A talk by Louis Worth Jones, 
September 25, 1988 at the Unitarian Fellowship of Redwood City, CA 
 

     I ask you to consider the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is something you read about almost every day in your newspaper.

    I ask your particular attention to the words "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech." The word speech in colonial times meant two-way communication, as in the then common phrase "I wish to have speech with you." Shakespeare often wrote about people being "in speech with each other," and as late as 1819 Sir Walter Scott in his book Ivanhoe wrote about certain people being "in speech with each other."

    The phrase "freedom of speech" comes from a 1689 British bill of rights meaning debates in Parliament. It means speech-making before willing listeners; two-way communication. It means discourse, discussion, and 
debate.

     This freedom - the freedom of debate - was won in England 100 years before our own Constitution. The king previously had the habit of sending his soldiers into Parliament arresting members for talking about subjects over which he, the king, asserted sole authority, like making war, or whom his son should marry.

     Our courts mistakenly have been interpreting "the freedom of speech" to mean "the freedom of speaking," which is one-way communication. Every court decision purporting to deal with speech has in fact dealt with 
speaking.

     But there is nowhere a freedom to speak. The founding fathers were well aware of this. In each of their meetings, speaking was abridged the moment the meet was gaveled to order. Speakers were required to take turns, stick to the subject, avoid disruption - or be thrown out. Had they written, "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speaking" they would have been thought to be idiots.

     We as citizens have been victimized by a monumental error. We have been led to believe that freedom means each of us is free to inflict our views and opinions and sales pitches on others, under the banner of the First Amendment. One-way communication has been given license. One-way selling and one-way persuasion has been given constitutional status.

     But words are weapons. They can deceive, injure, threaten, cause pain, terrorize, and even kill. 

     In probably the most flagrant error the courts have upheld a "right" of uniformed Nazis to march into Jewish neighborhoods, inflicting their terrifying message, namely, we propose to kill Jews just as Hitler did.

     The Universal Declaration of Human Rights makes it plain that there is no unqualified freedom to express opinions. It says that such expression is always subject to the rights and freedoms of others - and to the just requirements of public order and morality.

     Alexander Meiklejohn, a respected civil libertarian, said the act of speaking is subject to the same regulation as shooting a gun.  He also said the First Amendment does not protect a person saying what he or she is paid money to say.

     What has been overlooked entirely is freedom of speech, which means democratic process, without which democracy cannot exist.

     What is democratic process - which we all profess to practice? You of course may have your own description.

     If we do not have democratic process, we of course do not have democracy. Democracy is not achieved by people shouting at each other, or hurling slogans and rhetoric, or demonstrating and marching. It consists of two-way conscientious intercommunication, not by sending one-way messages and then retreating into the woodwork.

     We all love democracy. We preach it, and want other countries to be democratic.

     As we all know, democracy means rule of the people (all and not just some). Democratic process is supposed to ferret out and effectuate the will of the people - the consensus, the conscience, and, indeed, the soul of the people.

     We are a republic, that is, a representative democracy. The presumption is that as free citizens we are capable of governing ourselves and hence are capable of choosing representatives to fashion rules that unify and benefit us all. The collective will of the people cannot be determined except through democratic process. 

Majority Rule?

     To understand what democracy is, it is important to understand what it is not. It is not, as often said, the rule of the majority. A mob is a majority. Hitlerism was a majority.

     Our Declaration of Independence was not adopted b majority vote, but by unanimous consent.  The Constitution of the United States is not a product of majority vote, but of total consent and agreement.

      A mere majority vote could lead to a state religion, as in England. But this would not be the consensual will, which is that each American has an equal right to pursue religious truth as one sees fit.

     The majority of citizens cannot without cause take away from others the citizenship blessings they themselves enjoy.  Several years ago Californians voted to deny certain fellow citizens equal opportunity in the housing market. Even though this was majority action, the state supreme court struck it down. The conscience of the people thus asserted itself.

Hecklers and Demonstrators 

     It is not democracy when hecklers, shouters, and demonstrators interrupt speakers in an otherwise orderly forum.  Some of you will remember when a presidential candidate was heard to say in response to being heckled, "This is democracy."  Question: Does democracy consist of verbal bedlam, verbal anarchy? Of course not!

     A certain columnist, Richard Reeves,  once said the First Amendment includes the right to shout and march. I say this is utterly false. There is nothing whatever in the First Amendment that refers to conduct, especially riotous conduct, between citizens - much less does the First Amendment condone it and give it constitutional status.  

     The First Amendment does not pertain to conduct or behavior between citizens.  It DOES recognize the right of any citizen to petition the government of grievances.  This provision is sadly overlooked.  Protesting against government is quite different from protesting, or even annoying, a fellow citizen.

Togetherness and Americanism

     Some of you may remember previous presidential campaigns where certain placards were displayed in the audience reading "BRING US TOGETHER." Democracy implies togetherness. It involves a religious principle, a religious impulse. The word religion comes from the Latin meaning a binding together, as in the modern words ligament and ligature.

     Democracy implies a togetherness involving equal respect for each other - "the inherent worth and dignity of every person, " to quote from numerous pulpit utterances.

     Democracy implies conscience. We as citizens make the rules, which we pledge to live by. At some point the citizen must confront his or her own conscience and ask: Is this right?  And conscience is what religion is all about.  

      Remember, "rights of conscience" was a favorite phrase among the founding fathers when composing the Constitution.

     Democracy implies human equality. The architect of American independence, Thomas Paine, said: "Human equality, far from being modern doctrine, is the oldest on record."

     These ideals cannot be achieved without democratic process - as I have described.

     Democracy is nonpartisan. It is neither liberal nor conservative; neither left nor right; neither socialism nor capitalism. IT IS SIMPLY AMERICANISM!

An Informed Citizenry

     Democracy requires a literate electorate. It requires people freely intercommunicating with each other - being "in speech with each other." It requires people knowing and understanding the issues preparatory to 
voting. It requires input from all, and not just some, of the people.

     Our public school system was not established as charity, as many suppose. It was established because democracy, republican government, cannot survive without an informed citizenry. The public school is designed as a laboratory to exemplify and nourish the ideal of democracy.
    
Inclusiveness

     We do not have democracy when hundreds and thousands of homeless fellow Americans are now sleeping in parks, doorways and under bridges. They can't register to vote because they have no street address. They are  not accorded a stake in the system, but are generally considered a problem.

     We do not have democracy when so many children are neglected. A recent survey reports that 100,000 children are homeless in this country. Democracy implies caring and sharing.

         It is not democracy unless each of us has, as has been said, "a genuine share."

     It is not democracy when people with high incomes vote more disproportionately than people of relatively low income. Government of the people is not government solely by the highest rungs of society.

Voting

     It is illusory to think that democracy takes place only on election day. Democracy is a continuous day-to-day process of ferreting out and determining the will of the people. It takes place through lobbying, pleading, persuading, writing, conversing, study, reflection and collaborating regarding pressing issues.

     The voting process can be rigged. And when officialdom lies to the people the voting process is subverted. A voter's judgment is never better than one's information.
    
     It is not democracy when presidents are elected by a minority vote. Lincoln was elected by minority vote.  One recent president was elected by barely over one-fourth the qualified voters - yet he has been referred to as a landslide president. Other countries are far more democratic in this respect than the United States.

Trust

     It is not democracy when one seldom hears the words honor or honesty from candidates for public office. Democracy does not exist without mutual faith and trust, and this involves honor and honesty. Thomas Jefferson said: "The whole of government consists in the art of being honest."

Government has "rights"?

    It is not democracy when so many people are talking about institutional government - republican government - having "rights." Even judges of the Supreme Court have been heard to say government has a 'right' to protect and maintain itself. At least one past resident has been heard to say, falsely, that our government has certain "rights." 

     Wrong. In a democracy, government has only power, duties, and responsibilities granted by the people. Kings may claim divine rights; presidents have only sworn duties and responsibilities.

Money and Democratic Process

    It is not democracy when money - the so-called mother's milk of politics - is the chief determinant in whether to run for public office.

     The first thing a candidate must face today is: How much money is needed and where can we get it? Usually it is the candidate who spends the most money who wins. But democracy cannot exist when political office is sold to the highest bidder.

     It is actually subversive of democracy when a candidate achieves office by using money from out of the district he or she is supposed to represent. Yet today United States senators are regularly being elected, or retired from office, by out-of-state money. The senator you and I and other Californians elect may be more beholden to unknown non-Californians, or even non- Americans, than to you and me.

     The American Civil Liberties Union is dead wrong when it says use of money in these cases, which is hard to distinguish from bribes, is freedom of speech and expression.

     It is not democracy when - let's face it - whoever has the most money has the most platform time to influence us. Today whoever has the most money can buy television and radio time, and newspaper and magazine ads.

     Democracy exists only when those who seek to persuade accord equal time to those of opposing views. It exists only when all relevant views and information are heard in the same forum. Today we simply do not have either equality of voice or access to the forum.

     Democracy exists only when the forum itself is democratized.   And this means democratic process.

Loyalty

     Democracy does not exist when laws are enacted to compel a person to recite the pledge of allegiance or pledge loyalty to our governmental system. In a democracy, a pledge of loyalty or allegiance - like love itself - is meaningless if not freely given. Dictators and monarchs require loyalty. One of Hitler's last acts was to demand loyalty oaths. 

     Thomas Paine had something to say about this: "If a government requires the support of loyalty oaths, it is a sign that it is not worth supporting. Make government what it ought to be, and it will support itself."
    
     Such enforced pledges reveal ignorance of democratic self-government. They hark back to the days of feudalism when the vassal owed loyalty to the liege lord. The word allegiance comes from the word liege, as in liege lord. We as free men and women are not vassals of the state. Nor are we subjects of the state. We ARE the state!

News and Making Money

     It is not democracy when virtually all news comes to us for money-making purposes, with little regard for the moral and spiritual health of the nation - or of the world. The journalist must not displease the publisher, and the publisher must not displease the advertiser. And the advertiser must make money for the product or service being sold.

     The advertiser looks to the god of ratings. The news must be exciting, (and) entertaining. Dan Rather, in an August 22 article in Newsweek, deplored "attempts to inject ratings concern into our political system." Why reduce the political process to 30-second commercials and 20-second sound bites, he asks. Why subject vital political debate and dialogue to the demands of the rating system, he asks.

    Alexander Meiklejohn, the educator and political philosopher, said that news must be separated from making money.

Control of the Media

     It is not democracy when seekers of profit and power dominate the people's own airwaves and other channels of communication, snowing us under with self-serving messages.

     Some years ago Alexander Meiklejohn said, "Commercialism controls most of what we see and hear." And this was before television.

     We are inundated with one-way 'messages' that are repeated so often as to have a mind-altering, manipulative effect. A better word might be brainwashing. This one-way barrage of propaganda comes to us under the banner of the First Amendment - interpreted to mean virtually unlimited freedom of speaking and expression.

     Ben Bagdikian, professor of journalism at UC Berkeley and Pulitzer Prize winner, reports in his book The Media Monopoly that 50 corporations control what America sees, hears, and reads. He calls these "the invisible powers that shape our knowledge of the world around us - and thus shape us." The information we get, he says, is a by-product of industry.

     He says most banks, insurance companies and investment companies are represented on boards of the major media that control most of what Americans learn about the economy. The directorates of major corporations interlock with each other. Louis Brandeis, the noted jurist, is quoted as saying "The practice of interlocking directorates is the root of many evils. It offends laws, human and divine. It is undemocratic."

     Gulf and Western reportedly owns over 100 companies from auto parts to panty hose. At one time it owned Paramount Pictures, Pocket Books, and Simon and Schuster, a leading book publisher. In 1979 Simon and Schuster turned down a highly recommended book because it seemed to make corporations look bad.

     It is not democracy when corporations are allowed to advertise their social and political views and deduct the cost as an expense of doing business - as they do now. It is not democratic to propagandize the public at the public's expense.

Television

     Television, which is largely controlled from the boardrooms of profit-seeking entities, represents a new form of tyranny over the mind of man.  It routinely distorts American life and values. It teaches that guns and bullets solve problems, and that the way to stop killing is more killing. It exalts violence. It exalts hucksterism. It portrays women as making up only 27 percent of the population, whereas women actually make up 53 percent.  It appeals to the lowest level of human values. Its intent seems to be to soften brains and produce a sheep-like mentality - zombies who are propaganda pushovers for any commercial product or political ideology. 

     The materialistic bottom line is always: Will it make money for the investors?

     Democracy cannot exist, nor maintain itself, without intercommunicative people, thinking people talking with each other - being "in speech with each other" - about the general welfare.

     Television, which should be our public platform and forum, is arrogance institutionalized, a people-shaper par excellence. It violates every concept of fairness in the forum. You and I have virtually nothing to say about it. You can't question or talk back to the tube.

     One needs only to read Vance Packard's The People Shapers to get an idea of the pervasive and hypnotic influence of television.

     Here again, this one-way traffic into our minds is court-protected because of the erroneous belief that freedom of speech means freedom of speaking.

Opinion Polls

     And now if you are still with me I would like to come to the subject of opinion polls. The prevailing idea is that polls and opinion surveys have something to do with democracy. They give us a chance to express our opinions - right?  And isn't it democracy when people venture into such expressions?  I say no.  Polls are anti-democratic. Here's why:
    
      They contain assumptions, mostly unwarranted, which you have no chance to challenge or assess.
    
    They contain questions that suggest answers. Consider the saying: "Ask the right questions and you get the right answers."
    
     Polls tend to shape opinions, rather than ascertain them - and polls can be rigged.
    
     They solicit anonymous opinions (how responsible is an opinion from a faceless person?)
    
     They reflect views of special, not ordinary people (pollsters don't talk to the man sleeping in the doorway, or to the welfare mom).
    
     They collect only gut, unthinking responses (the pollster doesn't want you to think).
    
     They require you to fit your opinions into a predetermined mold (for ease of computerization).
    
     Polls assume that opinions exist in a vacuum (actually they are interrelated: your opinion as to the economy has a lot to do with national defense).
    
     Polls take and process opinions and spit them back as objective truths.
    
     They demean the respondent, treating him or her as a faceless, meaningless statistic.
    
     They carry a false air of authority and make the act of voting superfluous.
    
     They invite division and polarity, rather than unity of purpose and principle.
    
     They invite self-serving opinions - pocketbook responses.
    
     They ignore the fact that democracy requires interaction of people and ideas.
    
     They nourish the bandwagon, tabloid mentality
    
      Lastly, polls are often dead wrong. They were wrong in 1936, in 1948, and three times this year, 1988. The people-shapers, to use Vance Packard's term, love polls because they tell how effective their people-shaping program is. A recent editorial in the Progressive magazine concludes: "Polls deprive us of the real substance of democracy".

Summation

     To sum up, we do not have democracy because do not have democratic process, and we do not have democratic process because we do not have the intended freedom of speech - the speech typified in the colonial town hall meetings, and which we today find in our committee and hearing rooms across the nation, and in all orderly assemblies adhering to Roberts Rules of Order.

     We don't have genuine speech, which is discourse and interaction, because we have mistakenly thought free speech consists of one-way messages. Instead of debate we have selling. Instead of talking with each other, we believe in talking at the audience, the gallery, the camera - talking to an entity which cannot respond or talk back.

     Alexander Meiklejohn said that while Congress may not abridge the freedom of speech, there is nothing whatever to prevent Congress from enlarging it. Congress could begin by democratizing the airwaves, which are our public platform, our countrywide parliament.

     The composite will of the people cannot be determined without promoting and engaging in discourse and honest debate. More and more commentators are calling for it. As one journalist recently said, "We must get away from packaging and selling a candidate like soap flakes".

     Walter Lippman, a most respected commentator of a past era, said what we have today is rhetoric, not dialectics. To quote:    
     "If there is no effective debate, the unrestricted right to speak will unloose so many propagandists, procurers, and panderers upon the public that sooner or later in self-defense the people will turn to censors to protect themselves. An unrestricted and unregulated right to speak cannot be maintained."

*Democratic Process
     
     It is more cooperative than competitive.

     The atmosphere is characterized more by self-restraint than by aggression; more by mutuality than by hostility; more by honesty and deference than by trickery or stratagem.

     Where speakers are credentialed and considered responsible.

     Where there are willing listeners; where debate is civil.

     Where each speaker is sensitive to the humanity of his or her fellow beings; where truth- seeking is the dominant motivation; where the participants are moved by concern for the general welfare, for the common good, for social progress and for the human condition generally.

     Where the individual is speaking as a maker of rules which he or she thereby becomes subject to.
 
 

1988 Louis Worth Jones