With the latest ruling on abortion buffer zones, we have yet one more strange expansion and inflation of a "right," one which seems completely without connection to the right as stated, one completely illogical in that lack of connection.
This isn't about "free speech." This is about harassment, or worse.
And, given the fact that "buffer zones" don't prevent free speech -- how could they -- it's mind-boggling.
Where does it say in the First Amendment that we all have the right to be in someone's face to express our views? "Free speech" isn't about proximity. It's not about being as close to the action as possible. It's not a spatial "right." It's not a right of closeness. It's not a right of intimidation.
It's a right to be able to open our mouths and speak our minds. And this brings to mind other aspects of this perverted vision of rights. Expansionary in the wrong direction. Inflated in favor of the hostile, the extreme, the overly aggressive, the loudest amongst us.
Inclusiveness and expanding the franchise is rarely anything but good. Increasing the boundaries of democracy is rarely anything but good. This, however, is something else entirely.
More under the fold . . . .
The Case of George Will
Apparently, many on the right believe that if a George Will loses one of his 474 outlets for his column, that is a denial of his "free speech" rights too, and he has been unfairly "silenced." Or if a business can't oppress minorities, deny them service, single out certain parts of their insurance to block, then they are being denied their "free speech" in the form of their vision of "religious freedom."
There is no "right" to a nationally syndicated column, in some 470 plus venues. If a person loses one of those 470 plus venues, his or her "free speech" hasn't been affected one iota. He or she hasn't been "silenced." Especially in the digital age, when you can click on a link and go from the St. Louis paper which dropped him, to any of the other 470 plus media outlets who kept him, in seconds. I think it's safe to say that many of us would like to be "silenced" into reaching so many readers.
Hobby Lobby and others who claim free speech and religious liberty completely inflate and conflate their "rights" when they say they should be able to deny employees or clients based upon their religious views. In the case of insurance, this is a form of payment, of salary and compensation, and when an employer blocks a part of that insurance, he or she is effectively dictating to the employee how he or she can spend that salary. This is nothing more than a power grab by employers. It has nothing to do with their "free speech" or religious rights.
The Case of Gun rights inflation
For two hundred years, the "right" to keep and bear arms was considered a collective, not an individual right. This changed basically overnight with the Heller decision in 2008. But that was just the first official shot fired on behalf of the gun industry, to expand their gun sales further, to saturate America with even more deadly pieces of metal, using the gun rights movement as their shock troops. By radically expanding the boundaries of a very basic, limited right, they've succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of gun lobbyists as recently as ten or twenty years ago.
And after they got their individual right status, they didn't stop. Open carry, stand your ground, creating an unlimited arsenal, creating that arsenal to keep up or exceed the government's, flaunting that unlimited arsenal in public, to aiming that arsenal at federal officers doing their jobs under the law -- these are all reaching a fever pitch at present.
(Logically, this is not going to end well.)
Where is the original right in all of this? Nowhere to be found. Because it was never a right to unlimited consumer choice, or unlimited firepower, or the "right" to play judge, jury and executioner if one believes his or her fellow Americans are "tyrannical." Ironically, the last in that list is the epitome of tyranny, and that's self-evident.
From my POV, I see the above as expansions of rights based on gross misreadings of those rights in the first place, and the expansions as sidetracks, completely disconnected from the original right itself, and pretty much all in the service of right-wing revisions of our history and present day structures. These are end-runs around democracy, common sense, logic and civil harmonies, and they make a mockery out of the concept of rights.