We Might Be Wrong: Tom Ginsburg on Free Speech, Campus Life, and Protecting Jewish Students

I'm wondering if this is a concept that's almost better understood in its absence in some ways.

Like you were talking about the repressive regime, you know, work you've done in other sort of more repressive places.

And I guess I'm wondering for myself if I just sort of take this idea of free speech for granted in some ways and don't really understand what it would look like to not have it.

So even when you're talking about other places or when you're talking about American history and this not being present.

So, you know, we're talking about shutting down newspapers or what kinds of things can't people say or what kind of things can't people do when they don't have the same free speech laws that we have? It's all kinds of

things.

I'll give you an example of one of my mentors, who's a Thai social activist named Sulak Sivarak.

He was criticizing the Thai military, saying, you know, why do we need this military? They haven't won a battle since in many centuries.

Even that battle in 1757, they claimed they won from the Burmese.

They didn't win.

And he was accused of defaming the king, which is a very serious crime in Thailand.

He didn't even mention the king.

And Thailand is a place right now where there's just tons of repression using this law.

And I've lived in Thailand.

It doesn't stop people from expressing dislike of the king, but they do it in extremely hushed tones and they have to be very creative.

And so this is one of the things you see over and over again in repressive countries that people can kind of find ways to express themselves, but boy, you've got to do it in creative ways.

The Soviet joke is a great thing to study.

The Soviets, late Soviet period, there were tons of great jokes which helped people to express themselves, letting everyone know that everyone else knew what was going on.

Here's one.

What's the difference between the American Constitution and the Soviet Constitution? The Soviet Constitution has freedom of speech.

The American Constitution has freedom after speech.

So they would, you know, they do these things to like point out that they're...

Because you can say what you want.

You're just going to get arrested.

Right, exactly.