Law, Business and Society 11th Edition by Tony McAdams

Exercise 8

As you have read, "hate speech" (such as racist, sexist, or homophobic remarks) is generally protected by the First Amendment. Commercial speech, often in the form of intellectually empty, symbol- and emotion-laden advertisements, is also protected. The Madisonian idea of the First Amendment was to protect serious political discourse. Now the First Amendment seems often to protect hate speech and commercial babble. In a 1996 book review and commentary, lawyer Paul Reidinger raised the concern that we may have "too much" free speech. Reidinger said, "The question these days is not whether government threatens free speech, but whether free speech threatens us.... [T]here is a tidal wave of fetid speech washing over the American landscape." Has the marketplace of ideas failed See Paul Reidinger, "Weighing Cost of Free Speech," ABA Journal 82 (January 1996), p. 88.