FREE SPEECH VERSUS FREEDOM
REASONABLE SPEECH, YES / HATE SPEECH, NO
Despite having written a piece in favor of allowing Milo to speak in Berkeley, I retained private reservations about my position. It is easy enough to seek out the safest approach and try to stick to the old time-honored pledge of freedom of speech for everybody. Still, with the advent of yet another divisive conservative speaker ready to rile up U.C. Berkeley, my doubts returned.
No one looks forward to contradicting themselves by maintaining two opposite points of view simultaneously and yet do that I must. I will explain why.
There is a a larger purpose fighting for the general right of “freedom of speech” when it has been long denied to a large section of the general population. The Founding Fathers were right to fight for freedom of speech: it was a progressive form of thought then, and still is.
It was right for civil rights activists to fight for freedom for an oppressed minority, and still is. Black people in the South were denied the vote and subjected to every form of indignity and brutality imaginable.
Thousands of Americans have fought to expand the rights of freedom for other Americans over the years, especially women and minorities. These were just causes deserving of the utmost commitment and sacrifice. These were historic struggles for justice.
The nature of the issue changes considerably, however, when we discuss the hate-filled speech of Nazis, racists, and fascists. These are individuals and groups who would undermine democracy. They would reinstate white supremacy and promote anti-Semitism to the detriment of American democracy.
These groups practice hate-speech in a manner that would lead to a destruction of freedom of speech if they got their way. People have the right to protest such reactionary chauvinism and racism. We must trust ourselves to understand the difference.
In the 1960’s, college students at CAL were not allowed to express their political viewpoints by helping anti-war and civil rights groups by raising money for them. That college generation began a movement for student rights that occurred right alongside the burgeoning movements for social change; students argued for an education that was relevant to their lives.
These students were eager to become agents of change for people less fortunate than themselves. Some of them donated clothing, food, and other supplies to Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers. This personal commitment expressed a humanitarian outlook very much in keeping with the values of a humanistic education and the practices of a democratic nation.
In the last few years, however, an ultra-conservative group within the Republican Party has come to dominate the party; its political sway is growing. Along with the GOP’s latest plunge to the Far Right, political pundits are emerging who are deliberately engaging in provocative rhetoric aimed at stirring up a hornet’s nest of trouble.
It thus became apparent to many people in Berkeley (and around the country) that they are not dealing with a reasonable group of conservatives eager for dialogue but ultra-nationalists who sound like spokesmen for Far Right attitudes and beliefs.
We know that after World War II ended, people asked: how could it happen? How could the German people allow the Nazis to take power? One conclusion reached was that the people did not become alarmed while there was still time, did not fight back with conviction, did not take the necessary steps to stamp out fascism before the cancer grew too large.
When a nation’s laws and democratic institutions are at stake, the usual platitudes do not hold. Granting free speech to a madman like Hitler, with his sadistic Brown Shirt terrorists, is not a reasonable exercise of the doctrine of freedom of speech; rather, it opened the door to a murderous dictator whose actions led to the deaths of millions of people.
The young people in Berkeley are not fools. They are some of the most intelligent college students to be found anywhere in the country. The liberal-progressive campus is allied with many Berkeley citizens who understand all too well the difference between protecting our constitutional democracy and opposing a rising tide of fascism–before it is too late.
That is how the author came to adopt two positions that appear contradictory. Yes, free speech should be offered on the CAL campus for as wide a range of groups as possible–provided they share a basic American instinct for kindness, open-mindedness, and democratic equality.
No, free speech should not be offered to racists, gender chauvinists, political reactionaries, and licentious provocateurs hiding secret agendas behind their divisive words of hatred and contempt for targeted scapegoats.
Free speech should not be made easy for Nazis, Skinheads, Racists, and Fascists. These reactionaries who wish to speak at Berkeley may readily become forerunners of an iron-fisted fascism that even now hides while waiting for its moment to come out in the open.
Let us not make the same mistake “nice people” made in other nations when they did not react in time to the undermining of their democratic institutions by the Far Right; they did not act in time to prevent fascism from destroying their freedom.
Call it contradictory or what you will, but I believe there is room for both these points of view.
Yes, listen to reasonable people who are open-minded and willing to engage in a fair-minded exchange of opinions with you; we can all learn from new voices.
No, that does not mean we must tolerate the Far Right’s creeping fascism: for that, we must prepare to fight back!
Where reasonable speech is practiced, by all means we should defend the right of people to express their views freely.
Where unreasonable speech is the enemy, we have an equally great obligation to challenge and oppose such right-wing propaganda, deceit, and treachery. Denying them a platform is part of that opposition: RESIST!
