This is primarily an opinion column. And based on the voting turnout in Clark County (about 80/20 in favor of Republicans), I’m willing to guess that many of the people who read it on a biweekly basis disagree with much of what I write here. In the over 20 years that I have written this column off and on, I have gotten letters to the editor and personal letters that have passionately, and mostly politely, disagreed with my positions. Although these days there seem to be less letters to the editor, not just in response to my columns, but just in general. I wonder if part of that is that we’ve turned our social media pages into our own editorial pages. I also wonder if people are less willing to engage in public discourse these days given the current climate of our country.
I think it’s a symptom that we’re losing something tremendously important in this country. People seem far less likely to engage in discourse with those who disagree with them than in the past. We are worse for that. Back when I bowled, I was the lone liberal voice on my bowling team. Those nights were filled with tremendous, and often heated, conversations about the current events of the week. And while those conversations may not have changed our minds, we left those nights with a better understanding of the other side. I learned a lot from those conversations, and they helped me to refine my own opinions and forced me to reflect on my stances. That’s how America works best. Not when we shy away from those we disagree with, but when we engage with them in good faith.
Free speech and free press are so important that the Framers put them first and foremost in the Bill of Rights, along with freedom of religion, assembly, and petition. Our Founders’ dedication to free expression sets us apart from other nations, both enemy and ally. What should concern all of us, liberal, conservative, libertarian, and everything in between, is that Americans’ support for free expression seems to be waning.
The Argument, a new liberal website, recently polled registered voters about a number of issues. One of the questions gave voters a list of potential speakers and asked them if they thought those people should be allowed to give a speech on a college campus. The takeaway is that both Harris voters and Trump voters would stifle speech they disagreed with. Some of the results:
• 50% of Trump voters opposed allowing a transgender rights activist to speak on campus
• 55% of Harris voters opposed allowing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak on campus
• 68% of Trump voters opposed allowing a Palestinian activist who calls for the abolition of Israel to speak on campus
• 47% of Harris voters opposed allowing someone who opposes same-sex marriage to speak on campus
This calls to mind a quote from the famous linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky, “If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.”
In her book The Friends of Voltaire, Elizabeth Beatrice Hall (under the pseudonym S.G. Tallentyre) wrote, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” (This is often misattributed to Voltaire himself).
Both of these quotes should be central to our ideas on free speech. If we only stand up for free speech for views we agree with, we don’t really believe in free speech. Our dedication to the principles of free expression is put to the test when we are faced with expressions that we detest. When we retreat into our echo chambers, we create caricatures of the other side in our minds, and we debate those shadows rather than confront opinions we disagree with. This choice is intellectually lazy and allows us to live comfortably in ignorance. But our nation and our society are paying the price for it. As we increasingly ignore those who hold different opinions than our own, the marketplace of ideas is growing sparse, and the vacuum is being filled by attention merchants who do not have the nation’s best interest in mind.
Free speech isn’t just about talking; it’s about listening as well. And it’s a principle that has come under threat around the world. Democracy activists in Hong Kong have been cracked down on by China, the Israeli government refuses to allow the press to report freely from Gaza, and in the United Kingdom, a comedian was arrested last week for a post on X that was considered anti-trans. East and West, dictatorship and democracy, it seems as though speech is under threat everywhere.
America turns 250 next year, if we want another 250 years, we are going to have to rededicate ourselves to the principles of liberty and the core tenants of our society like freedom of expression.