See, the thing is that I find Butler’s arguments about how restricting freedom of speech, by which she meant giving the government the right and ability to restrict it, would actually hurt hypothetical group C more than it would help, because the government is composed of mostly group A. Which I think is probably right. But at the same time, I found MacKinnon’s work in Only Words to be far more in line with my own opinions on speech, which is basically that words, some words, are more than just words. Butler addresses this as well, but as far as I can tell, for her it doesn’t matter that much because restricting hate speech inevitably restricts marginalized speech.

I guess for me, it’s less about group C having a platform in media than it is about specific interactions between individuals. A few months ago this guy started walking behind me while I was walking my dog, making pleasant conversation about him. Then after a few exchanges he started telling me how what I needed was to be fucked, that I needed a kid instead of a dog and so what I needed was a hard fucking, etc etc. It was extremely clear to me that this person was threatening to rape me. I felt terrified that he was going to come over and try to hurt me and that my dog would kill him and they would take my dog away from me, but in my brain I was like “Goddamn it fuck this guy!” because I knew that he was threatening me with violence. Then, after I got home in one piece and with no dead criminals on my dog’s conscience, I was fantasizing about what I would have done in alternate universes, including saying a command to my dog that would turn him into a hell hound death machine, and calling the cops and reporting him. But in that second fantasy, I realized that if I called any cops and told them that some guy was following me, telling me I needed to be fucked so that I could have a baby, they probably wouldn’t agree with me that the dude was threatening me. Now, legally I know that if he had said “I am going to rape you” that would pretty much have been illegal. Because that would be a threat, and threats aren’t covered under the 1st Amendment. But would anyone agree that “You need to be fucked is what you need, so you can have a baby instead of a dog” was a threat? Should what he said to me have been illegal? That exchange totally fucked me up, and for weeks after I wouldn’t walk my dog alone late at night because I was scared–I made my boyfriend walk with me, and trust that bringing a male chaperon with me made me feel like I had a bomb in my stomach and was about to explode, I was so angry/frustrated/sad/humiliated/etc. So this guy’s right to not-threaten threaten me basically trumped my right to walk around my neighborhood alone at night without feeling like I was under attack–the first and most acute curtailing of that right was during the actual exchange itself, when he was threatening me, but continued for several weeks after it. Why should that kind of speech be more important than my safety?

But you know, I still can’t really think of how to deal with the reality that the government is made up of “group A,” or a bunch of men who would probably agree with that dude that what I need is to get fucked, have a baby, and STFU. I mean, I don’t actually even know if he had said “I am going to rape you,” if that would have been considered a threat, or threatening enough to get arrested.

Whenever the topic of free speech comes up, I tend to think of stalkers. I can’t help but see all kinds of parallels, at the last, in the issues, because stalkers basically exercise their rights at the expense of other folks’ rights, just like the right of a dudely old rich white dude to talk effectively trumps the right of a poor black lesbian deaf tween to talk.

I order for Type 1 ideas to become more salient, they require a government that is sympathetic to the plight of Group C. If poor old Group C could get its hands on some air time in a legit forum, its ideas could gain traction and then perhaps it would convince Groups A and B of the immorality of the current system and convince them to support public policy seeking to correct the inequities perpetuated in this society. But wait…the government is already sympathetic to the plight of Group C, so why go through all this hassle? Why doesn’t this sympathetic government address these inequities directly?

As for Type 2 ideas, the government obviously has a preference for Group C in some respect, so how far does it go in subsidizing/promoting Group C in order to make its Type 2 ideas more salient and catalyze their acceptance/integration into the canon or whatever? If Groups A, B and C all get equal airtime and funding but Group A’s ideas reign triumphant, does the government incorporate more Group C Type 2 ideas unilaterally? What about Group D, who thinks that space aliens want to churn all God-loving white people into baby food–where is Group D’s piece of the pie?

I guess my primary question is, if tinkering with this right presupposes a particular perpetual ideological leaning by the government, wouldn’t it be easier to just establish, as first priorities, the regulation of material wealth and opportunity (more) in favor of Group C, a narrative favorable to Group C, and the punishment of negative stereotypes of and attitudes toward Group C? Why go through the kabuki theater of a “forum” and “debate” at all?

Perhaps I’m being overly utopian here.

If it’s state-run or state-funded, doesn’t that open the door for the state to completely manipulate who’s being heard and what they’re saying? I feel like part of the reason PBS and NPR are so good now (read: liberal, thoughtful, interesting) is because they’re kind of vaguely underground as opposed to all the fancy channels. If people in Congress paid attention to them, if they gave them more money and more of their time, they would totally crack down on programming. We have crazypants Congresspeople with no sense of history, fairness, or even civility, really. The right tends to elect extremists (here lately, at least). Michele Bachman suggested an inquiry to weed out the Socialists in Congress, ffs.

All of that is just to say, if we suddenly had an amazing platform like the BBC or CBC, without a society overhaul it’d be featuring Pat Robertson’s Patriotic Family Hour in about a week and a half.

I feel like we’ve had one model for media in this country for so long that changing it would be like trying to put toothpaste back in the tube.

yvan: Well, to borrow baraqiel’s concept of “tooling,” I am not suggesting that this would be a complete colution, just that it does provide a sort of stage for voices that are not “commercially viable.”