At The Los Angeles Times, Sarah
Chayes argues that the First Amendment does not protect the YouTube video
that was the pretext for violence in the Mideast. She writes:
While many 1st Amendment scholars
defend the right of the filmmakers to produce this film, arguing that the
ensuing violence was not sufficiently imminent, I spoke to several experts who
said the trailer may well fall outside constitutional guarantees of free
speech. "Based on my understanding of the events," 1st Amendment
authority Anthony Lewis said in an interview Thursday, "I think this meets
the imminence standard."
Lewis is neither a lawyer nor a constitutional scholar. He is a
former reporter whom Noam Chomsky described as at “the
far left of the spectrum.”
Eugene Volokh, who actually is a First Amendment scholar, has a different view:
In recent days, I’ve heard various people calling for punishing the maker of Innocence of Muslims, and more broadly for suppressing such speech. During the Terry Jones planned Koran-burning controversy, I heard similar calls. Such expression leads to the deaths of people, including Americans. It worsens our relations with important foreign countries. It’s intended to stir up trouble. And it’s hardly high art, or thoughtful political arguments. It’s not like it’s Satanic Verses, or even South Park or Life of Brian. Why not shut it down, and punish those who engage in it (of course, while keeping Satanic Verses and the like protected)?
I think there are many reasons to resist such calls, but in this post I want to focus on one: I think such suppression would likely lead to more riots and more deaths, not less. Here’s why.
Behavior that gets rewarded, gets repeated. (Relatedly, “once you have paid him the Dane-geld, you never get rid of the Dane.”) Say that the murders in Libya lead us to pass a law banning some kinds of speech that Muslims find offensive or blasphemous, or reinterpreting our First Amendment rules to make it possible to punish such speech under some existing law.
What then will extremist Muslims see? They killed several Americans (maybe itself a plus from their view). In exchange, they’ve gotten America to submit to their will. And on top of that, they’ve gotten back at blasphemers, and deter future blasphemy. A triple victory.
Would this (a) satisfy them that now America is trying to prevent blasphemy, so there’s no reason to kill over the next offensive incident, or (b) make them want more such victories? My money would be on (b).
