A teacher once told me...

You have freedom of speach in America but not in school.
I told her I was gonna leave school and she told me it was illegal to be truant.
Hmm…

There is no freedom of speech outside of school either, only within your head.

So you’re saying you have no freedom of speech?

It’s not illegal to be truant…

I disagree. I think there is.

I’m not getting at anything. Just stating an event.
Why would I do that? Lets start here then.

Well, you can pretty much speak as you will with your friends in a private area. Depending upon who you are with and where you’re at, your speech is limited to the venue. Being public school is required if you aren’t in a private one or home schooled, then young people are under certain restrictions of freedom. If you leave a public school and don’t find alternate learning facilities, it will most probably affect your parents the most with fines.

So you agree that I can freely say how and why that I am going to assassinate somebody and post the plan on the internet for all to see.

You do not think I could/would get in trouble for verbally declaring that I am intending to do this?

You are never free to do whatever you want, so you are also never free to say what you want, either. Saying is doing.

There is no absolute right to freedom of speech. Like virtually all “rights,” it has to be compatible with the notion of the “public good.” When it conflicts with that notion, it ceases to be a right. And what is the “public good”? In a democracy, theoretically at least, it’s whatever the people decide it is.

Freedom of speech, I think, is an interpretation, and not actually explicit in the constitution.

The main purpose of the right to freedom of speech is to protect political speech. While other speech is protected, the constitutional right is and always has been limited.

We are to be free to speak out against our government - to dissent. But, as has been pointed out, there are a lot of limits on this right.

I can’t help but wonder what the context of that teacher’s comments was.

Was the person yelling “FIRE!!!” in a crowded theater?

“Freedoms” and “rights” are abstract notions and are not real by any means. Laws are also subject to the realm of reality, and only have meaning when a society agrees that they should.

Imagine you and your teacher are wolves for a moment…what do you think she will do if you displease her?

Answer: bite the shit out of you.

If you do not want to have to deal with others impositions, do not do what displeases them. On the other hand, if you are either apathetic to the consequences, or want to make some obscure rebellious point, say what you want, whenever you want, to whomever you want. I’m sure that one day, you’ll be rich and powerful and then you can tell the rest of us how to behave, thereby taking vengence on your teacher and replacing her in that position of authority.

Oh you are totally free to post that plan. You are also free to suffer the consequences of that action. That is your freedom.

I know. And I know.

That is why I am not going to post “my plan”. Besides the thought police are bad enough…

By the way, this is a definitive proof of the link between speech acts and action in general.

There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, everything has a price tag, especially “rights”. You pay if you use those rights and you pay if you do not.

I had a free lunch during a promotion period, no need to buy anything at all just had to eat in, at this bar a couple weeks back. It’s turned my world around.

What did it cost you to get to that place? How much time did you have to spend? And since it was a promotion you obviously had to eat their food. Money is not the only price we pay. :smiley:

It is true that students have less rights in school than most adults do in their lives - though the restrictions in the workplace in many jobs does compete. I always found it odd that teachers, pedagogues and school administrators did not notice the problem with getting people ready to participate in a democracy by training them for 12 years to follow orders from arbritrary authority figures, to NOT be in control of how they gained information, and basically from living in small, relatively benign fascist environs. Oh, look. How odd. The products of this education are, well, passive and buy a lot of bs from authority figures who do not respect them.

There’s an interesting idea that we have the right not to be made uncomfortable, especially in school. Their feelings become more important than free speech because if you believe you have a right to not face discomfort, than freedom of speech tampers with your freedom to feel comfort. It’s also the political correctness aspect. The hypocrisy of higher education is the idea that college is for exploration of idea, but to create a safe environment for all, you are more restricted in what you can actually express.