Freedom of Speech in the US Today

Jack Shafer discusses freedom of speech in the US and reviews David K. Shipler’s new book Freedom of Speech (Knopf) for the New York Times.  Mr. Shafer notes,

If the best measure of a book is how vigorously it causes a reader to quarrel with it, “Freedom of Speech” excels. In the book’s last section, Shipler recounts how a Washington theater that staged controversial works and sponsored freewheeling discussion became the target of a small pressure group, which sought to disrupt its funding. Such pressure is neither censorship nor suppression of free speech. No theater, no poet, no filmmaker, no painter, no artist has a free-speech right to other people’s money. Indeed, deciding what sort of art you spend your (or your group’s) money on can be one of the highest expressions of free speech.