I know it’s more complex, but I’m just trying to cut through a bit of that to get to the logic of your position.

As in, would I have written a blog post about it like I did about the Muslim cartoons? Yes.

What exactly are the point of these hypothetical questions? All they seem to go back to are what I would do as a private citizen. That’s all a matter of individual taste and priorities/

I would still continue to adhere to the view in all cases, Muslim or Scientologist, that the greatest threat to free speech comes from governments and would favour First Amendment like treatment of government restrictions but I would continue to find the idea of a constitutional provision ‘forcing’ corporations to provide a platform to be basically unmerited and unworkable.

The difference is that there were violent riots on the streets with Muslims not only ‘pressuring’ the newspapers not to publish the cartoons but making death threats and *calling for laws* against blasphemy. It’s really unfair to compare a bunch of silly deluded Scientologists with too much money to waste to the riots on Denmark. But you’re right, if all they were doing was peacefully boycotting the newspaper I for one wouldn’t have got stuck into them.

Government restrictions on free speech are harped upon by liberals because whenever government has a power available to use it, the politicians in charge will either use it for political gain or they will be pressured into using by some influential group.

Corporations are out there in civil society like everyone else – they can not only be boycotted, but political threats can be made against them. Laws which are used to ‘force’ corporations to give platforms to people can be abused by … governments (and the influential lobbies which have politicians’s ears). If a corporation is going to have the power to suppress speech on its own turf, it is going to have just as much power to lobby governments and make use of whatever instruments are there to infringe on others’ property rights.

Apart from this South Park episode what other examples are there of corporate suppressed free speech? And is it really more difficult to get your message out? Any fool can set up a blog (and I hasten to add, many have).

Does the fact that an anti-scientology message doesn’t make it into South Park that important in the scheme of things when there are heaps of anti-scientology sites around? Is the impact of Scientologists on South Park more important than the impact of governments through anti-terror or internet censorship laws? How important is ‘mass media’ anyway? I haven’t owned a TV for 2 years, I only buy the Saturday SMH. Most of mainstream media is increasingly irrelevant to our generation (I know it is to me), and we know where to look for alternative points of view.

I’d like someone to explain to me how a hypothetical Muslim group putting pressure on a Danish newspaper not to publish cartoons lampooning the big M differs from scientologists putting pressure on tv networks not to broadcast an animated series lampooning scientology.

It seems to me to be consistent to assume that if the first is a threat to free speech (remembering that the Danish government sided entirely with the paper) then the second must be also.

As for private restrictions on free speech that becomes more problematic. What are you going to do? Have a court case everytime Joe Bloggs can’t launch a TV program on Channel 9? Have a court case everyime Woolworths prevents the neighbourhood nazi from handing out pamphlets at their entrance? Even if you don’t accept the premise that government-restrictions on free speech are going to be a whole lot worse than anything a private entity can do (simply because government is the one with by definition a monopoly on violence in the territory) you should be able to see the sense of priorities. Nothing can be done about private restrictions on free speech which are not costly in terms of introducing other laws which invite endless litigation over someone’s property rights and can range from the profound to the nuisance suits. On the other hand, a government can and should tie its own hands because it has been conferred an awesome responsibility.

All this is of course quite a different issue from citizens being entitled to kick up a fuss and boycotting corporatons which act dickhead-like. But I fear you are conflating the two issues.

In Australia we don’t even *have* anything like a first amendment. Instead we have some piss-weak jurisprudence about freedom of ‘political speech’ (i.e. the privileged speech of articulate and already well resourced policy wonks). I know where my political priorities lie.

If you support freedom of speech because of the benefits it provides in a free society then the distinction regarding whether the lack of freedom comes from threat of gaol or inability to be heard due to lack of money or power matters less than the fact that some ideas aren’t being heard.

If you can’t get what you say onto the TV, that’s just tough luck. You don’t own the “mass media” and have no right to compel those who do to air your views if they don’t feel like it.

You can, however, stand in the street and yell it at the top of your lungs. (or you could if you were in the USA, where they do actually have the right to free speech. Australia has no such guarantee).

But, strangely, there’s a huge disparity in the willingness of righties to criticise state-sponsored limitations on speech and their unwillingness to criticise those imposed by markets, conformism, corporatism, and just plain cowardice and cupidity.

Can you give me an example of a limitation on speech that is imposed by a market or a corporation?

I severely doubt it, because there is no such thing. The only person who can legally limit your speech is the state. Even in the case of copyright infringement or defamation, it’s the state who is going to put you in jail if you ignore them. Coca-Cola Inc. does not operate prisons.

As for “conformism, cowardice, and cupidity”, these are limitations that are imposed by your own self, and therefore not limitations at all.

So would you like us RWBDs to apologise for the destruction of Alderaan, the rise of Sauron or any other fictional things while we are it? It would save time.

dumdumdumdumdum

smartsmartsmart

lol! and very nietzschean

indeed in the end the little mormon kid told stan he was a dickhead (or soemthing) and that he (the mormon kid) would continue being a mormon kid cause it made him happy. positive affect (spinoza) and affirmation (neitzsche). This was a better outcome for the organised religion than in the scientology episode (rendered equally as stupid), because the mormon’s were doing it for happiness, not money.

It seems to be a continual issue of southpark creators to use the ‘innocent’ logic of the kids to point out the stupidities in the world, including organised religion.

all we need is for the southpark crew to do an ep explicitly on the delirium of the capitalist market and everything would be sweet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapped_in_the_Closet_%28South_Park_episode%29

I can manage to post a link everywhere else but here. It’s not just me is it?

While I wouldn’t recommend it for all purposes, wikipedia is sometimes very useful – an episode summary is here.