Freedom Of Speech

12/04/2000 English German

Edition # 26
San Francisco, 12-04-2000

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Freedom Of Speech

Michael Now my topic of the day: Freedom of speech in the USA! The Constitution here has several additions, the so-called Amendments. The First Amendment is labeled "Freedom of Speech," which is truly worth discussing here, as verbal expression in the US is not as restricted as in Germany.

Here it is: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

The strange verbage is due to the fact that a) it is a legal text and b) from 1791. So far, so dry. Let me explain the meaning of this part of the Constitution with a practical example: If you want to insult someone in the USA, you don't tap your forehead with your index finger as you would in Germany -- this gesture doesn't mean anything bad here, at most it means: I am smart. No one pays any attention to it at all, which often happens to me when I'm out on my bike, some idiot driver cuts me off, I shout and tip my index finger against my forehead, and only get puzzled looks in return. It cracks me up every time, but these are behaviors programmed in over decades that I unfortunately can't turn off.

No, seriously, here in the US, only the middle finger is used to seriously insult someone. And the good thing about it: It's constitutionally approved by the aforementioned "Amendment" and not punishable. No kidding, the insulted person can't do anything about it, except, of course, draw a gun and shoot, but we'll cover gun laws in the next newsletter. You can also shout "You @#$@!" Insert the worst swear word you know--whatever you want to say or imply, you can express it completely without penalty, no problem. As long as you don't touch the other person, everything is allowed. However, if you cross that line, there are draconian penalties. If you just touch someone with your finger, they can immediately drag you to court and sue you for millions. Verbal or gestural insults, however, are absolutely meaningless--when I tell my American colleagues that in Germany drivers report each other because someone tapped their forehead, they're laughing their heads off.

There are two exceptions to "verbal abuse," or "spoken abuse": You are not allowed to shout "Fire, fire!" in a crowded cinema. And you are not allowed to threaten to kill the President of the USA. A colleague once told me that one of his classmates wrote something like that in a school essay, and the police immediately showed up. Seriously, only these two exceptions are punishable by law; everything else is protected by the Constitution.

Our friend Greg once irrefutably proved the validity of the First Amendment by giving the finger to all the drivers on the highway for no reason during his drive home from work -- and received one or two disapproving looks, but no aggression. He even claimed that one could insult police officers at will, but the intrepid newsletter reporter didn't want to test that out.

"Freedom of Speech" also means that every political party here has unrestricted freedom of speech. The first immigrants to the USA were persecuted by political or religious institutions, seeking protection in the US, and that's why the founding fathers enshrined unrestricted freedom of speech and religion as one of the most important and comprehensive principles. This is also the reason why Americans often look disapprovingly at Germany when the Church of Scientology is persecuted again -- here, that would be unthinkable, maybe even trigger a revolution.

By the way, the previously mentioned freedom of speech clause does not apply to radio or television -- which are strictly controlled by an authority called the FCC (Federal Communications Commission). For example, it is not allowed to say even "Shit!" on the radio or television. Therefore, for current rap songs, which do not shy away from using such crude and even cruder words, there is usually an uncensored version on CD, which bears the sticker "Parental Advisory -- EXPLICIT LYRICS", which differs from the radio version, from which the indecent words have already been edited out by the record company using sophisticated technical means. The music continues to play in the background while the singer suddenly cannot be heard. This is often quite silly, because in 9 out of 10 cases, you can easily deduce the missing word from the rhyming lines.

"You better quit -- talkin' that -- or you'll be leaving with a fat lip. -- Limp Bizkit, "Break Stuff"

Figure [1]: Things are getting wild on the Jerry Springer Show. The security guards are preventing the participants from beating each other up.

Talk show television programs, where people hurl insults at each other (such as "Jerry Springer"), are edited before airing, and indecent words are drowned out by a beep (English: Bleep). When things really get heated, you often can't hear the text anymore because of all the bleeping. This is also a popular source of humor: when someone is speaking on TV and suddenly every other word is drowned out by a beep, it always causes laughter because you know the person is using a lot of indecent words. Ha. Haha.

In live broadcasts, the technical effort naturally increases. From a notorious radio show called "Lamont and Tonelli" on 92.3 KSJO, which I used to listen to on the drive from San Francisco to Mountain View until about a year ago (now I listen to Howard Stern on 105.3 when I drive), I know that it is broadcast with a 20-second (!) delay. The hosts are, of course, seasoned pros who never let a bad word slip and, in case of doubt, use a made-up word that sounds similar -- that's legal.

But on the aforementioned radio show, regular people are also allowed to call in and express their opinions unfiltered. If someone uses an indecent word, a censor employed by the radio station triggers an alarm, and the offending sentence is -- in real-time! -- muted, and the listeners hear the sound of a toilet flushing instead of the rest of the sentence. When you imagine how that works, it makes your head spin. According to my theory, this 20-second safety interval must shrink with each incident word uttered until the station staff have to play three minutes of music from a super-fast CD player to refill the safety buffer.

In cinemas and on pay TV, however, offensive language is permitted -- but the film is then rated for ages 13 and up, and the posters warn of "adult language." Now, on to local news from Church Street.

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