The Dimensions of Free Speech

It is probably so that the more people factionally, vociferously disagree with each other, the more that free speech arises as one of the subjects of their loud and vocal disagreement. Very often, during these arguments, people don’t really know what they’re talking about. I don’t intend by this observation simply a disparaging accusation that people are ignorant on the subject, but, more, that they suffer an absence of clarity about what the subject even is. People’s arguments – really, pronouncements and damming declarations — are ill considered. Freedom is such a simple word to use – a bird is free (is it?) — but freedom of speech has multiple dimensions.

In the United States, consciously or not, people will have the First Amendment somewhere in mind, that “Congress shall make no law respecting . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” Other democracies offer similar if not identical guarantees. Often, too, however, in this age of ever louder and freer opining, what p…