This is an important book. Written not by a reporter or bystander but by the person who had most to lose, who risked jail and financial ruin to defy the government's harsh and illegal attempt to destroy his small business. Philip Harvey's story is a terrifying one in many ways, a particularly appropriate reminder, especially now, that our first amendment rights are under clear and constant danger when big government does not approve of our actions, legal though they may be.

We learn that while it would have been easier to capitulate, Harvey refused to accept that alternative, and the resulting court battles are described with passion and insight.

Read this book. You will be by turns outraged and inspired. Phil Harvey has done us all a service with this fascinating story of right vs might.

I started reading this book because a friend insisted. I finished it because I couldn't put it down. I laughed, became mesmerized, got angry and celebrated with tears of joy Phil Harvey's triumph in court. George Washington may have been the father of this country but it is courageous individuals who are committed to the Constitution even when that commitment gets difficult or even unpopular, like Phil Harvey, that keep it great. It's worth reading this book just to be reminded of that fact.

Anyone who is looking for a compelling tale with heroes and villains, a superb overview of First Amendment issues and/or just a great and easy read should read this book. Anyone who thinks the freedom we enjoy is precious should read this immediately and then send a Thank You to Phil Harvey.

As timely as tonight's evening news. An examination of what Ashcroft-type first amendment views can do to the individual, free enterprise and the very fabric of society. Harvey's insightful views on everything from organized religion, big government, pornography, to the corporate soul will interest a diverse group of readers including political pundits, free speech advocates, students and corporate players.

This is not some passive academic examination. Instead it is the first hand account of an entrepreneur whose livelihood, beliefs and very right to freedom are challenged by an attempted modern day witch burning.

All the read of a super thriller. Plus the reality of the governments ability to unleash their unlimited resources and threats of long prison sentences with the scantiest evidence. Few of us have the spiritual, physical, fiscal, emotional or intellectual stamina to stand up for what is right under those conditions. Harvey did it and won...making him an unlikely American folk hero.

An extraordinary insight into the possible American landscape when we surrender our liberty to self-appointed/government appointed (and anointed) arbiters of the public taste.

Intriguing, insightful, and imperative!

Instinctively, most decent people don't like to see anyone singled out and denigrated unfairly. To most, it seems particularly distasteful if the denigration is on the basis of race, gender or (to many, at least) sexual orientation. Yet the authors of this book, all of whom are active in campaigns for equality as well as for civil liberties, see codes on US campuses which prohibit and punish such speech as a threat.... Why?

Their book examines the arguments for and against such codes and the issues that underlie them. Objections to these codes include that :

They are a threat to basic free speech principles. In particular the idea that speech should be protected regardless of its content or viewpoint -- a principle intended to prevent the law from favouring one interest over another.
 
They have a chilling effect on wider discourse. Nadine Strossen points out that : Regardless of how carefully these rules are drafted, they inevitably are vague and unavoidably invest officials with substantial discretion in the enforcement process; thus, such regulations exert a chilling effect on speech beyond their literal bands. (1)
 
They put us on a "slippery slope". Ideas not originally intended to be the subject of the codes will be penalised. Throughout the book examples are given of this happening. Strossen points out that in Britain the "No Platform for racists and fascists" was extended to cover Zionism (whereby its victims included the Israeli ambassador to the UK). (2) In Canada the victims of restrictions of free expression have included the black feminist scholar Bell Hooks, and a gay & lesbian bookshop in Toronto. (3)

Much the same issue was raised from the floor of an LM sponsored conference in London at which one of the authors (Nadine Strossen) spoke; it was pointed out that the UK Public Order Act of 1936, which was ostensibly introduced to control the followers of British Fascist leader Oswald Mosley, had been invoked time and time again to ban demonstrations by leftists and trade unionists. Similarly, police tactics used against the National Front in the 1980s to prevent their coaches from reaching demonstrations were later employed against striking miners.

The book's authors note that the codes give power to institutions and government. Can we trust them with these new powers? As David Coles, a law professor at Georgetown University, wrote :

...in a democratic society the only speech government is likely to succeed in regulating will be that of the politically marginalised. If an idea is sufficiently popular, a representative government will lack the political wherewithal to supress it, irrespective of the First Amendment. But if an idea is unpopular, the only thing that may protect it from the majority is a strong constitutional norm of content neutrality. (4)

Donald E. Lively questions how new powers will be exercised :

Reliance upon a community to enact and enforce protective regulation when the dominant culture itself has evidenced insensitivity toward the harm for which sanction is sought does not seem well placed. A mentality that trivialises incidents such as those Lawrence relates is likely to house the attitudes that historically have inspired the turning of racially significant legislation against minorities. (5)

But perhaps Ira Glasser puts it best in her introduction to the book :

First, the attempt by minorities of any kind -- racial, political, religious, sexual -- to pass legal restrictions on speech creates a self-constructed trap. It is a trap because politically once you have such restrictions in place the most important questions to ask are: Who is going to enforce them? Who is going to interpret what they mean? Who is going to decide whom to target?
The answer is : those in power. (6)

Another condemnation is that the codes are an exercise in self-indulgency, a trivialisation of real racial imperatives by the pursuit of relatively marginal and debatable concerns....
Donald E. Lively states :

As a method for progress, however, protocolism (1) seriously misreads history and disregards evolving social and economic conditions, (2) is an exercise in manipulating and avoiding racial reality; and (3) represents a serious misallocation of scarce reformist resources. (7)

Speaking of Race, Speaking of Sex doesn't just put the arguments against speech codes -- it also deconstructs the arguments put in their favour. The three most interesting arguments in favour of such codes are, in my view, (1) that racist expression is not about truth or an attempt to persuade and so is not worthy of protection; (2) that racist declarations are in fact group libels; and (3) that racist expression is akin to an assault.

All three arguments are dismissed by the authors. In the first case, Justice Douglas is approvingly quoted :

(A) function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have unsettling effects as it presses for acceptance of an idea. This is why freedom of speech, though not absolute is nevertheless protected against censorship or punishment, unless shown likely to produce a clear and present danger of a serious substantive evil that rises far above public inconvenience, annoyance or unrest. There is no room under our Constitution for a more restrictive view. For the alternative would lead to standardisation of ideas either by legislatures, courts, or dominant political or community groups. (8)

The second argument -- that racist, sexist or homophobic statements are group libels -- is likewise dismissed. The authors point out that libel involves the publication of information about someone that is both damaging and false. Apart from the obvious fact that group libel doesn't refer to an individual does it fit the definition? Henry Louis Gates Jr. states that it does not. He points out that racist statements may be right or wrong but cannot in many forms be judged true or false. they are often statements of what the individual thinks should be or an expression of feeling. As Gates points out : You cannot libel someone by saying 'I despise you', which seems to be the essential message of most racial epithets. (9)

The last argument -- that such speech represents an assault or words that wound -- is examined, and also dismissed. The authors accept that words can cause harm. Their concern, however, is that no code can be drawn in such a way as to punish only words which stigmatise and dehumanise. They point out that the most harmful forms of racist language are precisely those that combine insult with advocacy -- those that are in short the most political. (10) Attempts to deny that racist speech has a political content also deny that they are part of a larger mechanism of political subordination.

So, can we combat hatred on grounds of race, gender or sexual preference whilst cherishing and nurturing civil liberties? Can we encourage a diversity of thought as well as of population and lifestyle? The answer given by the authors of this book is an emphatic 'yes'. They don't see equality of opportunity and freedom of expression as being at odds. As such, their ideas are refreshing in contrast to the many who seem to have quite unthinkingly accepted that we must sacrifice our freedom on an altar of (faked) equality...

Nadine Strossen provides a chilling account on how sexual expression is under attack by a bizarre alliance of radical feminists and right-wing lunatics. She devastates the Mackinnon-Dworkin procensorship position, pointing out its glaring legal and common-sense errors. She shows how censorship harms women more than pornography, and how attacks on pornography quickly mushroom into attacks on all forms of sexual expression. Anyone who values his or her freedom needs to read this book. It is aimed at a general audience and does not contain too much technical legal analysis.

Nadine Strossen exposes the erroneous and simple minded logic in trying to correlate 'pornography' with harm to women. Instead, she shows the correlation between RESTRICTING free sexual expression (yes, even in imagery) and the subjugation of women. While acknowledging women do face serious burdens in our society - some of which include violence against them - she exposes the logical fallacy in simply attributing it to the amorphous 'pornography'. The real issue is a complex, troubling societal problem that incorporates many distinct factors. But the answer does not lie in censorship.

If you want to change the way men perceive women, debate the issue! Open people's eyes! Discover the complex causes of inequalities women continue to face. Don't simply attribute them to one factor. Don't censor! Truth will be on your side. This is the essence of a free society. When the censors roll in, so does the air of totalitarianism.

Its interesting - if you take the view pornography simply CAUSES men to ask violently towards women, can't men who rape simply say: "The pornography made me do it!" Of course this is simply childish and Strossen exposes that all over the book.

Personally I do not like most things labeled 'pornography'. However, its not the government's job to tell me what I should and should not like. What feminists have always striven for is for women to make their own choices and not curtsy to the patriarchy of the State.

Finally, we must all remember we are sexual beings by nature. To censor and repress our nature is to every person's detriment. For anyone who does not accept simple answers for complex issues, and values our liberties enshrined in the Bill of Rights - this is the book for you.

This is a well-written, insightful and thought-provoking book on women's rights. Strossen (a New York Law School professor and feminist) points out that women do not really have to choose between freedom and security as the pro-censorship feminists would have us all believe. She refutes the position of Dworkin and MacKinnon that all sexual expression is degrading to women because all sex is rape.

Strossen shows that there is nothing intrinsically misogynistic about sex or sexual expression; that "pornography" is a McCarthyist label for anything one finds offensive; that the best tool against speech that offends is more speech, not less; and that the ultimate danger (and often the goal) of anti-sex censorship is to reinforce the traditional gender role of women as weak and helpless possessions of men rather than to change it.

Claims that Strossen ignores the exploitation of women in this book miss the point. She is not writing that exploitation does not exist, just that it is not a product of the sexually-explicit expression itself (nor would banning "pornography" eliminate it). Would one ban the clothing industry and walk around naked because children suffer in sweatshops? Or does one recognize that the exploiters are the problem, not the clothes?

Strossen has been accused of being a pawn of "pimps" in her role as the president of the American Civil Liberties Union. The ironic story of those same anti-sex, pro-censorship feminists running to the ACLU to (successfully) defend their right to publicly display and distribute "pornography" is quite an eye-opener -- so to speak.