A Boomer and GenXer Walk into a Bar
Wit and wisdom, some smart assery, and a Mother and Daughter questioning “Are we even related?”
A Boomer and GenXer Walk into a Bar
First Amendment Showdown: Free Speech Boundaries PLUS Outtake of Bobbi and Jane preparing in the recording studio; what goes on before editing!!! Includes an SNL memory. S:1E:28
We start with an outtake of what is discussed before the mic goes live! Gives you an insight as to what Dr. Domain has to deal with!
In this podcast, we dive into the complexities of the First Amendment's free speech protections, exploring what speech is constitutionally protected and what falls outside those boundaries. The discussion includes our views and understanding (which may be skewed because of our demented minds) of commonly misunderstood aspects of freedom of expression in America.
• Freedom of speech protects against government interference, not private entity rules
• Social media platforms and private businesses can limit speech as they're not government entities
• Inciting violence and making threats are not protected forms of speech
• Understanding defamation requires proving actual injury, not just offensive speech
• Hate speech, while morally objectionable to many, is legally protected in the US
• Certain forms of expression including true threats, obscenity, and harassment aren't protected
Check out our Facebook page "A Boomer and a Gen Xer walk into a bar" and email us with topic suggestions at boomerandgenxer@gmail.com. Thank you for your compliments and feedback - we appreciate your continued support!
email: boomerandgenxer@gmail.com
Because everything's bouncing around. Listen to her wheeze down there. My mom used to do that. Do you remember my mom used to? When she'd laugh it would be. Now I do it.
Speaker 2:It's like an old woman Cory does it.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2:He does it.
Speaker 1:It's like an old person thing, I don't know Anyway. Alright, so I guess I'm ready. Let me change my mic here real quick. Okay, it's like an old person thing, I don't know Anyway. All right, so I guess.
Speaker 2:I'm ready. Let me change my mic here real quick. Okay, okay, okay, and here we are. Here we are in the Rabbit Hole Studios.
Speaker 1:We're just so happy to be here with Brenda, it's just so wonderful, and your beaver that plays around.
Speaker 2:It's just so wonderful. We've got some chocolate salty balls here to snack on.
Speaker 1:I love chocolate salty balls. Did you make them yourself, Bobbi? I did not. I had a friend make them.
Speaker 2:Do you?
Speaker 1:have a wonderful recipe for chocolate salty balls.
Speaker 2:I might I like to lick them. We've got some warm buns.
Speaker 1:Warm buns with chocolate, salty balls.
Speaker 2:I don't know how they keep a straight face when they do that, I don't either.
Speaker 1:They're so funny.
Speaker 2:Voice check, voice check, voice check. But, man, I'm ready to go to school.
Speaker 1:Welcome everyone to today's show. Boomer and a Gen Xer walk into a bar, coming to you from the rabbit hole studio, where you, as our listener, will experience some wit and wisdom, some smart assery and a mother and daughter questioning. Are we even related? My name is jane burt, my co-host is my daughter, bobby joy, and for the next I don't know we'll say 25 minutes or so. We're here to entertain you, so we have kind of a what do I want to say?
Speaker 2:Let's say, make over 25 minutes, this one might, this one might. Okay, we might just have to info dump. We might disagree.
Speaker 1:So, Bobbi, what is the topic for today? I think it's kind of a serious one, isn't it? Well, it could be.
Speaker 2:It could be. You know our amendments are serious, so we want to talk about the first.
Speaker 1:The first amendment, which is free speech, correct, correct. So freedom of speech doesn't mean that individuals can say whatever they want to say without any type of retribution, but it does mean that we are protected under some uh you know, for some of our speech that we have.
Speaker 2:so let's talk about the white. What now? What it's actually? All speech is protected technically under the first amendment. I'm not saying that it gives you some kind of shield that nobody's going to punch you in your face.
Speaker 1:What I'm saying is even hate speech is protected under the first amendment we're going to get into this because you and I are going to have a little bit of a disagreement because of anybody who invokes rioting or invokes any type of violence. Um is not covered under the free speech act, so let's talk about that. So freedom of speech is the right to articulate your opinions and ideas without interference, retaliation or punishment from the government. Talk to me, bobby, about this well, what?
Speaker 2:what would you like to know? Where do you want to start do? You want to start at the exclusions, or do you want to start at the inclusions?
Speaker 1:well, Well, the term speech is kind of interpreted broadly, wouldn't you say? It is by a lot of different people, and so, whether it's spoken or written words, you know, I think that's really kind of where the disagreement comes about when we talk about free speech. So what all, though, does the First Amendment cover?
Speaker 2:Oh, what does it cover? Okay, well, you have to look at it I do because I was looking at what it doesn't cover more than anything, because it covers your speech. It covers what you want to say uh, the press, obviously, obviously.
Speaker 1:And also the right for people to peacefully, uh, assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. And so we have that, right, right, and so the First Amendment to the US Constitution protects that freedom of speech, religion and the press. So let's go further. I'm going to turn it over to you, because this was one of your topics that you really wanted to talk about this time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I will throw in there. It also protects the separation of church and state, and I say it protects that because it protects, you know, the state or the government from having favor to a particular religion over others. Okay, so it does protect that, and everybody, well, shouldn't protect religion in schools and things like that. No, no, it's, it's it's to protect from that. So let's get that out there. Um, so, first amendment one thing I want to bring up is a lot of people bring up the first amendment online, and I'm talking about social media sites like Facebook, discord, you know, instagram, things like that, even YouTube On YouTube, it's a big thing. For First Amendment, that's a problem because those are private entities, so saying, well, I have the right to say what I want, Okay, you do, but if you're using a platform like Facebook or Twitter or X I guess it's called Instagram, youtube those are actually private entities that can limit what you can and cannot say.
Speaker 1:And along with that, your corporations. The businesses have a right to limit what you can and cannot say in the workplace. Absolutely so, and and so I think that that's important to note that, you know, people may walk into a business and say, hey, I have a right to say this. No, sometimes you don't. If they have a policy against that, then they have the right to have that policy.
Speaker 2:Right when it comes to and again that's, that's also a private owned type thing.
Speaker 1:Correct.
Speaker 2:That's not a government owned thing and so yeah, it's not protected like other things. You know a phone where they're recording something and saying things, knowing that you know there's not a high probability of them having that retaliation for it.
Speaker 1:I think that's a good point. You can get very ugly when someone is not looking you straight in the face. You can be very, very bold and very brave when somebody's not looking at you in the face.
Speaker 2:Or even you know people making fake accounts and saying what they want to say and citing things online and they're just really comfortable with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, to me that's kind of um, how do I say this? It's kind of yellow bellies. You know, those who don't have the guts to say it to my face. We'll get online and say it, Absolutely Someone who knows they're not going to face me out in public, they're not going to be at a party where I'm at and they're going to say something, and to me that's a yellow belly, coward.
Speaker 2:And I find a lot of times when people do say and this has been, you know, over the last just over a year, has gotten really bad when people do type things in comments or say things online, there's times that I've seen those people in public and it is not what they were saying online. Okay, like they backpedaled so hard, I hope that they stretched before they did it. Yeah, I get it.
Speaker 1:You know, the other thing is you and I mentioned this earlier is it does not give you the right to advocate or to instigate some type of violence, right? So that is against the law and people don't really understand that. I have my right, I have my truth, I can say what I want to say. Well, no, not really, you can't. You can say whatever you want as it relates to your thoughts, but once you start advocating violence, that's a whole different story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and that's any kind of violence, whether it be direct violence or indirect violence, you know, like yelling fire in a movie theater or saying I have a bomb on this airplane. Fire in a movie theater, or saying I have a bomb on this airplane, that's kind of indirect violence, you know, versus walking up to somebody and saying, hey, you're fat and ugly, right, you know type of thing. Or hey, you know, those people over there said this let's go fight them, type thing. That it's two. It's two different things, but it's the same thing.
Speaker 1:It incites violence, it incites fear and they're looking to hurt people right and inciting violence isn't somethingites fear and they're looking to hurt people. Right and inciting violence isn't something like oh different than to say, let's go to bobby's house and let's bomb the place and let's set it on fire and let's you know, let's go after her and let's hurt her really bad and let's maim her. That's a whole different story and so there are different levels yeah, and there are exceptions to the first Amendment.
Speaker 2:You know there's like you talked about. The incitement to imminent lawless action is what it's called Fighting words, right, and that's in here too. That's a different part. Fighting words obscenity that's like sexually explicit things like that. That doesn't really fall under the First Amendment protection. That doesn't really fall under the First Amendment protection. Something called defamation, which a lot of people know the word but don't know the actual legal definition.
Speaker 1:So tell us what that is.
Speaker 2:Do you know it? I don't have the legal definition in front of me, but the main thing is okay, let's set up an example. Two people are talking smack online. Up an example. Two people are talking smack online. One person says, hey, uh, kelly makes crappy cakes and she used her pubic hair to make my frosting, okay. So kelly comes on and says no, this is okay, I've been through this, this is an actual thing that I saw happen.
Speaker 2:I saw go down so kelly, you know, comes on, says you can't say that because that's defamation of character. And she, you know it goes back and forth, and back and forth, and the only way that it's going to be a defamation of character is if she has a bakery business, so, and it causes her losses or it's something else Okay, reputation and things like that. You know you actually have to now this is the legal thing you have to actually have losses from somebody saying something like this.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So it's not like somebody you know. They're just bickering online and talking smack and she doesn't even own a bakery. So who you know? It's not like you can take away her bakery Right, people Right. But a lot of people don't. They want to say you know that's defamation. It's actually not. Y'all are just shit talking and need to quit.
Speaker 1:So so I got this defamation description off of the Iowa State University website and it says it's an intentional and false statement about an individual that is publicly communicated in written, which is called libel, or spoken, which is called slander form causing injury to the individual. Now for that to be defamation, I can't even talk.
Speaker 1:I can't even talk Defamation. That statement must be an assertion of fact rather than just a mere opinion and capable of being proven false. So you know, in addition to being false, a statement must identify its victim by naming or reasonably implicating the person allegedly defamed. Person allegedly defamed. So it's not like you could say, oh, that group of people, or there were two girls who did this. Right, you really have to name those people out and there has to be injury.
Speaker 2:And you know, by definition, the injury would be physical, financial things like that right.
Speaker 1:You have to prove that I mean you have to prove that this is.
Speaker 2:The reason that I lost thirty thousand dollars this year is because this person said this and it was detrimental.
Speaker 1:And it was detrimental. I have to prove whatever it was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, whatever and a lot of people like to use defamation and oh, you can't say that, okay. Well, yeah, actually they can. What they can't do is they can't, um, be protected under the first amendment for things like child pornography. That is not protected, thank God. Anything that is called a true threat. So someone interprets a serious expression as an intent to commit an act. So me coming up to you and saying I'm holding a knife in my hand, I'm going to stab you, that's not protected under the First Amendment.
Speaker 1:Right At all. But here's what really throws me off on. That is because if you call the police, if you came up to me and you said, hey, I'm going to stab you and I call the police, they always say well, unless they actually do something and that's false.
Speaker 2:Actually, in the state of Iowa, an assault can take place with just the threat of words, if you feel in reasonable fear of being harmed. But you've heard them say that, but I have yes, so many times.
Speaker 1:And it's like what you know? She just told me she was going to shoot me, you know, or she was going to stab me, and that's not enough. And so, yeah, I that that absolutely you should be protected. And and if somebody says you know something like that, those are fighting words, those are, those are threatening words. Um, another part of that, bobby, is harassment. Correct, correct, okay. And so the supreme court in davis versus monroe, county, uh, defined unprotected harassment as unwelcome conduct based on the individual's protected status and perceived protected status that is sufficiently severe, persistent or pervasive. And so harassment has to be a continued thing. It can't be. You know, I told Bobby that she's at work and I told her she has to go work on this project, and she says well, I feel like I'm being harassed, right too bad, so sad and anybody that's tried to actually get someone for harassment or stalking knows how difficult it is, and very difficult how horrible it is to go through that now the courts do find you know hostile work environments right.
Speaker 1:Those also have to be, uh, proven right, well documented, well documented, recorded things like that yep and so um, and I played a role in that because I was seeing you. You know I was upper management when I was in my company and and you know we had to track that. And if somebody ever reported it you have to investigate, right, and I don't care if it's the first time or what, but if it's reported a second time, something's going down, right, you know. And so you really have to take those things pretty seriously.
Speaker 2:Now let me go back to what you know, I said in the beginning about the hate speech. Yeah, so a lot of people think that hate. Well, first of all, hate speech is not a legal term in the united states. Um, so us supreme court actually has repeatedly ruled that most of what would qualify as hate speech in other western countries is legally protected speech under our first amendment. What, yeah, yep, there was a whole court case actually in 2017, so this is pretty recent. It's called Mattal v Tam and sorry if I slaughtered that one, but the justices unanimously reaffirmed that there is effectively no quote-unquote hate speech exception to the free speech rights protected by the First Amendment and that the US government may not discriminate against speech on the first amendment and that the us government may not discriminate against speech on the basis of the speaker's viewpoint so why are we facing so many people who make a comment about trump, or that they make a comment politically, or they make a comment about the religion and they say that's hate speech or that's that's.
Speaker 1:You know, that's, that's a hate crime. It's just like how can that be a?
Speaker 2:defamation thing. I mean people don't understand the actual definition of it once you dig into it. Now there are some, some exceptions even to that, because, like, if you yell racial or, you know, sexual slurs towards somebody while beating the crap out of them, they can prove that that's a hate crime because obviously there was a motivation there and but there there's no hate speech. In the united states, um, under the first amendment there's no legal what about against race ethnic to ethnic?
Speaker 1:ethnicity this is what happened, which happens when you get old you can't even talk well, you're doing the best with the tongue you got. Yeah, I guess um gender or sexual orientation or religion or any other protected status. What about any type of hate speech towards that?
Speaker 2:there's no hate speech. That's what I'm saying. That there's, it's protected. So let's look at it from the other way. Recently we had a very nasty, racially profiling group in Des Moines that decided to march on the streets with their not-so-white caps and signs recently. So that's protected. That's hate speech. That is hate speech walking down the road under anyone else's definition. But guess what? They're protected.
Speaker 1:They're protected so I remember and and this is more of a religious thing than anything else here, this past year we had, uh, satanists who did a demonstration in the iowa capital, if I remember correctly that is correct and you weren't there, were you, because just keep going, I'll have to seriously just keep going.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna have to go to sleep um, satanists, and you know satan followers, correct, and uh, there were a lot of people who said you know they shouldn't be there. Well, um, you have the right to do what you're doing, but would they have let a religious group demonstrate inside the capital too?
Speaker 2:oh, let me stop you there. They hold bible study every week in the capital okay, just so you know.
Speaker 1:Every single week they do they do. They hold bible study in the capitol, in one of the the rooms in the capitol, every single week you know, as long as I, I mean, I think they have the right to do it in this country and and um, I'm not going to say that I agree or disagree and we don't have to agree, we don't have to disagree with it you know.
Speaker 1:That's. That's what our freedoms are all about. Correct is your. Now, where it becomes a problem is when you start pulling people aside. You start humiliating people for their thoughts, their you know their beliefs any of that that's when it becomes a problem. I don't care that you have a booth at the fair well, I don't even care you can, I don't have to go to that mom, it's still protected speech.
Speaker 2:You know. You got the people standing outside of planned parenthoods which, by the way, do not perform abortions at planned parenthoods, just so everybody knows. You got people standing in iowa in iowa, you refer them on to other doctors.
Speaker 1:It's not like they're going into a plan. Let's not act like they don't advocate.
Speaker 2:Anyways, the people standing outside of there with their signs saying you're going to hell, god hates you. You're a murderer, they're protected yeah.
Speaker 2:They are protected and they're humiliating people that they don't know their circumstances. They are hateful, they are, almost to the point, inciting at a lot of points, you know, and even places like the west world baptist church, who demonstrates at veterans funerals. They're protected. Do I like it? Absolutely not, absolutely not, and I'll do everything in my power to block those people when that happens. But they're protected. Yeah, we don't have to like it, we don't have to agree with it. They're protected.
Speaker 1:So let's bring this home just a little bit, because we've talked about what founding fathers felt. Freedom of speech meant, freedom of, you know, uh, press and and that sort of thing. But when we're out and about and you've got somebody who's in your face just yelling and screaming and hatefulness, um, you know, is that their right to be spitting in your face?
Speaker 2:and getting that close. Spitting is a assault. Spitting is an assault. It is, it is. I'm glad you recognize that.
Speaker 1:But I mean, I guess I feel like you know I think about, because in the state of Iowa they do still have the pride event. Okay, correct. And so at the pride event you'll always see someone from the churches or evangelizing. Correct, and that's okay with me. You don't like it? Keep moving, keep moving. You don't have to stop. But instead it becomes an all out almost brawl between these people. The other thing is, you do sometimes see the churches, or sometimes the religious groups who will stand in front of an abortion clinic. Right, and I'll be very honest with you, I am very pro-life. If I'm going to choose one between life and death, it's going to be life pro-birth. Okay, pro-birth, um, but do I think that people have the right to stand out there and say what they want to say?
Speaker 2:I think they do, and if you don't like it, keep moving well, I mean and that's the conundrum because I'm I'm pro, mind my own damn business when it comes to those things, and so yeah but isn't minding your own business, walking on and saying, hey, this well, yeah, but I'm offended me it sucks. It sucks that you know they people, certain people, do have the right to hold that space, just as anyone else would. It sucks. It sucks for a lot of groups, a lot of people, things like that.
Speaker 1:But the bottom line is it's protected, it's protected, it's protected and you have the right to say on either side, you have the right to say what you want to say. Now, if I don't like it, I'm going to keep moving, right, and I think that the problem that I see myself is people take all of this so personally and you know, if you deny what I am trying to tell you or what they are trying to tell you, so be it. Right, so be it. I'm not going to fight you over that. And there's just so much anger and so when you, you think about you know what's going on, especially in the political arena right now, I just see so much hate and so much discord right now and you just kind of want to go. First of all, they don't know your names, uh, and they don't care that much about you, right, and so you know, just live your life and move on, because in four years we're going to be right back at this, but I mean that's politics.
Speaker 2:I mean they, they use the people to back them and to fight for them. And to you know things like that.
Speaker 1:So what would be your advice as it relates to free speech?
Speaker 2:what would be your advice as it relates to free speech? There's going to be a lot of people out there that, from your opinion, should apologize to trees for the oxygen they waste, but they're allowed to waste that oxygen, right? I mean, you know, keep your hands to yourself, protect yourself at all times, and uh, yeah, that's about all I got. Don't start it, but you better end it, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I think it's really interesting because you know, I mentioned it before if I don't have a dog in the fight, I'm really not going to get involved in um, you know, do I have a responsibility to try to be reasonable with people? Yeah, absolutely. I want to be kind to people, I want to be reasonable to people. When somebody comes back at me and they're in my face and whatever, I got an opportunity to just keep walking. I don't have to stay there and listen to that crap. I can just keep walking and they can keep walking too.
Speaker 2:It's all about choices.
Speaker 1:Life's all about choices. It's all life's all about it is absolutely it's your own adventure book so I think that that's probably all we have to say today, unless you had something else, bob I don't think so.
Speaker 2:I think that that's all the serious insanity we have for today. And uh, listen, we really thank you guys for joining us every week. If you have any suggestions, any questions, any constructive criticism, we do have our email, which is boomerangenexer at gmailcom.
Speaker 1:And I just want to say something real quickly. Bobbi, we got some really good compliments this week. We did, and I was so happy to hear from our listeners and they enjoy what we're saying. They enjoy what we're hearing.
Speaker 2:They may not agree with us, and that's okay and they enjoy hearing us argue, so that's always good.
Speaker 1:They do enjoy that, and and so, um, I just want to tell them thank you for reaching out to us and saying hey, you know, I really like that topic, or I really liked how you two played off of each other, and I really liked the banter between the two of you and we just were thankful for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we're not going anywhere. We got plenty of show ideas and we would love plenty more.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, head on over to Facebook. A Boomer and a Gen Xer walk into a bar. The official podcast page say hi, like us, share us whatever you want to do, but keep listening and we really appreciate you. So until next week. I'm Bobby Joy and I'm Jane Burt and you're stuck with us. Peace out Later.