Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Fall 1984
Abstract
The year 1984 may not have fulfilled Orwellian prophecies of governmental totalitarianism, but citizens of the world remain no less concerned about the quality of their civil liberties. If people could live peacefully and productively together under a strict caste system, or blissfully in enslavement, there would be little impetus to identify 'natural rights' nor insistence upon what we know as 'freedom.' But human experience has amply demonstrated the universal yearning for personal liberty, as well as the need to legislate against its deprivation.
Thus Big Brother has been the enemy from long before the Magna Carta and long since the Bill of Rights.
Punishment of racial defamation has not jeopardized freedom elsewhere. Neither would democracy suffer in America, were Nazis prohibited from marching in Skokie.
Recommended Citation
Group Libel Versus Free Speech: When Big Brother Should Butt In, 23 Duq. L. Rev. 77 (1984)