There is no need to rush to rail at an opponent of “free speech.” The title to this piece was chosen to be a bit provocative. “Hate,” in part, is a play on the expression “hate speech.” In part, the expression “hate” mimics the excess inherent in the expression “free speech.” But the title also indicates that opposition to the expression “free speech” will be addressed in multiple parts. Parts of at least three parts have been written so far. So doubt not that this writer is a devoted defender of liberty and rights, including the freedom of speech.
“Free speech!” That’s imminently reasonable as a demand or command to the powers that be—or as a call to action that sentient, liberty-loving Americans reasonably can rally behind—to secure the freedom of particular types of expression from particular oppression or repression. Americans certainly should demand or command that expression not be imprisoned the way it too often is. Americans certainly should demand or command that expression not be, as it too often is, concentrated into cramped encampments, physical or figurative. But the reason for that is far from the premise that all speech always should be free.
Too many too often say “free speech” to imply or embrace an absolutist view, i.e., that all speech always should be free to do whatever it is that speech does. Using the expression “free speech” for such purposes is deceptive and even dangerous. It naïvely ignores human history. It’s tantamount to saying “free water” without even thinking about all the ways that water, in the hands of man or nature, harms or destroys. Fully free speech is something no one wants any more than they want to be bludgeoned or drowned by a tsunami, flood, river, stream, firehose, bathtub or bucket of water.
No matter what any person’s political, religious or social perspective, the freedom to follow it or fulfill it always can be restricted or repressed by “free speech” of others. Repression and oppression depend on “free speech.” No mob ever lynched anyone in silence. No group ever burned any book or person without speech. No one ever was wrongfully executed or imprisoned based on falsehoods without words. No people ever conspired to murder, rob, rape or enslave another person or people without speech. No concentration camp ever was built and filled before the minds of many were molded to such purpose.
No popular war was started or perpetuated without much speech. Speech and speakers for many decades before 1776 made the American Revolution and the Revolutionary War popular. Even so, the war was opposed by a huge percentage of Americans. Before and during the war, many great patriots who profoundly opposed abuses of legislation and adjudication by Parliament and the King (or the King’s judges) thought America (with no army or navy to speak of) simply could not win a war against the great might of Great Britain. Many other colonials simply were comfortable that life controlled by Parliament already was as good as it gets.
Speech and speakers in the 1770’s moved armies of Americans to take up arms to fight for particular propositions. Men fought determinedly and desperately for the words and spirit encapsulated in the heading and second paragraph of the 1776 Declaration that we call the Declaration of Independence. Men fought and laid down their very lives for “THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,” in which “all men” would be treated “equal” (with respect to “certain unalienable Rights,” including “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”) by “Governments” that were “instituted” by such “Men” with only “just Powers” and only by “the Consent of the Governed.” They fought for “the Right of the People” to “institute” their own “Government” and “to alter or to abolish it” based on the “principles” and with the “Powers” and “in such Form, as to them [the People] shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
Before long, speech and speakers (for decades before, during and after the Civil War) used very nearly the same speech as the speech that led to our independence, national union and Constitution to try to rip apart our nation and rip up our Constitution.
One of the most tragic truths and one of the saddest ironies about the Civil War pertained to extremely egregious abuse of “free speech.” Southern leaders (social, political and economic) for many decades before, during and after the Civil War used “free speech” to lead the people of southern states astray by abusing the words of our amazing 1776 Declaration and our awesome Constitution.
People in power (in the south) abused our great Declaration of Independence to justify secession and war, specifically, to secure “states’ rights” to enslave vast numbers of men, women and children based on an utterly arbitrary so-called determination or supposed divine right. They purported to “hold” certain “truths” to be “self-evident,” including that some people absolutely should have absolute arbitrary power over the “Life, Liberty,” and “Happiness” of other people.
With mere “free speech,” a relatively small number of southern leaders (because they had enslaved people) led vast numbers of free men, the vast majority of whom never did, never would and never expected to own even one other person. With mere “free speech,” southern leaders misled many free men to fight for the “principle” that it was “the right” of a small minority of people in power to have absolute arbitrary power over other people. With mere “free speech,” a relatively small number of people in power led the vast majority of the people in most southern states to actually believe, vehemently assert, vigorously strive to kill other Americans, and even throw away their own lives with reckless enthusiasm for the so-called “rights” of the people in power in some states to treat some people as their property. With mere “free speech,” people in power led vast numbers of free people (who worked hard to live humble lives) to fight for “the right” of only a few to live on palatial estates or in princely mansions with enslaved servants.
It is hard to imagine anything in America being more antithetical to the words and spirit of the Declaration of Independence, the original Constitution and the Bill of Rights than the words and spirit that carried the south into and through the Civil War. And yet, for more than 150 years after America rejected and corrected the speech and speakers that caused the Civil War, mere “free speech” has led too many to believe that the Lost Cause of the Confederacy was a just cause and even a viable cause.
Everyone knows “the devil can cite scripture for his own purposes,” but not everyone knows when it’s the devil who’s speaking. It's safe to say that anyplace that absolute free speech reigns in political speech, it will lead to absolute despotism. Free speech and repressed speech should be seen as two sides of the same old badly beaten up coin.