"There's No Such Thing as Free Speech, And It's a Good Thing Too" by S. Fish questions weather or not free speech is a reality or an illusion. The simple answer to this is that Fish is right, in the case of free speech in the United States. What free speech should be is complete and utter freedom of ones speech through their body, property, or any other form of communication without regulation or possible consequences unless it is inherently violent towards somebody or a group of people. As for freedom of speech in the US it's not a similar picture.
Fish says here "Despite the apparent absoluteness of the First Amendment, there are any number of ways of getting around it, ways that are known to every student of the law." The complication here is weather or not speech is an action. "Some forms of speech are not really speech because their purpose is to incite violence.." (Fish 105). Like many topics of discussion within this class we are almost always going to be dealing with very fine lines/ subjectives. I think what Fish is getting at is the actual idea of free speech or how free speech can be organized or dictated is an impossible feat and unnatural. Who decides what can and cannot be said will always be subjective. There are various technicalities of the idea of freedom of speech similar to the movie rating issue.
What are the ways that freedom of speech could encroach on other human rights?
Does capitalism itself limit freedom of speech?
What efforts are being made to limit freedom of speech besides federal agencies?
The freedom of speech defiantly encroached on other human rights. The amount of resistance the gay rights and women's rights movements face is a prime example of this. Because people are allowed to say what they want they are able to spread lies about these movements and therefore encroach on the human rights of other because of this. Everything limits free speech to some degree by determining what can and cannot be considered socially acceptable. To answer your last question, people themselves limit their own freedom of speech by allowing their brain to filter what they really what to say.
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