"I don’t believe in free speech because I think that everybody has something valuable to say. No, I believe that all men and women are bad sinners, and it shows up in their speech. The trouble is that as soon as you start talking about regulating their free speech, because it is bad, all the possible enforcers and regulators are rock hewn from that same quarry. Censors are sinners too.” — Douglas Wilson, Mere Christendom
Free speech is a Christian value. It is not a given. The more a society strays from Christ, the more their laws will reflect an intolerance for certain kinds of language. Hate speech laws are proposed by those who hate what is being said and the irony never hits them upside the head. It is the pot passing legislation that calls the kettle "black" for the kettle's online posts that called the pot black. Blasphemy laws are inescapable. That is because worship is inescapable. We were made in the imagine of God to worship and enjoy Him forever. When we do not do that, we do not do nothing. We do not simply stop worshiping, we merely start worshiping something else. That something else will declare a sacred space somewhere. There will be limits. There will be curtains. There will be a third commandment. There will be some things you cannot do or say. Christianity has produced the freest societies because it believes most firmly in both the dignity of men as image bearers and the depravity of men as fallen image bearers.
“I am a [proponent of democracy] because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that every one deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true… I find that they’re not true without looking further than myself. I don’t deserve a share in governing a hen-roost. Much less a nation. . . . The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.” — C.S. Lewis, Present Concerns
In short, speech should be free not because each man's opinions are worth hearing, but because no single man's censorious spirit is worth listening to. To put it in Lewis' terms, it is not that men are above slavery, it is that they are beneath mastery. Men are not so good as to require a hearing, but they are so bad as to keep them from silencing others. That is why the third commandment is enforced by God. There really are things you cannot say, but they are pretty few and far between and pretty easily defined. Do not take the Lord's name in vain. There are still many silly, nonsensical, and stupid things a person might say, but they are not against the law of God and neither should they be against the laws of men.
Bearing false witness is another kind of blasphemy law. It is a limitation to free speech. You are not free to falsely accuse someone of a crime. You are not free to disparage another's character without evidence. All that to say, there are many ways in which speech could be limited without offending the principle of free speech. Freedom of speech is not the ability to just say whatever you want whenever you want. But it is more like that than many would like.
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