“Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people’s idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage.”
― Winston Churchill, British politician.
Notwithstanding the keyboard warriors battling it out on social media, I think most of us hesitate to speak up when we see or hear something offensive because we agree that being an adult American means we have the right to express ourselves in word and deed. If you want to blow $80 on a giant plastic chain necklace to show your support for a sports team, stick a fish emblem on your car to demonstrate your faith, tattoo your face with the name of your favorite politician, or paint your house in rainbow stripes, that’s your right.
That right, enshrined in the First Amendment, has been challenged in the courts multiple times over multiple issues. Speech, the court has decided, may extend beyond the spoken and written word into the area of expressive conduct, in which actions send a symbolic message. For example, burning a flag or wearing a black armband in protest has received First Amendment protection.
Since 1919, cases that have made it to the Supreme Court have generally come to the same conclusion: unless said speech (or expressive conduct) presents an imminent threat or danger to the public, it’s not in the purview of the state to control or censor it. (The degree to which disinformation and propaganda cause actual harm is still up for debate in this era of information overload.)
Private institutions and businesses have the right to restrict one’s freedom of expression, as in the case of “no shirt, no shoes, no service.” Even if your freedom of speech gives you the right to go shirtless and shoeless, stores and businesses can refuse to serve you unless you comply with their policies.
If I march into a restaurant, church or store and start using all the most colorful language I know, or denigrate and defame a person or people group, I’m likely to be escorted out, perhaps by force. That’s not my “free speech” being denied, that’s me losing my rights by acting like an idiot. No different than the multiple DUI offender losing the right to drive or the convicted felon losing the right to vote. That’s not censorship, that’s social norms.
As the social filters around acceptable expression have changed — we seem to revert to feral behavior wherever there are no guardrails in place — we probably need to revisit the concept of self-editing, which is akin to self-control. Just because you CAN do a thing, doesn’t make it good or right or beneficial.
Back to those inside-out band T-shirts… In retrospect, the kids in the most egregious shirts weren’t the best musicians or even the most passionate about the bands or music depicted. They just wanted attention. When you are attention-starved, it doesn’t matter if the attention is positive or negative, any attention will do. Some of those belligerent kids have grown into equally belligerent adults who are still desperate for attention, and will do or say anything to get it.