See, I installed the forum for this site onto the server, though, I haven't had a chance yet to set it up. As I've been discussing the past few days, my major concern was how I could have this free speech forum and not be a total hypocrite if I felt inclined to take down a hateful message. Well, I've thought this out further, and, I'll say right off the bat that I'm not an attorney, nor am I any type of Constitutional expert. However, I do have a brain that I use intensively all the time, and I do have a few thoughts now:
See, we don't really have complete freedom of speech, and, frankly, I'm glad for that. For example, you can't choose a random stranger, follow her around the shopping mall, and repeat over and over, "You are totally worthless and need to terminate yourself." No, that's not permitted. That's harassment. Likewise, you can't call up people and threaten to harm them. Your speech is not free in that manner. Nor, as has been often pointed out, can you go into crowded movie theatre and yell, "Fire!" So, even in our so-called free speech society there already exist parameters. My main concern with the free speech issue and the forum is that I don't want anyone to feel threatened.... that's not quite the right word....I don't want anyone to have the power to turn a project that I worked so hard on from a positive into a negative, but that's not a good enough of a rationalization to justify anything, but, this is....I don't want anyone to be able to create a hostile environment. And, I believe that's where I'm going to plant my flag, because, correct me if I'm wrong, and I'll post a question on the legal forum later today, but I don't believe the First Amendment protects a person's right to free speech if such speech is deemed harassing or creates a hostile atmosphere. I'm going to look into this further, and, this also reinforces my belief that things don't really start getting interesting until you really get into them.
