Shouting fire in a fire

Over this past weekend, I attended a few documentary screenings at the Full Frame Film Festival in Durham, N.C., the first of which was entitled “Shouting Fire”. As the film dealt with the topic of free speech, I was very interested to see its treatment of the subject. The film was made by Liz Garbus, the daughter of longtime free speech advocate Martin Garbus. I found the film to be a bit more liberal than I had hoped, particularly since, in my opinion, the assault on free speech comes from both sides of the political spectrum. If anything, I might concede that liberals tend to be stronger direct advocates of free speech than are conservatives, though their negative impact on this particular first amendment issue comes in more subtle ways such as through political correctness and advocacy of the “fairness doctrine”. In general, people are in support of free speech unless it runs counter to their own beliefs regardless of their political affiliation.

Following the presentation, the film maker and her father remained to answer questions. One of these came from someone obviously liberal, as was likely the makeup of the majority in the audience. His question concerned a segment of the film which dealt with an Arab woman who was publicly mistreated by the New York Post in order to advance a populist concern about her involvement in a public school. To paraphrase, he asked why it was wrong to abridge the freedom of speech of a media outlet run by a group of greedy individuals bent on pushing their agenda. My response would have been that such an abridgment would violate the constitution. Mr. Garbus’s response, instead, was to express concern that such an abridgment would likely lead to additional curtailments of speech, potentially leading to an impact on the freedoms of the individual. I suppose his approach provided more of a justification of the amendment rather than an obstacle to discussion. Perhaps there’s something to be learned from that.