There’s a very famous quote often misattributed to Voltaire that goes, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” That no longer seems to be a very popular sentiment in America. That’s too bad because those words cut to the heart of the First Amendment.
Moreover, it’s doubly important that universally despised groups like Nazis and white supremacists should have free speech. The usual response to this is something akin to, “So, you like Nazis, huh?” Well, no. Did you catch the “universally despised” comments? I’ve been conservative for decades, I’ve gone to Republican conferences, I’ve talked to hundreds of people on the Right and I have literally never met someone in person who likes Richard Spencer, David Duke, the KKK or the Nazi Party. Certainly people like that exist, just as there are people who are fans of Bill Ayers, Margaret Sanger or the Communist Party, but white supremacists are a marginalized fringe group in America.
In any case, this is the key point that liberals and even some conservatives eager to prove their undying hatred of racism to liberals (Sorry, guys, they’ll be calling you Nazis next week anyway) don’t understand. If the speech of even Nazis and the KKK are protected despite the fact that they are considered pariahs on both the Left and Right, then the speech of groups that are considered equally abhorrent by much of the population, like the Communist Party, Planned Parenthood, Antifa and Black Lives Matter, are equally protected. In other words, your free speech tomorrow depends on whether or not the free speech of repugnant groups is protected today.
The usual response on the Left to that is something akin to, “I like those groups much more than Nazis or the KKK and so here’s a flimsy reason why it’s wrong to take away their First Amendment rights, even as the government censors groups I don’t like.” That’s intellectually dishonest reasoning put forth by people who are confident that they can get away with their horrible behavior because they don’t believe that the shoe will ever be on the other foot.
That is a foolish assumption not just because this sort of bad behavior sets precedents, but because it eventually invites an equal response. Once one group changes the rules of the game, it may take a while for everyone else to catch up, but eventually that happens.
So, if the excuse is that groups we don’t like aren’t going to be allowed to speak because liberal counter-protesters might engage in violence (this is already happening to ordinary conservative speakers at colleges), it’s only a matter of time until violent conservative groups rise up to start shutting down liberal speakers. Conservatives may not have stooped to the same level as liberals yet, but there’s no moral difference between preventing Christina Hoff Sommers, David Horowitz or Ben Shapiro from speaking and using similar means to stop Paul Krugman, Al Sharpton and Rachel Maddow from having their voices heard on campus. Conservatives keep trying to be the adults about all of this, but eventually conservative groups are going to do the same thing. When they do, it will be hard to care after years of seeing liberals wink at a heckler’s veto. Anyone who means well should never want things to get to that point, but over time people learn to play by the rules they find in the real world.
If liberal groups are allowed to break the law with impunity, commit property damage and attack people they don’t like, don’t you think conservatives are going to do the same thing eventually? Largely because liberal colleges and mayors have refused to allow the police to do their jobs, liberal violence has now become a semi-regular occurrence at protests. Naturally, if the police aren’t going to protect non-liberal protesters, then people have to defend themselves. As a practical matter, what that means is that we now have people on both sides of political rallies bringing shields and weapons to protests. In fact, we’ve practically gotten to the point where if you’re not a left-winger and you’re protesting, you’d be wise to be armed because you may get jumped by a half dozen counter-protesting liberals and it’s entirely possible the police will leave the area and allow it to happen. Does this seem healthy to anyone? Does this seem like something we should want to continue? The surprise for me was not that somebody died in a violent clash between white supremacists and thuggish counter protesters in Charlottesville; it’s that it hasn’t happened more often. Given the prevalent “It’s fine to punch a Nazi” attitude on the Left combined with liberals’ tendency to accuse everyone who disagrees with them of being a Nazi, more serious injuries or deaths on both sides are just a matter of time.
This is not something anyone who cares about this country should want to see, but for it to change, the police need to start doing their jobs and the Left needs to support free speech again. If enough liberals acknowledge that some dirtbag wearing a KKK robe has EXACTLY AS MUCH right to legally assemble and spout his horrible views without being assaulted as let’s say Elizabeth Warren does, then political protests can start moving back in a healthy direction again.
John Hawkins owns Right Wing News and Grumpy Sloth. He writes weekly columns for Townhall and he’s recently written a new book: 101 Things All Young Adults Should Know. Feel free to yell at him on Twitter here.