In a March 21, 2021, column (”One of the Most Significant Defenses of Free Speech in American History”), Boston Globe writer Jeff Jacoby quoted the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass:
“To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker. It is just as criminal to rob a man of his right to speak and hear as it would be to rob him of his money.”It’s a sad, tragic, and shocking commentary on what some parents and many schools are teaching these days that Douglass’s statement might not meet with majority approval in America. Recent polls indicate that more than half of the American public believe that the First Amendment (which guarantees free speech) “is outdated and ought to be rewritten.” Support for what is traditionally regarded as freedom of speech is lowest among millennials.
Political correctness, cancel culture, and presentism are erasing past events and people. Intimidation is all too frequent on campuses and in the public square. Heather Higgins, CEO of Independent Women’s Voice, says:
“Today, many Americans are afraid to express their beliefs out of fear of retaliation or being ‘canceled.’ What is happening right now isn’t about suppressing hate speech. It’s about suppressing history, facts, and viewpoints that some self-appointed woke arbiters who are looking to be offended have decreed are damaging and hateful. That’s a recipe for a society defined by fear, division, mistrust, intolerance, discrimination, and ultimately violence.”If the rush to shout people down and shut them up doesn’t alarm you, then you’re no friend of freedom. When speech dies, other freedoms follow. For that reason, we must push back against anti-free speech barbarians. We must make it unmistakably plain that we will not be silenced, nor will we allow others to be silenced, for the sake of anybody’s pet project or political agenda.
