(Thanks to guest commentator Andy Garcia for these observations on free speech -- its value, and its potential for both good and bad outcomes.)
For those of us who have sat in locker rooms and listened to a coach’s emotional call to action or have heard patriotic words from commanding officers calling us to duty or who have read a poem and been touched to the bone, we know the power of words. They are instruments that can appeal to our intellect and our emotions with the same facility. They can stir our passions for good or evil.
Words spoken in a crowd can cause rational and compassionate citizens to forsake their reason and stampede for the door, trampling everything and anybody standing in their way. Words can touch our hearts and make us risk our very lives for the sake of another’s. When we hear words dripping with anger and hatred, bigotry and self righteous emotion, we know these words can cause damage. We know from our common sense and personal experience that words intended to stir anger and resentment can trigger action that is both violent and reprehensible.
We as a country took part in the most devastating war the world has ever known, costing an estimated 60 million lives worldwide, because of the hateful words spoken by a monster who was able to convince a nation that some of its citizens were superior to others and that some among them were not fit to live. We have seen the pictures.
We live in a country that values free speech. This principle is codified in our Constitution and has been defended again and again in our courts and on battlefields around the world. But free speech comes at a cost. We allow the skinheads and the bigots with their tattooed swastikas to speak their hatred; allow the fear mongers and the extremists to broadcast their lies and conspiracy theories. We do this even though we know it may cause harm and diminish our national civility. It is the price of freedom and we are willing to pay it because we know the alternative is worse.
But the power of words cannot be ignored and the right of extremists to spread bitterness and intolerance does not mean that the rest of us must sit silent against them, even when their appeal to hatred and call for violence is by innuendo and insinuation, even when it comes from the highest office in the land.
