The Failures of Our First Amendment Successes, By Robert Jensen

[The2ndWheel]

http://www.counterpunch.org/jensen02242006.html

There is no shortage of books these days analyzing what contemporary U.S. society gets wrong: Illegal wars of aggression, a cavalier attitude toward potential ecological collapse, narrow-minded religious fundamentalism, widening economic inequality, and lingering racism, sexism, and homophobia. Look too closely at this society, beyond the self-congratulatory triumphalism, and it's not such a pretty picture.

But one of the criteria on which the United States ranks high in the world is legal protection for freedom of expression. Our legal regime built on the First Amendment's protections of freedom of speech and press is not perfect, but over time the scope of real expressive liberty has expanded, as popular movements and progressive legal thinkers have demanded that liberty and crafted the rules for making it real in day-to-day life.

That's why Ronald K.L. Collins' and David M. Skover's The Death of Discourse is so chilling: The book details why our traditional approach to freedom of expression -- the ideas that led to this expansion of liberty, ideas that are admirable in so many ways -- is ill-equipped to cope with either the contemporary challenges we face or the future. In fact, this traditional approach to freedom of expression may well be hastening the collapse of the culture.

[Minnesota Libra]

1. IMHO this is the problem........

........"So, without dismissing the threat of government suppression, they highlight the perhaps greater danger of a passive and placated public. While we have secured expansive rights against government repression: "Now our free speech system equates electronic self-amusement with enlightened civic education, the marketplace of items with the marketplace of ideas, and passionate self-gratification with political self-realization."

These days people would rather rely on party talking points than read for themselves what is going on in the world around them.

[applegrove]

2. Thanks for posting! n/t

[mongo]

3. Robert Jensen

is an anti-porn freak who has no respect for our constitution.

He starts out well, then uses his premise to call for stripping first amendment freedoms from our constitution.

Nice try.