Opinion/Letter: Free speech must apply to everyone – The Daily Progress

An attitude has grown up among some Americans that free speech is only for opinions we agree with. Gone is the once liberal view that although I disagree with what you say, I will defend to the death your right to say it. That attitude is now seen as folly, though it actually comes from confidence and strength.

This new view of no free speech for fascists was expressed at a Charlottesville City Council meeting (Activists demand answers from city, The Daily Progress, July 18) when one of the protesters against Ku Klux Klan and alt-right demonstrations said, This brainless defense of free speech is killing us. If your speech is being used to promote that other human beings dont deserve rights, thats not a form of speech we have any obligation to defend or protect, at all. (The old view was that it is precisely the opinion that nobody likes that needs to be protected in order to protect everyones rights.)

A liberal from the 1970s might wonder how this change in attitude came about, but Peter Breggin, back in 1979, put his finger on it when he suggested that the reason why the American Civil Liberties Union famously defended Nazis was because the Nazis had no power and were regarded as underdogs. If the ACLU had thought the Nazis had real power, he opined, they would not have defended them.

By any objective analysis, the alt-right and KKK have no real power today. They are fringe groups that represent un-American ideologies. But they are not seen that way by self-identified resistance groups who fear an existential threat from people with different opinions.

Even mildly different opinions are seen as threats through this lens of insecurity. This need to defend against threats both real and imagined has become justification for disorderly conduct or, in some cities, even violence.

As the attitude becomes No free speech for fascists and well tell you who the fascists are, the danger is that it will be too late by the time people with this attitude look into the mirror and see their enemy looking back at them.

Miles N. Fowler, Albemarle County

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Opinion/Letter: Free speech must apply to everyone - The Daily Progress