Do we have freedom of speech in this country?
During the Cold War, the argument was made that members of the Communist Party should not be allowed free speech because, if they gained power through persuasion, they would suppress the free speech of the rest of us.
This argument did touch on something important: free speech can only work if all parties share many of the same values.
In the end, the communists were suppressed. Although they weren’t often thrown in jail merely for their speech, almost everything else was done to prevent them from getting a fair hearing. (see “Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America,” by Ellen Schrecker, Little, Brown and Company, ISBN 0-316-77470-7 for examples.)
However, despite the experience of the CP, we had free and effective speech within certain constraints; Democrats and Republicans did share many values and goals in the ‘50s and ‘60s. From 1945 we were able to debate important issues such as civil rights, the nuclear test ban treaty, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, nuclear deterrence, foreign aid, the space program, etc. Granted, extreme (and possibly useful) positions were not given a wide audience, but free speech did allow the country to debate the issues and converge on solutions.
Because free speech is a system, not merely a benefit for individuals. Free speech is a method of making social and political decisions; we examine issues and debate alternatives until we settle on a solution. The Enlightenment vision was that Reason would guide our debates and lead us to more good decisions than bad. As I pointed out in Free Speech and Kevin Williamson, this system will lead to some individuals being ignored, which in modern times is sometimes described as a violation of free speech. But freedom of speech implies a freedom to listen—or not listen.
Of course the suppression of the CP set a precedent, which the FBI and local police later used against both the Civil Rights and the anti-war movements. The methods used against the CP were expanded to include the use of force against large numbers of peaceful demonstrators, including the Chicago police riot, the attack at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and the Kent State and Jackson State killings. The power structure used law enforcement (including the FBI) to cancel freedom of speech and assembly by illegal means—even deadly force.
Naturally, there was a backlash, which led many people to an absolutist position on the First Amendment. The argument was this: if the suppression of the CP had led to a prolonged attack on the free speech rights of less extreme political movements, then the suppression of the CP should never have happened. I don’t believe this issue is quite that simple—the response to the Civil Rights movement in particular would have been the same even if Stalin had never been born—but I do agree it was a bad precedent.
So, why this trip down memory lane? Because of Tom Cotton, whose op-ed in the New York Times called for using the Army against the protests that followed George Floyd’s death:
Wikipedia comments:
Following the death of George Floyd, Cotton rejected the view that there is “systemic racism in the criminal justice system in America.”[66] Amid the following protests, Cotton advocated on Twitter that the military be used to support police, and to give “No quarter for insurrectionists, anarchists, rioters, and looters.”[67] In the military, the term “no quarter” refers to the killing of lawfully surrendering combatants, which is a war crime under the Geneva Convention. Cotton subsequently said that he was using the “colloquial” version of the phrase and cited examples of Democrats and the mainstream media also using the phrase.[68][69]
A few days later, an opinion piece by Cotton entitled “Send In the Troops” was published by The New York Times arguing for the deployment of federal troops to counter looting and rioting in major American cities. Dozens of New York Times staff members sharply criticized the decision to the publish Cotton’s article, describing its rhetoric as dangerous.[70][71] Following the negative response from staffers, The New York Times responded by saying the piece went through a “rushed editorial process” that will now be examined.[72] Editorial page editor James Bennet resigned days later.[73]
The Times’ editorial process may have been “rushed,” but if Cotton had called for “no quarter” in his op-ed, I bet it would have slowed down dramatically; James Bennet isn’t quite that inattentive. So Cotton tweeted “no quarter” before the op-ed appeared, but it was obviously part of his overall message. His contention that he was using “no quarter” colloquially is of course a miserable lie. There may be a “colloquial” use of that phrase, but in a military context it has only one fatal meaning.
Another piece of context missing is the source of the violence. In many instances, the police themselves were responsible for initiating violence, particularly by using pepper spray and tear gas against peaceful demonstrators, although people were also blinded by pepper balls, knocked to the ground, and beaten. The case of Martin Gugino is well-known, but there’s also the ruling made by a federal judge in Denver after nine days of protests:
A federal judge issued an extraordinary ruling late Friday [June 5, 2020] ordering police not to use chemical weapons — such as tear gas and pepper spray — and less-lethal projectiles against peaceful protesters in Denver.
“The Denver Police Department has failed in its duty to police its own,” Judge R. Brooke Jackson wrote in his sweeping ruling.
The order comes on the ninth straight day of demonstrations in the city in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minnesota police officers last week.
“The Court has reviewed video evidence of numerous incidents in which officers used pepper-spray on individual demonstrators who appeared to be standing peacefully, some of whom were speaking to or yelling at the officers, none of whom appeared to be engaging in violence or destructive behavior,” Jackson wrote. The order is immediate but temporary.
The linked article includes an iconic picture that fairly represents the entire problem. It’s also noted that there have been hundreds of complaints, including from several City Council members. Once the judge issued this order, observers noticed a substantial reduction in tension on the streets.
And Denver is just one city, and probably not the worst. Some police departments have been professional, but many have not. The footage out of New York is unimpressive. Of course, these are demonstrations against the police, and unfortunately too many officers have taken it personally.
This is not to say that some criminals don’t take advantage of the protests—some left-wing, some right-wing and many no doubt apolitical. But if peaceful protestors are tear-gassed and beaten, then the resulting chaos will allow criminals free rein—the police probably won’t even see them.
Cotton gives examples of police who have lost their lives during the protests. Conspicuously, he doesn’t mention the pre-meditated assassination of an Oakland Federal Protective Service security guard—-by right-wing Boogaloo boys, who later killed a sheriff’s deputy near Santa Cruz.
So, in this context, let’s review what Tom Cotton is proposing. With George Floyd’s death, massive civil rights protests erupted across the country, with “between 15 million and 26 million people had participated at some point in the demonstrations in the United States, making the protests the largest in United States history,” according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests.
The protests were largely peaceful except for the actions of a few, including some right-wing Trump supporters. But in many places, the police attempted to suppress the peaceful protests using weapons like tear gas, pepper balls, Billy clubs and pepper spray.
So Cotton proposes that troops be deployed and “no quarter” given to “insurrectionists, anarchists, rioters, and looters.” Let’s not forget that Cotton is both a former Army officer and a graduate of Harvard Law School. He understands what “no quarter” and “due process” mean. A protestor shot dead cannot defend himself from the charge of rioting or looting, which in any case are not capital offenses. Cotton’s “no quarter” and “overwhelming…force” rhetoric means mass indiscriminate shootings. If a single dead protestor can’t defend his actions in court, how about a thousand? There’s no way these deaths could be properly investigated, even if the police took an interest.
Nowhere does Cotton mention using the Army to arrest or detain window-breakers or looters. Because that is not what he’s after—he wants dead bodies. He wants to crush a legal and almost entirely peaceful political movement with force.
Cotton is proposing to turn American streets into Tiananmen Square.
In one fell swoop, Cotton will have eliminated freedom of speech, freedom to assemble and protest, and due process. He will have politicized the U.S. Army and destroyed its reputation and morale. How many hundreds or thousands of body bags will be needed?
Families and communities will be torn apart, our nation divided for generations.
Should the New York Times have published this op-ed? What possible good could come from debating Cotton’s dream of an Assad-style massacre?
The New York Times, in its disclaimer, timidly complained that “the tone of the essay in places is needlessly harsh.” Really, the tone was needlessly harsh? But the content was okay? If the Senator had only used milder phrasing in his proposal to destroy a peaceful political movement with gunfire, the New York Times would have been happier?
Of course the op-ed should never have been published. Reasoned debate with people who want to destroy freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and due process is pointless. People who believe it’s glorious to murder peaceful protestors and tear our country apart do not share our values or goals, and we cannot find common ground with them.
If millions of Americans started to seriously believe that aliens live among us, would they get an op-ed in the New York Times? That might be newsworthy, but would it be debatable? What about the incel movement, or Holocaust deniers? Anti-vaxxers? No, because it’s widely understand—though seldom stated—that some positions are not truly debatable. Every newspaper and website, every church and university has standards on what is debatable and what isn’t, unstated though they may often be.
But these standards are not random; there are patterns. And one broad pattern is that speech that justifies violence is not allowed. Could you justify a school shooting by saying that the students are snobs, and the teachers are uncaring? No, that’s impossible; even Facebook would take down that message.
What Tom Cotton is doing is applying the ethos of a school shooter to political debate. He won’t do the shooting himself, of course—it’s beneath his senatorial dignity. He wants the Army to do the job for him—and the New York Times to give him permission. And the New York Times obliged him by inexplicably published his op-ed.
Freedom of speech implies the freedom to not listen, the freedom to vehemently reject arguments that undermine our basic values, most particularly when they could lead to a massacre within a matter of days. People are entitled to their opinions, but they’re not entitled to an audience, and they are not entitled to incite or justify violence.
But free speech still exists in some quarters. Reporters at the New York Times apparently pointed out that Cotton was talking about shooting them, and he certainly was—among many others. Amazingly, this seems not to have occurred to James Bennet. And that particular discussion may have fed into a debate about Bennet’s role at the newspaper, which led to his resignation. Simultaneously, the Army itself (after a discreet behind-the-scenes debate) was making it clear that it wanted no part of Cotton’s and Trump’s planned slaughter.
In both cases the debates led to a clear decision. Bennet is out, and the generals will not shoot American protestors.
Perhaps Bennet felt that “there are two sides to any argument,” and in some rough sense that’s true. After all, Trump, Cotton and Billionaire Capitalism want to cancel democracy and rule by force or fraud, and the majority of the population is opposed to that. But the New York Times and James Bennet cannot act as honest brokers in this argument, because this isn’t an honest difference of opinion. This is a brutal power struggle and if it turns out badly the New York Times will itself be a smoking ruin.
The only honest position is to oppose Billionaire Capitalism, root and branch.
The Socialist Investor 