Does Freedom Of Speech Have An Ultimate Purpose?

Speech is an action, and accordingly the right to freedom of speech falls under the right to freedom of action, which in turn is justified by the right to life. 

"The right life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action -- which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life.  (Such is the meaning of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.)" (Rand, "Man's Rights," The Virtue of Selfishness, pg. 93-94.)

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"The Declaration of Independence stated that men "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights."  Whether one believes that man is the product of a Creator or of nature, the issue of man's origin does not alter the fact that he is an entity of a specific kind -- a rational being -- that he cannot function successfully under coerion, and that rights are a necessary condition of his particular mode of survival.

"The source of man's rights is not divine law or congressional law, but the law of identity.  A is A -- and Man is Man.  Rights are conditions of existence required by man's nature for his proper survival.  If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work.  If life on earth is his purpose, he has a right to live as a rational being: nature forbids him the irrational." (Atlas Shrugged.)

"To violate man's rights means to compel him to act against his own judgment, or to expropriate his values.  Basically, there is only one way to do it: by the use of physical force.  There are two potential violators of man's rights: the criminals and the government.  The great achievement of the United States was to draw a distinction between these two -- by forbidding to the second the legalized version of the activities of the first."  (Ibid., pg. 94-95)

In short, the purpose for freedom of speech is the same as the purpose for freedom of action -- to survive and prosper. 

You are absolutely correct, Steve!  Without freedom of speech, the better ideas cannot replace the poorer ones, and the better policies in government cannot replace the poorer ones.  This is why totalitarian regimes such as Communism, Fascism and Islamic theocracy oppose  freedom of speech.  They don't believe that their ideology can withstand the test of open debate and discussion.

The most vicious and virulent opponents of free speech are the Islamists, who condemn people to death simply for voicing opinions that conflict with their religion.  Any expressed disagreement with their outrageous dogma is considered blasphemy and therefore deserving of a death sentence.  Political activist Pamela Geller has in just the last few days been threatened with death, because of her opposition to Islam, even though she resides in the United States, which has a First Amendment as part of its Constitution.  The venomous hatred that Islamist have for anyone who opposes their religion has no national boundaries.  What we need to do, ever more urgently now, is stand up for free speech and not be cowed by threats of violence.  We need to assert our rights proudly and resolutely!  Nothing less will do!

(Edited by William Dwyer on 5/08, 12:25am)

Exactly, Steve!  Observe the difference between the responses to the Charlie Hebdo incident in France and the response to the Texas cartoons here in the United States.  In France, people were saying "I am Charlie Hebdo."  They were supporting the cartoonists.  But in this country, some prominent people, including Donald Trump (who claims he's running for president) and Greta Van Susteren, a commentator and news anchor on Fox News, have criticized Geller and company for inciting Islamists to violence, thereby blaming the intended victims.

What we need to do is exactly what you suggested -- print and publish as many cartoons as possible depicting Muhammad; otherwise, we've allowed them to intimidate us.  Observe that the Islamists want us to respect their religion by not insulting the prophet Muhammad, but are unwilling to respect even the most basic right to life of those who disagree with them. 

(Edited by William Dwyer on 5/08, 10:29am)

Clearly, government has a duty to not just allow all speech, but to empower that speech which creates the kind of unity that can alter or abolish it IF it becomes destructive to unalienable rights.

Government doesn't "allow" free speech.  The first amendment specifically prohibits the government from stopping free speech.

If government were to "empower" some speech but not other speech, it would be interfering with the freedom of speech.  Freedom is freedom from interference.  Nowhere in the constitution, or in Objectivist thought, is there a call for a government duty to promote forgiveness, tolerance, acceptance, respect, trust, or friendship and love.

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Forgiveness, tolerance, acceptance, respect, trust, friendship and love are things that belong to people - not governments.  There are only limited ways you can use those terms when referring to a proper government.  For example, a government based on individual rights would never tolerate those who initiate force.  It would not accept criminal behavior or trust a convicted criminal in place of court judgments.  But for the most part those are individual human responses.

The purpose of the constitution is to limit the government powers and structures to those that protect individual rights.  And that means that the individuals will be able to exercise their right to their life, to act in liberty, and be free to pursue their happiness.  The government should stand as an enduring, stable, sharp line between choice and those things that take away choice.

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Accordingly, the act of altering or abolishing, which is codified as Article V, needs to be undertaken. And, it seems that this prime constitutional right enabling the needed unity is a logical place to start.

Article V states the way that the constitution can be amended.  The unity a society needs is a modicum of agreement on valid basic moral and political beliefs. That can't be generated by the constitution whose only proper job is acting to define a government that will protect individual rights.  It isn't a proper or practical function of a government.  It is what is located in the minds of individuals.

(Edited by Steve Wolfer on 5/20, 3:58pm)

Seems that the semantics should not get in the way here.  Too important.  Prohibiting stopping is for all intents and purposes is the same as allowing.  I do see your technical point however.

Steve Wolfer wrote:

"Forgiveness, tolerance, acceptance, respect, trust friendship and love are things that belong to people - not governments".

I've already established that free speech has a reasonable, indirectly stated purpose.  The government has first given individual rights to corporations, who have then created national broadcast networks which serve exclusively the agenda of government and commerce.  This is an abridging of the INTENT of purpose of free speech to enable unity adequate to alter or abolish. 

Steve Wolfer wrote:

"Article states the way that the constitution can be amended.  The unity a society needs is a modicum of agreement on basic valid moral and political beliefs."

The intent of the constitution is stated in part by the Declaration of Independence which proceeded it.  When Article V appears as the codification of "alter or abolish" this is clear.

The constitutions Article V states:

"shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as a part of this constitution."

Accordingly, pursuant to that, the constitution applies mechanistic aspects and a PROPER job has all amendments having constitutional intents.  According to Lincoln in 1859, "the people are the rightful masters of the congress and the courts", which means that by his interpretation of Article V, the people of 3/4 of the states can amend without congress or the courts having any influence.  This seems proper because the states created and ratified the constitution to a degree that has them operating under it for 226 years.

Now, that establishes that the people must be enabled to assure that all amendments have constitutional intent, and that is constitutionally proper for government to do because no one else will, and without that, the constitution may fail, be usurped in its original intent or destroyed as the basis for the republic.  That, is patently unconstitutional.

Okay, government by the intents of the Declaration cannot prohibit the PURPOSE of free speech from manifesting by the implied, reasonable purpose defining in the OP and government by recognizing, unconstitutionally that corporations have individual rights, corporations have been empowered to abridge the PURPOSE of free speech which usurps the American peoples right to alter or abolish which will lead to the demise of the constitution and government which is destructive to unalienable rights.

Your argument is not reasonable Fred.  It is legal, but not reasonable.  I've just converted my point into legal terms you should accept without question IF you are reasonable before you are "legal" which is also constitutional or supportive of the 1787 constitutions intent over any unconstitutional, infiltrations or usurpations of the natural law which is the basis from the Declaration of Independence to the constitution, and all law.

Thank you for your continued participation in the discussion Fred:-)

You mean that intricism is intrinsically wrong?  Could an intrinsic claim not be objectively truthful?

Does free speech have a purpose?  Well, for whom?  Isn't each individual person and end - or purpose - in himself?  And isn't any right - including free speech - based on the the idea that each individual is an end in himself? 

That's well said.  Individual's have a some purpose behind what they say.  Individuals are an end in themselves and that is the purpose towards which their acts, including speaking, are assumed to flow.  So the right of free speech is a part of the right to the pursuit of their happiness.

There are two very similar ways in which I view freedom of speech:  

1.   A Political Purpose: You can have yet another context for which there is a purpose to free speech.  To sustain a constitutionally limited government where the purpose of such a government is to protect individual liberty (and that was the purpose of the founders) one can easily see that if we, the people, don't have the freedom to speak our minds, to print what we want, to assemble, and then to have fair elections, then we have lost the ability to protect the structure that protects our liberty.  In that political philosophy arena free speech's purpose is to be a supporting pillar in protecting the structures that protect our liberty.  To stay free we have to be free to speak our minds.

2.   Defined Negative Rights: Freedom of speech is another way of saying "free of initiated force or threats to initiate force that would interfer with a person speaking their mind."  In other words freedom of speech is that state which exists when the use of force is prohibited in this area.  We are free of force directed in a specific direction.  In the Bill of Rights, it makes specific one of those rights that make clear what no government has a right do, saying in effect: "The government can NOT do anything but what it is explicitly granted permission to do by this constitution, AND we specify some rights of every person, like the right to freedom of speech, and we do so explicitly because they are especially important in preserving our liberty."  (Back to political purpose in #1.)

That's all true and correct Steve, but this thread is about the ultimate purpose of free speech.  The one that saves our lives, the one that prevents the destruction of unalienable rights.

It's pretty clear that the framers intended for Americans to be able to alter or abolish.  Do you think otherwise?

If indeed the framers did intend that, HOW did the framers propose Americans have the power to alter or abolish government powerful enough to be destructive to unalienable rights?  Clearly, Article V is "alter or ablish" codified, so American citzens must control their states who are actually the entities with the power to "alter or abolish"  How did the framers intend Americans control their states with their vote?  People of states must have accurate informed opinions in order to express themselves in democracy functionally.  How did the framers intend for the people to form accurate opinions?  Now that would be a good question to answer.

Did the framers intend that Americans unity create power over government so that it could be stopped from destroying unalienable rights?

Then, if the framers intended that Americans  be unified to enable their power of destructive government, what exactly did the framers intend serve the purpose of enabling that unity?

Just trying to hold the scope of discussion within context of the original post.

Thanks, Merlin.  Good Video.  Mark Steyn is very entertaining.