WHAT EXACTLY do you mean when you say “free speech”? What do other people mean when they say “free speech”. How has confusing freedom to advocate for ideas with freedom to silence other people’s ideas become literally lethal?
I believe in free speech as much as Almighty God does, but He doesn’t believe in it as much as free speech absolutists and garden variety authoritarian Leftists do.
Free speech “absolutists” are people who believe there should be absolutely no regulations or restrictions on speech. They may concede there’s a place for laws against criminally inciting violence and fraud, maybe even perjury in trial, but that’s about it – if that much.
I agree that most advocates for regulation of speech go too far and get it completely wrong: for example the novel concept of “hate speech”. What’s hate speech, other than speech which some people hate?
Just as the victor in war gets to write the history of his enemy, so the ascendant social sentiment in democracy gets to form a government and may regulate their opponents’ ideas by cynically labelling them “hate” in order to immasculate the oppostion before the next election.
The problem is neither history nor democracy are best served by a subjective record of events or a puritanical intolerance of competing ideas.
Regulations which intend to prevent causing offence are noxious themselves because they are so easily weaponised by insincere people as a political strategy to silence criticism. Sure, lowering the bar here means there may be more objectively bad ideas being offered and, consequently, more gullible people may be recruited to them. That is the cost of the indispensable opportunity to resist bad ideas, ideas which may become the law of the land if unresisted.
The reason we need speech to be generally unrestrained is so we can argue against bad ideas, bad people and bad governments. People should be free to articulate their ideas, because it is only in the fullness of ideas being ventilated and widely scrutinised that the population at large can have sufficient confidence that ideas have survived the trial of public debate and deserve their consideration.
If Islam, Aboriginal culture, the pride (in sin) lobby or radical gender theory cannot be hotly debated because feelings might get hurt, then every citizen should be more suspicious that someone is trying to protect weak ideas from getting hurt, and only using people as political shields.
I warmly welcome such debate and even wilful offence of Christianity because I am certain it is true, good and will withstand all honest scrutiny.
“Free speech” should not be defined as freedom to communicate already-permitted opinions but excluding what the powerful define as “hate speech” – yet some do think that’s what it means.
Nor should “free speech” be defined as entirely unconstrained communication or behaviour.
I am a supporter of free speech, but I am not a free speech absolutist. My first line of evidence that free speech absolutism is a faulty idea is (naturally) in Christianity. Two of the ten commandments regulate speech.
“You shall not take the Name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold guiltless anyone who takes His Name in vain.
“You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour.”
Relevant to our topic, Almighty God has clearly implied He does not believe in a complete lack of regulation around speech. He commands people to not misrepresent Him (falsely claim His endorsement for things He doesn’t bless), and He commands people to not lie or commit perjury (legally or socially).
I often say I’m “deliberately Christian and coincidentally conservative”, and by that I mean whenever presented with a contradiction between Scripture and a classically “conservative” philosophy, I’ll choose to agree with God and not conservatives.
A thinking person may ask me where else I presume to draw the line. The answer is that if we first discover the telos, the purpose of free speech, then we will better recognise when people are violating free speech and should be stopped.
It shouldn’t be a brilliant epiphany to my readers to discover the purpose of freedom of speech is not a licence for individuals to indulge their emotions, impose their demands or force people to listen to them.
The purpose of free speech is the sincere pursuit and persuasion of objective Truth.
The claim that there is no such thing as objective truth, only “your” truth and “my” truth is self-defeating. The claim itself poses as objective truth: an incontrovertible fact, which contradicts the claim there is no objective truth. And if “my” truth (that there is objective truth) contradicts “your” truth (that there is only subjective truth), then, again, you cannot argue with me having just claimed “my” truth is as true as anything can be!
If we do not accept that there is objective Truth and that it is discoverable, then all of science and debate is futile and politics must be reduced to the evolutionary notion of might makes right, and only the strong deserve to survive.
Brutish thuggery brings us to the animalistic behaviours of the authoritarian Left’s so-called “counter protests”, and the cover they seek for mayhem and terror in the name of “free speech”.
It is fair to say the common sight of “mostly peaceful protests” by the astro-turfed riots of Black Lives Matter™ and related anti-Australia blacktivists, appallingly sociopathic pro-Hamas demonstrations and “antifa” domestic terrorists are more often than not designed to work more like a tantrum by an armed toddler than a principled exercise in countering bad ideas with the clear communication of good ideas.
“Counter-protest” is a euphemism for the “thugs’ veto”, camouflaged by claims of rights to “free speech”. Such thugs almost invariably demonstrate their willingness to be the most violent people in the street, audaciously daring police to take them on.
The thing about fighting armies in foreign conflicts which are not signatories to the Geneva Convention is that we fight against an enemy who doesn’t morally constrain himself as we try to. So, ironically, in the blind pursuit of moral humanity, moral humanity is defeated because we pull back where immoral inhumanity escalates.
Likewise – while self-censoring in the battle of ideas so as to avoid offence – offering the tolerances of free speech to the domestic enemies of everyone else’s freedom is to sacrifice freedom and democracy in the blind pursuit of freedom and democracy.
There’s a wise proverb about not cutting off the branch you’re sitting on. It’s similarly prudent to not let someone else cut off the branch of freedom we all live on, and that doesn’t make one a hypocrite – just wise.
The line I’m prepared to draw for the regulation of speech was articulated by the great Christian philosopher, G.K. Chesteron:
“There is a thought that stops thought. That is the only thought that ought to be stopped.”
The authentic purpose of government and civil authority is to protect freedoms, and naturally involves the regulation of behaviour which threatens freedoms.
When an exercise in speech has the obvious (if not obviously intended) effect of cancelling, silencing, intimidating or drowning out another person’s or group’s speech, then that exercise must be stopped. If the pursuit of truth is the sincere goal of both parties, then the second party must agree to making themselves heard at another place and/or another time.
When an exercise in speech violates other people’s or groups’ rights to private property, free movement, free trade and other such freedoms, then the freedom of speech is being weaponised to hurt instead of help the nation, whatever the rhetoric decorating their malice.
I applaud then-Governor Reagan’s determination to quell the violent war which feral students from U.C. Berkley declared on Californians in 1969.
Foolishly tolerant university administrators had indulged increasingly disruptive and obnoxious student protests on campus, which then became an election issue helping Reagan get elected. During the most violent confrontation in the university’s history, 6,000 “protestors” opened a fire hydrant, attempted to tear down a fence, threw missiles at police, set cars on fire and chased outnumbered sheriff’s deputies.
Police responded with full riot gear and swinging nightsticks, firing tear gas canisters and potentially lethal buckshot from shotguns. The County sheriff explained:
“The choice was essentially this: to use shotguns—because we didn’t have the available manpower—or retreat and abandon the City of Berkeley to the mob.”
Ronald Reagan even justified incidents of possibly excessive police violence:
“I think it is being very naive to assume that you should send anyone into that kind of conflict with a fly swatter. He’s got to have an appropriate weapon.”
He then deployed 2,700 National Guard troops to break up even small demonstrations to keep the peace. The public supported his actions.
Those actions contrast strongly with Dictator Daniel Andrews and the jack-booted thuggery of Victoria Police in response to entirely peaceful protests which neither harmed nor threatened anyone or anything.
Victoria Police showed no interest when the mass protests defying public health orders were organised by far less reasonable blacktivists.
Would the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump last week have happened if American society hadn’t signalled to domestic terrorists like Antifa, in their many violent excursions into cities around the world, that criminal vandalism, arson and violence will be tolerated?
Would the actual murder of an American citizen exercising his right to free speech, peaceable assembly and political association at that same rally have happened if society hadn’t signalled that destructive, vandalistic “protests” have some place in civilised society?
What signal did it send to antisemites and their targets when pro-Hamas “free speech” activities caused Sydney police to warn Jews to stay home and even arrest the Jewish targets of angry mobs, instead of the terrorist supporters?
But what message would it send to such lawless mobs if the police were more prepared than them to use overwhelming force and violence, instead of meekly surrendering the streets to those who have zero interest in the sincere pursuit of truth and are consumed with their objective to deprive everyone of basic freedoms?
Instead, it’s become standard police procedure to not arrest “protestors” threatening or actually harming law-abiding citizens. They only act when police are assaulted, and even then timidly. That isn’t keeping the peace or protecting democracy. It’s incentivising mobs, political violence and assassinations.
“Counter protests” aren’t an exercise in freedom – they’re an abuse of freedom and an assault on freedom. Counter protests are anti-freedom. It’s time to, like Reagan, unapologetically ban and punish callous assaults on freedom in the name of freedom.
Like the “counter protestors” they enable, free speech absolutists are not defenders but enemies of free speech.
What’s the test? Where’s the clearly delineated line beyond which no tyrant must be permitted to abuse regulation of speech? It’s not the idea, but the behaviour which must be tested.
Publish what you want, say what you want, protest where and when you want – as long as it’s not criminal or incitement to criminality, or violating other people’s rights and freedoms.
The attempted assassination of President Donald Trump shows us it is past time to ban – not speech – but the behaviours which go so far beyond sincere debate that they become literally destructive to personal freedom and an existential threat to civil democracy.
WHAT DO YOU THINK? Add your comments below...
Dave Pellowe is a Christian writer & commentator, founder of The Good Sauce, convener of the annual Australian Church And State Summit and host of Good Sauce’s weekly The Church And State Show, also syndicated on ADH TV. Since 2016 Dave has undertaken the mission of arming Christians to influence culture through events from Perth to Auckland, videos, podcasts and articles published in multiple journals across Australia and New Zealand. [more]
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