Yes, the stupid are entitled to express themselves
Syzygys said:
It is like singing. If you are a terrible singer, I don't care how long you sing in your bathtub, but please, don't make me listen to it
Well, how are we defining stupid? There are plenty of people who think anything that disagrees with them is stupid. There are others who tend to respect rational arguments that they disagree with while holding irrational arguments in contempt. And there are many who can't tell the difference between those two processes.
The American standard for free speech—at least, what it's supposed to be—seems fairly common-sense. Threatening, endangering, and libelous or slanderous expression is forbidden. Over the years we've included harassing speech, and there is a fair argument to be had for this, since some have been determined to make the point by their behavior.
Beyond that, though, even the stupid deserve their freedom. History suggests quite clearly what happens when we start curtailing people's rights for subjective reasons.
As an example, I find the notion of a God who judges us fit for Heaven or Hell a puerile notion. To take it a step further, I think belief in a God who blesses our conception and birth° despite the fact that we arrive in the world in a manner unfit for His presence° only so that we might earn our "redemption" through constant worship and faith according to a contradictory book assembled by a bunch of self-defeating hypocrites° is not only significant of stupidity, but also indicative of mental illness. But I'm
not going to tell people they can't talk about it. To the other, though, that society does not adopt bizarre and hateful prejudices according to this moronic excuse in lieu of reality does
not mean these people's right to free expression has been violated.
Further complicating the situation, of course, is the idea that while I would
protect these folks' right to express themselves, their most public voices so openly disdain honesty, decency, and integrity.
And that's where I start to have a problem with their expression. Indeed, they have the right to speak, and I fully understand the urge to tell them to get a clue or shut the hell up, but two vital duties of participating in the human endeavor are compassion and tolerance. We must not hurt these people. We must not stifle them. Instead, we must practice harm reduction until such time as humanity outgrows such craven juvenilia.
____________________
Notes:
° blesses our conception and birth — A common argument in the political discussion regarding the right of a woman to govern her own body and what takes place within it.
° we arrive in the world in a manner unfit for His presence — This is the effect of Original Sin. At a Christmas Eve pageant, I believe in 1993, I sat in horror and disgust as a grandmother sat in front of the congregation at New Alliance Church in Salem, Oregon, and explained to a five year-old that she was born full of yucky black stuff that only Jesus could clean. If anyone should wonder why our society has gone so far astray, consider how many people, in an effort to win converts to Christianity, teach their children that they are born evil.
° a contradictory book assembled by a bunch of self-defeating hypocrites — Athanasius, often called the "Father of Orthodoxy", won a certain argument at Nicea in 325 CE. Athanasius is also credited as the first to name the books of the New Testament as we know them today. Interestingly, however, the argument Athanasius won in 325 compelled the church body to take a stance it often denounced as docetism, which refers to a belief that Jesus was not fully human. The problem with docetism is that it diminishes the value of Christ's sacrifice on the cross. So it was that, at the time during which the Biblical canon was being affirmed, the men doing the affirming were, themselves, heretics. Not that it changes a whole lot in the modern era; the triumph of orthodoxy over gnosticism drove the final nails into the cross as far as Christianity is concerned. The rest is mere theatrics. But it is a curious circumstance of history.
