The Daily Triangle

By Harold

Thursday night was the perfect time for Laura and I to go our separate ways. Laura went to see the educational documentary The Prep School Negro, while I saw Larry Flynt, who was brought to the UNC campus by the law school’s First Amendment Law Review.

Free speech is something a lot of people struggle with. As Flynt pointed out, everyone says they’re for it, but then they’re against it when you mention specific things they disagree with (flag burning, pornography, etc). He said the true test of whether you believe in free speech is if you’re willing to protect the speech you hate. He said he was willing to give his life for it, and it’s hard not to believe a guy who’s in a wheelchair because he was shot by someone 32 years ago who objected to a photo of an interracial couple in his magazine.

He only spoke for about 15 minutes, then stayed for about an hour until all the questions were exhausted. The first was was entirely predictable — an anti-pornography advocate stood at the mic making a speech, was told to ask his question, continued to make his speech, and finally left after security was called. Then his supporters asked, what about his free speech?

There were some actual questions. One that sticks out four days later is what Flynt thought shouldn’t be protected. He said anything harming children, although he did say he would move the age of consent down a few years.

The first amendment has always interested me. For instance, obscene speech isn’t covered. But a jury has to decide what’s obscene using a subjective three-pronged test, so someone has no idea if what they’re doing is obscene until well after he’s done it. At the time you have no idea if you’re breaking a law or not.

Flynt also had some direct and often hysterical things to say about George Bush and the Supreme Court, Hugh Hefner, Jerry Falwell, and others, as you would expect.

If you missed it, there should be more interesting discussions at UNC tonight (2/23), which even includes some stuff that Laura and I both might be interested in:

• Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Taylor Branch, who wrote an insider’s view of Bill Clinton’s White House years in ‘The Clinton Tapes, at Wilson Library at 5:45.
• A student-led discussion called How Should We Eat?, where a panel of food experts discusses current questions surrounding food policy and ethics, at Hanes Art Center at 6:30.
• God and Suffering, which asks, If God is good and loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful, how can the earthquake in Haiti happen? is at Chapman Hall at 7.