Freedom of Speech Presupposes Private Property Rights

The right to free speech does not mean you can say or write anything anytime, anywhere. Private property rights have primacy over speech rights.
 
This means you may not say anything in my house if I dislike it. I may ask you to leave and if you don’t, I can have you arrested for trespass. If you make a vocal fuss, say, on my front lawn, I can press the additional charge of disturbing the peace. Your speech right has not been violated. My property right has.
 
What did Ayn Rand say? “Without property rights, no others are possible.” Why don’t we hear about property rights in today’s environment? Because leftists—socialists—deny the right to property. Free speech has been hung in the air, so to speak, without connection to its foundation in property.
 
After all, “Property is theft,” said the nineteenth century socialist Proudhon.
 
When free speech is disconnected from property rights, what is left? The irrational assertion that anyone who prevents me from talking or writing is violating my free speech rights.
 
Let us take a few problems.
 
Falsely yelling “fire” in a crowded theater is not free speech. It is criminal assault. Epistemologically, assault is the fundamental concept providing the dividing line between free speech and criminality.
 
Practically speaking, unfortunately, assault laws vary from state to state, but epistemologically it means an overt verbal threat to harm you—“I’m going to hurt or kill you.”* It does not require touching—that would be battery. Thus, hate speech, “I hate you,” is not a verbal threat, and is protected speech.
 
The problem today is that we do not have a lot of private property. Streets, sidewalks, universities, and the White House press room, for example, are either completely or partially owned by a government entity.
 
The adage, “whoever pays the bills calls the shots,” is relevant here. It means the city, state, and federal government can impose rules on what can be done or said on their property, provided the rules do not violate other rights. So, a city can control parade rights on its streets by requiring permits, but if you lie down in the street to block traffic or stage your own, unpermitted parade (protest), you are breaking the law, violating the rights of the other citizens, their rights of free passage. The same is true with blocking students’ entry to class and shouting down speakers. The acts are criminal, and arrest is called for. **
 
The refusal to clear the streets and protect the rights of students and audiences is governmental assault on person and property and de facto censorship of speech.
 
In 1977, the Nazi Party of America was allowed by the US Supreme Court to march in the city streets of the heavily Jewish Skokie, IL, on grounds that they were expressing their right to free speech. I disagree, because streets are made for driving and walking, as sidewalks are made for walking, not for giving speeches (protests alleged to being a form of speech). If the city does not provide a specific location for such speeches, then the Nazi Party should be obliged to rent its own venue from a private party or buy its own venue.***
 
Protests on city streets are essentially free advertising for an ideology. To allow it is to say that I must allow interlopers on my front lawn to preach ideas I disagree with.
 
Current “Hot” Issues
 
The White House Press Corps. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) has said that once any members of the press are invited into the White House briefing room, the First Amendment walks in also, meaning the White House cannot exclude any media organization on the basis of its viewpoint. The White House can dictate decorum and protocol for visitors, but not content of speech.
 
Visa and green card holders (1, 2). Both have the same rights as citizens, with certain restrictions, and do not have to take an oath of allegiance to the United States. Green card holders who seek citizenship must take the oath. Both, however, are subject to immigration and other laws, such as the one representing threats to US foreign policy. This last is particularly fuzzy, striking me as falling into the vague and overly broad category, though the US government is the “owner.” Students expressing disagreement with US foreign policy are not posing a threat. Blocking Jewish students from attending their classes, interrupting classes, shouting down speakers, and physically threatening and striking other students are acts of assault and battery, a deporting offense for visa and green card holders.
 
Israel. A note on the Jewish state of Israel and the recent toleration of antisemitism. The current climate is about as disgusting as one can think, far worse than most of the actions of the left in the 1960s. Apologists use the moral equivalence argument, saying that Israel is no better morally than the terrorists. And many actually insinuate, or state explicitly, that Israel is worse. Israel, however, is the most civilized state in the area, with many Arab people willing to live in Israel rather than anywhere else. By far, Israel is morally superior to the terrorists who hide behind women and children. See philosopher Jason Hill on the disingenuous accusations of genocide that are made against Israel.
 
Yes, the conservatives should not pass laws forbidding speech criticizing Israel. That is censorship.
 
Universities. If universities do not like having the US government telling them what to do, they should be obliged to adopt the policies of Hillsdale College in Michigan. In 1984, Hillsdale stopped accepting federal student loans and in 2007 stopped all Michigan state aid. Private universities today, because of the federal and state aid they receive, are hybrid institutions. Whoever pays the bills, calls the shots, and, as far as I am concerned, no so-called non-profit institution should be tax exempt. This is not an issue of free speech. If you make a deal with the devil—the government, federal or state—you must accept the consequences.
 
The fact that certain prestigious universities with multi-, multi-billion dollar endowments are whining over the government’s withdrawal of a couple of billion dollars, claiming it is a free-speech issue, is beyond farce.
 
 
* You can advocate the violent overthrow of the US government, as did the Communist Party of America in the 1950s, but you cannot talk about and recommend specific methods of doing so. The Smith Act, governing this was amended several times before it became more aligned with the “overt act” notion of the First Amendment.
 
** This does not differ from the 1960s students who staged an alleged protest by sitting down in the registrar’s office. The better chancellors and presidents, such as mine at the University of Denver, expelled and arrested the students.

*** Ayn Rand discusses this in the June 1977 issue of “The Objectivist Calendar” and says it is a “complex issue.” She addresses and dismisses as nonsense the notion, popular at the time, of “symbolic speech,” but more importantly, points out that advocacy of genocide of the Jewish people, as the Nazi Party advocates, is not a violation of free speech. The content of speech, she says, is irrelevant when discussing the right of free speech. Freedom of assembly, however, presupposes private property rights. (Excerpt here.)