Smoking Harms Health，Speech Jeopardizes Thought

Do we have the freedom to listen to the devil?

A devil came to earth to preach his beliefs to the people. The government, with its halo of angels, righteously stretched out its great wings to protect us from the devil’s preaching. Freeman, do you need holy angels to decide what you should listen to? What you should see?

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The People vs Larry Flynt

Many humans may not know that when Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg (1397 — February 3, 1468) invented the modern printing press, the early mass-published printed matter was obscene paintings and texts. After all, human nature is the driver of commerce.

On Monday, March 6, 1978, in Lawrenceville, Georgia, Flynt and his attorney, Gene Reeves, were shot by one of two unidentified white males as they walked out of the V&J cafeteria after lunch. Both were seriously injured. They were preparing to return to the Gwinnett County Courthouse to continue their trial on obscenity charges against Flynt.

Larry Claxton Flynt Jr. (November 1, 1942 — February 10, 2021) was not only the founder of the pornographic magazine Hustler but was also considered misogynist and racist.

Before the shootings, Flynt entered the final day of his trial for allegedly distributing obscene material. Prosecutor Gary Davis alleges that Flynt’s The Hustler violated a state law that prohibits the sale of material that appeals to obscene, morbid, or shameful sexual interests. Flynt took the witness stand for an hour and a half in the morning, convincing the six-member jury that his pornographic magazine, Hustler, was nothing more than “satire” and “put on.” He testified:

I feel drinking is wrong, but it’s not illegal.

— Flynt

And the year before, Flynt was convicted in Cincinnati of organized crime and obscene pimping in connection with publishing. Combining the two counts, he was sentenced to seven to 25 years in prison and a $11,000 fine. After spending six days in jail, Flynt was released on $55,000 bail and appealed the sentence.

Shortly after the shooting, Georgia State Court Judge G. Hughel Harrison declared a mistrial and dismissed the jury.

Larry Flynt in his gold-plated wheelchair in 2009

In June 1984, Joseph Paul Franklin, a self-described white supremacist, was indicted by a Gwinnett grand jury and charged with aggravated assault in the 1978 shootings of Flynt and Reeves. Franklin, a serial killer who may have killed as many as 22 people, was executed by lethal injection in November 2013 in Missouri. But he was not convicted for the shooting of Flynt.

The shooting left Flynt partially paralyzed from a permanent spinal cord injury. He spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair accompanied by painkillers.

On February 10, 2021, Flynt died. America has lost a disgusting defender of free speech.

If the First Amendment will protect a scumbag like me, it will protect all of you.

— Flynt

Freedom of Speech

Freedom of expression has two aspects:

— Freedom of expression — Freedom to receive

Most people focus on the freedom to speak and forget the freedom to listen. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR. December 10, 1948) states:

Paragraph 1: Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference.

Paragraph 2: Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.

Paragraph 3: The exercise of the rights provided for in paragraph 2 of this article carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary: (a) For respect of the rights or reputations of others; (b) For the protection of national security or of public order (ordre public), or of public health or morals.

Eleanor Roosevelt holding poster of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (in English), Lake Success, New York. November 1949.

As Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the Supreme Court’s decision in Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales, which we cited in ***The Cost of Justice***, stated, the U.S. Constitution does not use any “positive language” to dictate governmental behavior. Nor does it imply any positive governmental rights. The United States Constitution, therefore, does not support any active denial of the right of citizens and groups to express and receive any information freely.

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.

— First Amendment to the United States Constitution

Permanent Free Speech Wall in Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S.

The Constitution restricts the government from taking any positive action to execute governmental power, and it fears the ‘angel’ spreading her holy wings to sift through the message of ‘justice’ in the place of the individual citizen. She also limits the right of “angels” to cover our eyes and ears with hectoring. The limited power we give our government is to defend our right to have a dance with the devil. More importantly, there is no one in this world who can distinguish between angels and devils in our place.

Majority rule only works if you’re also considering individual rights. Because you can’t have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for supper.

— Flynt

Our Enemy, the State

So, can the State restrict our freedom of speech because of the devil’s threat? The distance between the State and the devils is really an A4 sheet of paper.

To look for angels in government is to dive under the abyss for honey. Albert Jay Nock (October 13, 1870 — August 19, 1945) was a prominent American libertarian writer. He was a “free-willist” who adhered to the core spirit of Americans. In his famous book, Our Enemy, the State, he Hit the bullseye when he said that governments bent on playing the role of angels, trying to protect what we hear, what we see, and even how we think, are the eternal enemy of each and every one of us free men and women.

Thus the State “turns every contingency into a resource” for accumulating power in itself, always at the expense of social power; and with this it develops a habit of acquiescence in the people. New generations appear, each temperamentally adjusted — or as I believe our American glossary now has it, “conditioned” — to new increments of State power, and they tend to take the process of continuous accumulation as quite in order. All the State’s institutional voices unite in confirming this tendency; they unite in exhibiting the progressive conversion of social power into State power as something not only quite in order, but even as wholesome and necessary for the public good.

— Albert Jay Nock, Our Enemy, the State

Devils will always be on earth, so the existence of devils is never an excuse to surrender our right to free speech.

Arno Will, March 14, 2024

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