Political Culture, Flag Use and Freedom of Speech

2011 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharine Gelber
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
Controversial Issues ◽  
Political Expression ◽  
Turn On ◽  
National Flag

Flag use generates passionate debates that fundamentally turn on questions of the appropriate extent and limits of freedom of speech. The national flag is a natural and forceful medium with which to express one's views about a nation. Yet its use in this way also generates controversy and emotionally charged reactions. The purpose of this article is to assess attitudes in political culture towards flag use in the context of wider freedom of speech considerations. By analysing events in Australia, the United States and New Zealand, the article argues that public responses to flag use as a medium of political expression demonstrate a flawed understanding of the meaning, import and effect of freedom of speech and its limits. This has significant implications, exposing the extent of fragility of freedom of speech on controversial issues, and its persistence despite differences between jurisdictions in the manner and extent of free speech protection.

Where to limit the freedom of speech? Analysis in the context of the First Amendment to the US Constitution and the fighting words doctrine

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-256
Author(s):  
Karolina Palka
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Constitution ◽  
Socialist Party Of America ◽  
The Right

This article is about the limits of the right to free speech. The first section provides a brief introduction to this topic, primarily in the context of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The second section describes the case of Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, which was fundamental to the topic of this paper because the United States Supreme Court created the so-called "fighting words" doctrine based on it. In the next two sections, two court cases are presented that perfectly demonstrate the limits of the right to free speech in the United States: Snyder v. Phelps and Village of Skokie v. National Socialist Party of America. The fifth part shows the right to freedom of speech in the context of Polish civil, criminal, and constitutional law, as well as acts of international law binding on Poland. The last part is a short summary.

scholarly journals Elonis v. United States: The Doctrine of True Threats: Protecting Our Ever-Shrinking First Amendment Rights in the New Era of Communication

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-223
Author(s):  
Mary Margaret Roark
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
New Era ◽  
The Public ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The U.S

The First Amendment protects one of our most precious rights as citizens of the United States—the freedom of speech. Such protection has withstood the test of time, even safeguarding speech that much of the population would find distasteful. There is one form of speech which cannot be protected: the true threat. However, the definition of what constitutes a "true threat" has expanded since its inception. In the new era of communication—where most users post first and edit later—the First Amendment protection we once possessed has been eroded as more and more speech is considered proscribable as a "true threat." In order to adequately protect both the public at large and our individual right to free speech, courts should analyze a speaker’s subjective intent before labeling speech a "true threat." Though many courts have adopted an objective, reasonable listener test, the U.S. Supreme Court now has the opportunity, in deciding Elonis v. United States, to take a monumental step in protecting the First Amendment right to free speech. By holding that the speaker’s subjective intent to threaten is necessary for a true threat conviction, the Court will restore the broad protection afforded by the First Amendment and repair years of erosion caused by an objective approach.

Freedom of Speech and Public Reason

2021 ◽  
pp. 136-156
Author(s):  
Wojciech Sadurski
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
General Principle ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
Legal Issue ◽  
Typical Pattern ◽  
The Public ◽  
The One

This chapter addresses the salience of the Rawlsian idea of public reason for freedom of speech. It applies a philosophical template of Public Reason to a typically legal issue: what motivations for speech restrictions render the restriction legitimate under the Public Reason criterion, and what motivations taint the law as illegitimate, because they are non-endorsable by reasonable persons to whom they apply. Traces of this pattern of argument can be found in several legal systems: in the United States, Germany, New Zealand, and Australia, when they grapple with constitutionality of restrictions on freedom of speech, and choose the motive path (rather than the effects path) of scrutiny. The most typical pattern of argument is the one which disfavours content-oriented restrictions, as compared to content-neutral restrictions. This distinction offers attractive avenues of argument when it is viewed in the context of legislative motives, and how they fare under a general principle of Public Reason. The chapter then establishes that viewpoint restrictions and subject-matter restrictions—two subcategories of a broader genus of content-based restrictions of freedom of speech—correspond to two perceived wrongful motivations in regulating speech: intolerance and paternalism.

scholarly journals Ethical Principles on the Freedom of Speech and Expression in the Developed and Developing Countries

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdul Alim
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Constitution ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Constitution

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is an essential part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, obstructing the free exercise of religion, infringing on the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering peoples assembling rights in a peaceful manner or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental remedy of grievances. The guarantees of this Bill of Rights were subject to the limitation imposed by the free speech and press provisions of the First Amendment to the US Constitution as interpreted and applied by the Supreme Court and other courts. The United States and India are the largest democratic country and almost have similar free speech provisions in their Constitutions. This Article is intended to present the free speech provisions of the American and Indian Constitution as a basic fundamental right of human being. It is also to be examined that what is the role of Supreme Court in interpreting the freedom of speech and expression provisions. The study also tries to incorporate the comparison between the looms of both countries as far as freedom of speech is disturbed.

scholarly journals The Censorship of Misogynistic Rap Music - A Consideration of Gender-Based Harms and Free Speech

1996 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 531
Author(s):  
Brendan H Tomlinson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Rap Music ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fundamental Difference ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
The Way

The lyrics of gangster rap music have created a storm of controversy in the United States and elsewhere. This article considers the censorship of misogynistic rap music, analysing both the harm which it may do to women, and the way in which free speech principles apply to rap music. The criteria for works to be censored in New Zealand and the United States are analysed. Comments are made about how the New Zealand Classification Office should treat rap music works. It is argued that censorship of rap will rarely be justified. The article concludes by examining an interesting and fundamental difference between the free speech principles of the two jurisdictions: American free speech doctrine treats censorship based on the work's viewpoint with hostility, whereas New Zealand law advocates censorship of this kind.

scholarly journals Case of Misplaced Technology

2010 ◽  
Vol 132 (06) ◽  
pp. 47-47
Author(s):  
Kirk Teska
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Supreme ◽  
Court Hearing

This article demonstrates through several examples of misplaced technology and clash between intellectual property laws and freedom of speech. The first example stated in the article is that of an Apple engineer leaving his prototype next-generation iPhone in a bar and it ended up at gizmodo.com—a website devoted to technology. The folks at Gizmodo tore into the iPhone, confirmed its authenticity, and then put photographs of the phone along with a list of its new features on the gizmodo.com site. Apple, rather than suing, at least so far, simply asked for the prototype phone back and Gizmodo complied. Could Apple sue Gizmodo or would First Amendment protect Gizmodo, only depending upon certain different factors and to an extent on the particular court hearing the case. The ultimate authority on the First Amendment, the United States Supreme Court, generally loathes limiting free speech for any reason.

Effectiveness of Programs for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amaia Del Campo ◽  
Marisalva Fávero
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Prevention Programs ◽  
The United States ◽  
Sexual Abuse Prevention ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Methodological Considerations

Abstract. During the last decades, several studies have been conducted on the effectiveness of sexual abuse prevention programs implemented in different countries. In this article, we present a review of 70 studies (1981–2017) evaluating prevention programs, conducted mostly in the United States and Canada, although with a considerable presence also in other countries, such as New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The results of these studies, in general, are very promising and encourage us to continue this type of intervention, almost unanimously confirming its effectiveness. Prevention programs encourage children and adolescents to report the abuse experienced and they may help to reduce the trauma of sexual abuse if there are victims among the participants. We also found that some evaluations have not considered the possible negative effects of this type of programs in the event that they are applied inappropriately. Finally, we present some methodological considerations as critical analysis to this type of evaluations.

scholarly journals The use of mechanical restraint in Pacific Rim countries: an international epidemiological study

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Newton-Howes ◽  
M. K. Savage ◽  
R. Arnold ◽  
T. Hasegawa ◽  
V. Staggs ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
International Comparisons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Pacific Rim ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Mechanical Restraint ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Bed Days ◽  
Compare And Contrast

Abstract Aims The use of mechanical restraint is a challenging area for psychiatry. Although mechanical restraint remains accepted as standard practice in some regions, there are ethical, legal and medical reasons to minimise or abolish its use. These concerns have intensified following the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Despite national policies to reduce use, the reporting of mechanical restraint has been poor, hampering a reasonable understanding of the epidemiology of restraint. This paper aims to develop a consistent measure of mechanical restraint and compare the measure within and across countries in the Pacific Rim. Methods We used the publicly available data from four Pacific Rim countries (Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the United States) to compare and contrast the reported rates of mechanical restraint. Summary measures were computed so as to enable international comparisons. Variation within each jurisdiction was also analysed. Results International rates of mechanical restraint in 2017 varied from 0.03 (New Zealand) to 98.9 (Japan) restraint events per million population per day, a variation greater than 3000-fold. Restraint in Australia (0.17 events per million) and the United States (0.37 events per million) fell between these two extremes. Variation as measured by restraint events per 1000 bed-days was less extreme but still substantial. Within all four countries there was also significant variation in restraint across districts. Variation across time did not show a steady reduction in restraint in any country during the period for which data were available (starting from 2003 at the earliest). Conclusions Policies to reduce or abolish mechanical restraint do not appear to be effecting change. It is improbable that the variation in restraint within the four examined Pacific Rim countries is accountable for by psychopathology. Greater efforts at reporting, monitoring and carrying out interventions to achieve the stated aim of reducing restraint are urgently needed.

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