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I agree that there's a right to hear what someone has to say implicit in the right to free speech. But I see you vacillating in different posts about whether you describe there being a "right to hear" or a "right to not hear". I don't agree that the latter is implicit in the right to free speech.
A right to not hear would be scope creep. It would not only apply to situations where someone was disrupting speech but also would apply when you just plain didn't like what someone had to say. Indeed, the protestors at Stanford would probably agree that they have a right to not hear this guy give his lecture.
So yes, I agree with you that the right to free speech implies a right to hear what is said (otherwise it would be just shouting into the void and meaningless). I do not agree with your assertion that there is also a right to not hear something/someone which is implicit in the right to free speech.
Are there not always competing Speech to hear at the same time? During the summer 2020 riots were there not store clerks trying to sell goods? Talking to customers? The protest would have interfered with their ability to speak to each other.
Or even if I wanted to stand in Times Square and protest came. I had my AirPods in listening to Tupac. I want to hear his speech?
For the Stanford situation it was in a classroom so they weren’t exposed to that speech.
So yes I think there is always some balancing of rights. Wanting to listen to Tupac in a highly public space probably shouldn’t block a larger protest. A store Can shutdown a day for a protest but they probably do have a right not to be shutdown for 6 months straight of protest.
Technically freedom of assembly is listed after speech so I don’t think speech can interfere with others freedom of assembly. I guess what it comes down to you need balance in these things. Otherwise you don’t really have these rights and it’s a free for all blocking everything.
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@sliders1234 has something of a point, but this is a solved problem. There is a class of government-imposed limits on speech that is held to be entirely consistent with the First Amendment--the set of time/place/manner restrictions. Critically, these regulations must be content- and viewpoint-neutral; noise regulations in residential areas after a given hour of the evening would be a common example.
It feels like it’s becoming less of a “solved” problem.
That being said I’m no free speech absolutists. If I thought Speech was leading to really bad things and people were believing an ideology I’d have no problem with summary executions and jail for the speakers. My example would be I am fine with 2% of the population having get togethers discussing how the USSR was actually really good and we do that. But if they started pulling in 10-20% of the country like say has happened in Latin America then I’m fine going all Pinochet on them. Which I guess the federalist are the communists to these people. I just don’t think that behavior fits in the spirit or law of free speech.
Of course today it’s balanced. People might be intimidated by these tactics but then they say fuck it and vote in a guy like Trump to push back.
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