly as the language in which it is expressed: Watch what you say, because our declared intention is to criminalize opinions that differ with the one true faith. Let nobody say that they have not been warned.”

Let me say this about that. Democracy and government by the rational rule of law will die without sunlight. Essential to this life giving sunlight is freedom of speech. If you give away free speech you might as well give away the whole store since it will inevitably die without that sunlight. The liberal representative democratic nation, of which England America and France are the paradigms will die if we give in to these irrational demands from governments that lack the consent of the governed. Nations semi-mired in the stone age might be able to acquire nuclear weapons but they cannot exercise moral leadership in a rational, humane world. They can only institute these childish demands by violence, the threat of violence and stealth.
One of the best books ever written about the necessity of freedom of expression for sane government, clear thinking and scientific inquiry is John Milton’s Areopagitica. I recommend it to everyone. I am about to read it again and plan to write a post laying out all of its arguments on this site.

ht/HotAir

'Fairness' Gives Way To Censorship

Ever notice how very few lefties are interested in rational discussion of issues? Ever notice how few liberals are even capable of rational discussion of issues? Ever notice that they will make fun of their opponents or endlessly repeat the same lies? Their response to Palin was to make endless jokes hunting and Eskimos, repeat the lie that she had banned books or that she had said that she could see Russia from her house. The same lies and jeers over and over again with nary a one of them having an original thought to contribute: like they all read the same newsletter in place of reason or originality. They shun reasoned discourse and just want an endless repetition of the same silly jokes and the same silly lies. The article I've quoted from below describes the latest assault on the possibility of them ever having to listen to anything from outside their echo chamber. Ever notice how angry and more irrational they become when hearing anything that doesn't fit their shallowand twisted world view?
And they have attached a pretty word to this travesty: 'diversity,' A pretty word and something that has its place. But I like 'democracy.' They are trotting out diversity to stifle the free speech and openness of democratic sunlight. The more government control of speech there is the less sunlight there can be. And democracy dies without sunlight as surely as humans will die without air.
The reminder is a couple of excerpts from a post by Seton Motley on NewsBusters.


the Left means to destroy Conservative and Christian talk radio by other means.
Because another rider was added via a party-line 57-41 vote.  Written by Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, S.160's Purpose is "To encourage and promote diversity in communication media ownership, and to ensure that the public airwaves are used in the public interest."
the Left means to destroy Conservative and Christian talk radio by other means.
Because another rider was added via a party-line 57-41 vote.  Written by Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, S.160's Purpose is "To encourage and promote diversity in communication media ownership, and to ensure that the public airwaves are used in the public interest."
One tremendous problem with this amendment, with the Censorship Doctrine itself and in fact with virtually every aspect of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s broadcast licensing requirements is that they are all completely nebulous.  President Barack Obama's FCC can interpret these regulations in any direction it wishes, which more than likely bodes poorly for free speech on the radio.
And the worst part of the Durbin Amendment is the possibility that Obama's FCC may now be empowered to prematurely pull the broadcast licenses of radio stations they deem as failing to meet these new "Fairness" Doctrine-esque guidelines.  Several lawyers who do this for a living see this rider's wording as amorphous enough to allow for this interpretation.  
This would be absolutely devastating to talk radio.  Stations currently carrying Conservative and Christian talk would be perpetually under the FCC gun - never knowing when the regulatory hammer would fall and crush their businesses.  They would feel tremendous pressure to change formats so as to be able to stay on the air. 
And no one would be able to justify the tremendous expense of getting into talk radio if their lifeline - their broadcast license - could be pulled capriciously at any time.
These licenses would then be awarded to more "diverse" owners who show a greater desire in meeting the Obama FCC's definition of the "local" and "public interest."  You know, ACORN activists and MoveOn.org hosts who couldn't cut the mustard on National Public or Pacifica Radio.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The Durbin Amendment solves the Left's "Fairness" Doctrine dilemma.  It gets them what they want - radio free of Conservative and Christian talk - without the political baggage of carrying the "Fairness" Doctrine name. 
For them, a rose by any other name still smells as sweet if it serves to silence the opposition.           

Geert Wilders on Glenn Beckmu

ht/Atlas Shrugs

Geert Wilders Discussed by Two Members of the House of Lords

I am going to assume my readers are familiar with Wilders' case. He has not been allowed to enter England in spite of having been invited there to speak to the House of Lords. Is the main issue here freedom of speech? My feeling is that for those opposing Wilders the main issue IS freedom of speech. But they are opposed to that freedom but generally have enough good sense to not outright say so. Am I missing something? Do any readers see some other explanation?

Hat Tip/NewsBusters