A Time for War and a Time for Peace
To answer the question of what limits, if any, should be placed on free speech during wartime, I think it would be appropriate to go back to the beginnings of modern philosophic discussions as to what the makeup of a society is and take it from there. 
John Locke, Thomas Hobbes and Jean Jaques Rousseau of the 17th and 18th Centuries were all fascinated with the concept of a "social contract". The idea behind a social contract is that a certain group of people have "moral and/or political obligations [that] are dependent upon a contract or agreement between them to form society (The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)." They band together to form a society and create social norms. They elect a leader, or in Hobbes' terms, a Leviathan, and live content and secure; the latter being of the utmost i
mportance. If security is lacking, there is no contentment, and revolution is inevitable. If the group finds it in their best interest to go to war against a foreign state, they have every right. If there are those among them that disagree with the objective of the state, they have that right as well, and their dissent goes against the social contract only to the extent that that they don't support a certain objective of the state, but they still are faithful to the regime. It would be a hard argument to make that by their dissent of the government during wartime, they are endangering national security.
Can the government place limits on free speech? "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech (Bill of Rights, Amendment I)." This applies to everyone, even immigrants. Expressing dissent with the government is part of the fabric of democracy. Senator Fulbright even goes so far as to say: "To criticize one's country is to do it a service and pay it a compliment. It is a service because it may spur the country to do better than it is doing; it is a compliment because it evidences a belief that a country can do better than it is doing." I mean, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote a whole book criticizing American Democracy!
For the sake of comparison, when we compare the reactions to a skirmish between Islamic
-run governments and Democratic ones, we find a notable difference. Islamic governments never dare to criticize the way they fought the battle, for in their eyes, they will eventually win, and they might even consider a loss as a win. There is virtually no criticism. In democratic countries, on the other hand, regimes fall because of a mishandled battle. The surprise of the Yom Kippur War forced out many senior officers and advisors. 9-11 had the effect of creating a new department to house the many disparate branches of the Intelligence Community. These were reactions to a failed strategy and they are good for society.
Getting to wartime, I would like to make a few distinctions to clarify the parameters of limitation on free speech. If the battle is being fought overseas and the domestic population is not in immanent danger, I do not see any problem with finding disfavor with the government. If we look back to the social contract, ostensibly, the war should be fought for our interest. If we, or some of us, do not agree, we have the constitutional right to dissent. To take the current war in Iraq as an example; seemingly, being that it is far off our shores, it has little immanent danger, so Americans don't have to worry about the disfavor of their views. Just like we didn't agree with the Vietnam War, and therefore, we left. For "clear and present danger", no limitations should be placed. A war which wages on our shores, on the other hand, should be dealt with carefully. The nation is in danger and therefore, certain measures must be taken to protect it.
After the ending of our class today, I figured it would be appropriate to continue with the point. In Judaism, there are two types of wars. There is a "Commanded War" and there is an "Permissitory War". In a commanded war, everyone must defend the nation and no one has a right to protest - it is a matter of immanent danger. A Permissitory War, eg, a war for territory, is in the hands of the government and army to decide the proper course of action while the citizenry could say whatever they want.
As is the case here, the Iraq War is a war based on the hegemonic ideals of the United States, it is a "Permissitory War" and therefore, we have the freedom to dissent. We, according to Robert Yates, are the "fount of all power".
So it seems feasible to draw the line where there is no immanent threat. "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech" so long as that speech does not pose a direct dan
ger to national security. Collaboration, where there are citizens contacting obscure, war torn, locations, they should be monitored. For this "War on Terror" has fronts all over the world, even here in the USA. As John McCain recently expressed:
"The consequences of failure are so severe that I will exhaust every possibility to try to fix this situation. Because it's not the end when American troops leave. The battleground shifts, and we'll be fighting them again," McCain said. "You read Zarqawi, and you read bin Laden. ... It's not just Iraq that they're interested in. It's the region, and then us."
This suggestion is simplified of course, since I am writing in the proverbial "ivory tower" and there are probably thousands of various cases that come up that would entangle themselves in this issue. But its a start.
John Locke, Thomas Hobbes and Jean Jaques Rousseau of the 17th and 18th Centuries were all fascinated with the concept of a "social contract". The idea behind a social contract is that a certain group of people have "moral and/or political obligations [that] are dependent upon a contract or agreement between them to form society (The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)." They band together to form a society and create social norms. They elect a leader, or in Hobbes' terms, a Leviathan, and live content and secure; the latter being of the utmost i
mportance. If security is lacking, there is no contentment, and revolution is inevitable. If the group finds it in their best interest to go to war against a foreign state, they have every right. If there are those among them that disagree with the objective of the state, they have that right as well, and their dissent goes against the social contract only to the extent that that they don't support a certain objective of the state, but they still are faithful to the regime. It would be a hard argument to make that by their dissent of the government during wartime, they are endangering national security.Can the government place limits on free speech? "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech (Bill of Rights, Amendment I)." This applies to everyone, even immigrants. Expressing dissent with the government is part of the fabric of democracy. Senator Fulbright even goes so far as to say: "To criticize one's country is to do it a service and pay it a compliment. It is a service because it may spur the country to do better than it is doing; it is a compliment because it evidences a belief that a country can do better than it is doing." I mean, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote a whole book criticizing American Democracy!
For the sake of comparison, when we compare the reactions to a skirmish between Islamic
-run governments and Democratic ones, we find a notable difference. Islamic governments never dare to criticize the way they fought the battle, for in their eyes, they will eventually win, and they might even consider a loss as a win. There is virtually no criticism. In democratic countries, on the other hand, regimes fall because of a mishandled battle. The surprise of the Yom Kippur War forced out many senior officers and advisors. 9-11 had the effect of creating a new department to house the many disparate branches of the Intelligence Community. These were reactions to a failed strategy and they are good for society.Getting to wartime, I would like to make a few distinctions to clarify the parameters of limitation on free speech. If the battle is being fought overseas and the domestic population is not in immanent danger, I do not see any problem with finding disfavor with the government. If we look back to the social contract, ostensibly, the war should be fought for our interest. If we, or some of us, do not agree, we have the constitutional right to dissent. To take the current war in Iraq as an example; seemingly, being that it is far off our shores, it has little immanent danger, so Americans don't have to worry about the disfavor of their views. Just like we didn't agree with the Vietnam War, and therefore, we left. For "clear and present danger", no limitations should be placed. A war which wages on our shores, on the other hand, should be dealt with carefully. The nation is in danger and therefore, certain measures must be taken to protect it.
After the ending of our class today, I figured it would be appropriate to continue with the point. In Judaism, there are two types of wars. There is a "Commanded War" and there is an "Permissitory War". In a commanded war, everyone must defend the nation and no one has a right to protest - it is a matter of immanent danger. A Permissitory War, eg, a war for territory, is in the hands of the government and army to decide the proper course of action while the citizenry could say whatever they want.
As is the case here, the Iraq War is a war based on the hegemonic ideals of the United States, it is a "Permissitory War" and therefore, we have the freedom to dissent. We, according to Robert Yates, are the "fount of all power".
So it seems feasible to draw the line where there is no immanent threat. "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech" so long as that speech does not pose a direct dan
ger to national security. Collaboration, where there are citizens contacting obscure, war torn, locations, they should be monitored. For this "War on Terror" has fronts all over the world, even here in the USA. As John McCain recently expressed:"The consequences of failure are so severe that I will exhaust every possibility to try to fix this situation. Because it's not the end when American troops leave. The battleground shifts, and we'll be fighting them again," McCain said. "You read Zarqawi, and you read bin Laden. ... It's not just Iraq that they're interested in. It's the region, and then us."
This suggestion is simplified of course, since I am writing in the proverbial "ivory tower" and there are probably thousands of various cases that come up that would entangle themselves in this issue. But its a start.
posted by Samus @ 5:15 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
I like the ambition of what you are trying to do here very much, and I think that the adoption of the Commanded vs. Permissory war distinction is provocative, and perhaps quite useful as a heuristic. I'd argue a few smaller points, however: you seems to conflate social contract theory in the Lockean mold with something quite different in Hobbes; there are many who argue that DHS has not improved security at all (perhaps even worsened it) but that it was an easy means for government to appear to be addressing complicated security issues without actually having to do much to improve domestic security; finally, how do you identify immanent threat? who decides?
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