"I may not agree with what you say but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." Whatever my political leanings may be, I'm squarely behind this statement. So when the Bong Hits 4 Jesus case came out, I wasn't thrilled with the opinion.
First, the banner was pretty funny, and I'm against limiting humor of which we're already in short supply.
Second, while it makes sense to limit speech that actually, directly causes harm, what was being hurt by the banner besides people's sensibilities? I'm not buying the argument that the banner actively encouraged illegal drug use, sorry.* If someone thinks that sign is what makes a 15 year old turn to a life of drugs and crime, I suggest they look a little further for the causes.
Third, the decision chills speech at a most vulnerable time--not political parades, but the high school years. And now courts are taking the Bong Hits case and extending it. Extending limits on speech is just another way to say restricting speech, is it not? But my point here is not the extent of the restriction, but the damage it can do to our society by specifically targeting young people.
"Chilling speech" is a nifty little First Amendment term I've picked up, even though I won't take Con Law II (First Amendment) until next quarter. I love it because it so aptly describes what happens when certain types of speech aren't per se illegal--yet--but are mighty similar to types of speech that have been prohibited. When students are making banners to hold up at political parades or rallies (and we should be jumping up and down with glee that they might be so interested in civic matters that they would want to go to a political event) they're going to wonder now just how much trouble their anti-establishment slogan is going to bring them.
I am all about encouraging people to think. Please, give it a shot! But I want kids making banners to think about what they want to say, not what the party line is. I want them to push boundaries, so they figure out where they are and why they are there. I want them to challenge and provoke the rest of us because a society with no questions or controversy is a dead society. I want them to be free to say one thing one day and another thing another day until they figure out what the reactions are to their statements, the counterarguments to their positions, and develop their own core beliefs. I want them free to discuss, and make silly banners, because if you cannot do that when you are young, when can you?
Get them while they're young. It's a well-known and effective technique for training in anything. Start with young and malleable minds. We get them while they're young, due to compulsory schooling. Do we want to train them to speak only pre-approved messages, or do we want to train them to spell "for" correctly? Do we chill all drug-related speech and inhibit debates about what is or isn't proper for Congress to regulate or what society should do about one of our largest industries? Do we chill violent speech and start arresting people for what they write in their diaries? (The answer to that in the 5th Circuit at least is yes.) Do we chill religious speech and make it harder for children to explore and understand their spiritual side? What will the cost of that chilling be to our future? If people don't learn to debate these issues when they are young and have no shortage of time or interest, why would they debate them when they are older and jaded and more worried about buying groceries than doing bong hits?
Let the young have their youth. Let them say silly or disturbing or even slanderous things, and let us argue back with superior reasoning, not with commands to shut up and sit down. Their freedom and willingness to speak is important to us all.
*And actually, I'm not sure that speech encouraging illegal activity should always be discouraged, because otherwise how would you ever get laws changed? See, for instance, laws against interracial marriage. And while I am taking no stance on the issue, there is a significant movement both within and without official government circles to legalize at least some drugs, as California already has. So... it's just not as simple as you'd think, is it?
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