Posted by Dan Ewert : 4/17/2002 12:34:00 AM (Archive Link)
Occasionally, I come across reports of conservative speakers at universities being shouted down by the crowd. Other cases involve leftist groups stealing conservative newspapers that they don’t agree with for one reason or another. How ironic that liberals who purport to be the true purveyors, defenders, users, and beneficiaries of free speech would prevent it. I’ve noticed that many groups on the left tend to have a victim’s mentality. They’re eternally oppressed and put down by the right and the “power structure.” This is hardly the case. Liberal thought and ideas are very prevalent in our society. Additionally, most on the right are perfectly willing to let the left have their say. The right will vehemently oppose their views and waste no effort in criticizing them but they will never inhibit the right or ability of those people to express them. Of course, a case could be made that those shouting down the speaker are themselves using free speech. However, I’m not so sure this qualifies when it’s sole intent is to prevent another’s free speech. The left would cry bloody murder if an authority such as the government were to silence a liberal speaker. I think it’s no less an offense when an independent group of people, no matter their ideology, endeavor to do the same thing. The sins are equivalent.

The left also cries foul at what they feel is the right’s ideological dominance in current American society. They say that the current wave of patriotism and such is inhibiting their right to free speech. I think there’s often a great deal of confusion on this point… a mix-up of criticism and actual censorship. Saying you shouldn’t say something is far different from saying you shouldn’t be able to say something. The left often mutates the former into the latter. They think that because people criticize their point of view that they are trying to stifle their ability to express that point of view. This is far from the truth. Criticism is nothing more than a further exercise of free speech. People need to figure out this very important distinction and stop shouting about how they’re being repressed. They’re not being repressed, they’re merely getting the sharp end of the stick that every American citizen is allowed to wield… free speech.