speech and respect - College of Social Sciences and International ...

The Poverty of Civil Libertarianism
claimed that his participation had been conditioned on a promise
that it not be rebroadcast. 35 Even divorce can seal lips. As part of her
$22 million settlement with Donald Trump, Ivana agreed never to
talk about the marriage. When the New York courts upheld this
clause, Donald's lawyer explained: "The judges are saying that this
is not a freedom of speech case. Mrs. Trump, for a price, waived her
right of free speech when she voluntarily accepted money in consideration
for surrendering that right." Donald planned to sue Ivana for
breaking this contract by publishing her novel For Love Alone,
which features a Czechoslovak professional skier like Ivana married
to an American tycoon like Donald, whose affair with a younger
actress leads to a messy divorce. 36
That the United States, with its strong First Amendment tradition,
constrains speech in so many ways does not prove the inevitability of
regulation. But it certainly discourages hope in attaining the civil
libertarian vision.
IV. The Impossibility of State Neutrality
Some civil libertarians argue that what the state may not do directly
through regulation it should not do indirectly. When the state speaks
or finances speech it must be strictly neutral, neither amplifying
some voices nor silencing others. It is equally impossible to depoliticise
this role, however. Government officials have little hesitation in
discouraging or discrediting critics. During the Gulf War, British
Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd expressed "a good deal of concern"
about reporting from Baghdad and voiced the "strong feeling in the
country" that television favoured Iraq in describing the American
bomb that killed 400 civilians in a shelter. House of Commons
Leader John MacGregor said the government had made representations
to the networks. American officials are no more reticent.
When Business Roundtable chief executives discussed proposed
civil rights legislation with minority groups, they were told to break
off negotiations by White House Chief of Staff John Sununu and
White House Counsel C. Boyden Gray. White House Press Secretary
Marlin Fitzwater equivocated. This was just "part of the kind of
backstage wrangling that goes along with legislation. Anybody can
talk to anybody." But the government, of course, is not just anybody,
and it was telling people not to talk. 37
The government's burgeoning role in financing speech is equally
partisan and even more controversial. Public schools and libraries
44