It’s imperative that we realize what free speech is, and what it is not. 

The word speech in the First Amendment does not mean one-way utterance, as it perhaps does today.  Rather, it means conversation and willing dialogue about our common concerns, such as government policies which we are all required to support with taxes. 

   In early America, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, persons were frequently heard to say, “I wish to have speech with you.”  The phrase “the freedom of speech” (note the definite article) means just what it meant in the 1689 British bill of rights, where it plainly meant speech-making and debates occurring in Parliament under unanimously agreed rules of conduct. 

   Previously the king had sent his soldiers into Parliament arresting members for debating matters over which he, the king, claimed sole decision-making power, like making war or whom his son should marry (remember the French king who cried out, “the state? That’s me!”). 

   Tyrants throughout history have sought to stamp out peaceful gatherings of people discussing and debating issues about governing systems under which they live. 

   But our Constitution does not uphold any right or freedom to speak or express oneself irrespective of the rights and freedoms of others.  It declares no right whatsoever to inflict views and opinions    - and sales pitches - on unwilling ears.  Or imbed “messages” (political, religious, commercial) in another’s brain cells.  Or to slur or slander, or disturb a church service, or shout fire falsely in a crowded theater, or to harangue an unwilling audience. 

  The First Amendment does not intend to license personal conduct that imposes in any way on one’s citizen peers.   It does not license conduct that is in any way intrusive or abusive.  There is no more a right to intrude on another’s sensibilities than there is a right to blow smoke in someone’s face. 

   Interpersonal conduct, whether friendly, hostile or merely unbecoming, is not dealt with in the First Amendment, and no one can show original intent in this regard.  Disrespectful conduct has no place in the orderly forum.  When our nation’s founders met in l787 to write a constitution the first thing they did was to forbid “indecorous” speaking during their deliberations.  Had they proclaimed a freedom of speaking they would have been considered idiots. 

   Unfortunately, the First Amendment has been grossly misinterpreted for 78 years.  Virtually all high court decisions have mistakenly dealt with conduct, often outrageous conduct (like desecrating the American flag in public). 

    Court figures often tell us that “Everyone knows free speech has limits,” and spend much time trying to “draw the line” between what is permitted and what is protected.  Whatever free speech is, it is 
absolutely beyond legislative limitation. The First Amendment says, “Congress shall make no law” abridging free speech, and the words mean just that. 

   The courts have vainly been trying to draw “the line” between what citizen conduct is “protected” and what is not. 

   Freedom of speech pertains to the process whereby free citizens peacefully get together face-to-face to discuss and debate the issues that inevitably arise in our system of democratic self-government.  It is a right and power of the citizenry collectively, and not an individual right at all.  It was written into the Articles of Confederation and into our basic Constitution as well (Article I, section 6).  James Madison, who authored the First Amendment, merely extended the same guaranteed freedom to state legislatures, to existing town meetings and to the citizens at large. 

  The purpose of the First Amendment is to clarify rights we as citizens have against government, not against each other.  Its purpose is to guarantee that governmental issues are discussed and debated fairly so that the core essential will of the people collectively is brought into being. 

  What we have today is not free speech but a witlessly perverted interpretation.  We do not have free speech because we have not discerned what it really is.  Alexander Meiklejohn, an ACLU pioneer, said that while Congress may not abridge it, there is nothing whatsoever to prevent Congress from expanding it. 
 
 

2000 Louis Worth Jones