The Land of the Free
is facing a crisis of freedom. A new
study from the University of California at Los Angeles polled 1,500
students at four-year universities about their views on free speech. The
results are disheartening, to say the least.
Forty-four percent of
the student respondents believe that the First Amendment does not protect “hate
speech.” Sixteen percent answered “don't know,” and only 39 percent answered
correctly. Disturbingly, not even conservative students seemed to understand
First Amendment protections: only 44 percent said that hate speech is protected, compared to 39 percent of
Democrats and 40 percent of Independents.
A stunning 51
percent of students thought that “shouting so that the audience cannot hear”
was a valid tactic for opposing a controversial speaker. Violence as a means of
shutting down a speaker was acceptable to 19 percent, or one out of five, of respondents.
“The majority of students
appear to prefer an environment in which their institution is expected to
create an environment that shelters them from offensive views,” the study
concludes.
This is concerning
for many reasons, but the most urgent one is that our culture has reached the
point of hysteria about an imaginary tide of neo-Nazis threatening to turn
America into the Fourth Reich. White supremacists – a discredited fringe of politically
impotent, openly despised losers – suddenly loom large in our collective
consciousness thanks to a relentless propaganda campaign, aided and abetted by
the left-leaning press, to demonize President Donald Trump and right-wingers in
general as literal Nazis.
Elsewhere on
Twitter (because this is just the sort of intellectual sewer Twitter is) there
was a lengthy
discussion thread initiated by a professor who declared that pre-emptive
violence against suspected “Nazis” may not be legal but it is moral.
This is what things
have come to: certain ideas – usually politically incorrect ones – are
dismissed as “hate,” defending freedom of speech for all marks one as a Nazi,
and ski-masked thugs who mob and beat innocent bystanders and journalists at a
Trump rally are considered “anti-fascists.”
A totalitarianism
has crept into the culture since the 1960s, resulting in the insidious concept
of “hate speech” – the idea that speech which is hurtful or offensive is not a
legitimate form of expression and is not covered under the First Amendment.
“Free speech doesn’t mean you have the right to spread hate,” is the prevailing
but incorrect sentiment among many young people now.
And who determines
what constitutes “hate”? Not surprisingly, those who are quick to denounce
someone for hate speech are usually those pushing an agenda. Why, to cite one
example, does atheist Richard Dawkins’ criticism of Christianity raise no
eyebrows, but his criticism of Islam got him disinvited
from a radio talk show for his “hurtful speech”?
We shouldn’t need
reminding of this, but apparently many college students do: there
is no First Amendment exception for “hate speech.” But once you are
convinced by peers and professors and pop stars that there is and that it is morally
unacceptable, then the logical next step is to believe that it is a moral
imperative to prevent “hatemongers” from speaking by any means necessary,
including violence. Since the purveyor of “hate speech” is committing a sort of
violence against self-perceived victims, then the “victims” are justified in
committing violence as “self-defense.”
If we are going to survive
this crisis of free speech and defuse the hysteria, we must simultaneously undertake
three steps. One, we must do a better job of educating our youth and inspiring
them about American civics, American exceptionalism, and American history (as
opposed to spreading the subversive propaganda of self-proclaimed “radical
historian” Howard Zinn, whose ubiquitous A
People’s History of the United States has warped whole generations into believing
our history to be one of genocide, racism, and imperialist exploitation).
Two, we must
discredit the vague notion of “hate speech” and push back against those who
weaponize it against their political targets, such as the biased Southern
Poverty Law Center, which has established itself as the arbiter of “hate
groups” nationwide.
And three, we must adopt
zero tolerance for the violence from anti-free speech elements such as the
“Antifa” anarchists. Labeling
Antifa a domestic terrorist group is a step in the right direction.
Strictly enforcing law and order at events featuring controversial speakers is
another essential step.
This is not to say,
of course, that we as a society cannot condemn bad ideas or denounce racism, bigotry,
and other repugnant forces. But all must be free to express their ideas and
opinions in the public square, where those ideas will stand or fall on their
own. None of us is free unless all of us are.
From Acculturated, 9/21/17
