Listening required in a free speech society

On Labor Day, 2002, President Bush made an appearance on Neville Island, outside Pittsburgh…. On Labor Day, 2002, President Bush made an appearance on Neville Island, outside Pittsburgh. Retired steelworker Bill Neel, 65, was there to voice his opinion, holding a sign that read, “The Bush family must surely love the poor. They have made so many of us.”

He planned to show this sign, no larger than a folded newspaper, as the presidential motorcade passed. Instead, he was asked to move to a specially designated “free-speech zone” reserved for protestors. When he refused, he was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.

District Justice Shirley Rowe Trkula later threw out the case, reminding those present that “This is America.” But Neel’s case wasn’t unique.

On September 24, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in federal court, claiming the Secret Service and local law enforcement had forced protestors into similar, ironically named “free-speech zones” at presidential appearances around the country. Meanwhile, Bush supporters were allowed to remain with the general crowd.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, in an editorial published just after Neel’s arrest, compared him to abortion clinic protestors, defending his right to free speech while denying him any “right to get in the face of those they are protesting against.”

The Post-Gazette forgets that Neel was trying to convey his message to an elected official, someone who ultimately answers to the people, unlike an abortion doctor.

Neel wouldn’t be anywhere close to Bush’s face, but the Post-Gazette editorial duly invokes the spectre of Sept. 11, 2001, in claiming that the need for presidential security justifies creating such pockets of free speech.

Are they really claiming that someone clever enough to smuggle a weapon past the Secret Service and get close to the President wouldn’t be smart enough to sport a pro-Bush sign?

Maybe more disturbing than a media outlet’s support of such free speech limitations – I mean, we’ve pretty much gotten used to the media trumpeting the party line, haven’t we? – is what Bush’s apparent aversion to dissent says about politics in this country.

We talk about free speech, but then forget how to listen. Bush probably doesn’t want to hear about how his policies are, in the eyes of many, hurting average Americans. Does that mean he shouldn’t have to hear? No, because he has a responsibility to know all the facts.

If you could easily characterize political discussion in America these days, it would be two angry faces yelling past each other. I once saw a gun-control advocate and a gun owner “debate” with each other for over an hour. They were at the shooting range and had forgotten to take their ear protection out. Not that it really mattered, because neither knew how to actually listen to the other.

Somehow, even with our hundreds of media outlets, it’s only gotten easier to remain uninformed. Mostly, this is because human beings naturally seek out those with whom they agree. So for the right-wing neo-conservatives, there’s Fox News and Ann Coulter. For the slightly less conservative, there’s CNN. These people will all tell you what you already believe to be true, smiling beatifically while reaffirming all your prejudices.

And on the left, there’s Michael Moore and Al Franken. Moore is the sloppier of the two, while Franken is actually funny. Neither of them, though, could be considered voices of reason; Franken has specifically positioned himself as the leftist answer to Ms. Coulter and Bill O’Reilly. Not that there doesn’t need to be an answer to those two, but do two opposite poles catering to the true believers of either extreme really add up to an informed discussion?

When Bill O’Reilly disagrees with someone, he tells him or her to shut up. This isn’t C-Span, after all, and his shouting matches make for great television. Viewers write in all the time, congratulating Bill on really sticking it to those eggheads who try to talk. The recent California recall debate wasn’t much better, with every candidate trying for pressure points that would silence the other contenders.

Yes, it’s all very entertaining, and maybe that’s all we want from our leaders. But at some point, when we’ve reached that magical, enforced consensus by silencing all our critics, maybe we’ll wonder how we got to this point, and why.

There’s something sad and disturbing about people willing to live in a bubble of their own ideas. That bubble is actually a vacuum, a place where thought and debate are impossible.

In the end, while we may be guaranteed the right to free speech, to be good citizens we’re also saddled with its corollary responsibility: the responsibility to listen.

Jesse Hicks can be reached at jhicks@pittnews.com.