Freedom of speech

Be sure to read this challenging post at The Enigmatic Paradox. In it, writer Star A. Decise calls attention to the truly reprehensible protests being staged at military funerals by a small group of religious fanatics - and the even more fundamentally disturbing abundance of state and local legislation being enacted to prohibit such outbursts. Ms. Star notes:

The protestors, fundamentalists from a tiny Kansas sect trying to win attention for their belief that God is killing American soldiers to punish the country for condoning homosexuality, made their point offensively, stomping on American flags and shouting that [the late Cpl. David A.] Bass is rotting in hell.

Similar demonstrations, which have marked many military funerals since last summer, have set off waves of grass-roots outrage and a flurry of laws seeking to restrict demonstrations at burials...

But we should all be ashamed of this backlash and work assiduously to stop the burgeoning movement to pass state and federal laws that impose geographic boundaries on free speech. While the protestors' views are indefensible, we should be defending their ability to exercise this fundamental right.

Although infuriating and appalling, the protests are a perverse but profoundly appropriate tribute to the dead soldiers, a vivid demonstration of the values they died defending. In an age when civil liberties are once again under sharp attack, we denigrate the memory of those killed fighting for this country by surrendering our birthrights in their name.

I must admit that I, too, have been guilty in my angrier moments of calling for restrictions on certain forms of "hate speech," most notably in my objection to the overtly racist messages of the Gaede twins, and the American Nazi Party's inflammatory activity in Toledo, OH, last year. But, as common-sensical as it may seem to prohibit public cries of "White supremacy" or the repugnant placards reading "Thank God for I.E.D.s", my strictly emotional reactions were wrong.

And, even more importantly, un-American.

Our grand democratic experiment isn't easy. Defending the right of others to disagree with our personal positions and beliefs can be the most frustrating and infuriating thing we're called upon to do in our lifetimes, leading directly to episodes of painful tongue-biting and dangerous elevations in blood pressure. But it is an essential tenet of our free society, something which we've claimed through the centuries separates us from the majority of nations on Earth. To restrict free speech - no matter how objectionable that speech may be - is to open a Pandora's box that could one day lead to the suppression of columns such as this. Ms. Star continues:

It's similar to the way New York City tried to push protestors away from the 2004 Republican Convention by limiting demonstrations to the outer fringes of Manhattan. And it's not that different from removing people wearing anti-war T-shirts from presidential rallies and speeches. Free speech is, by definition, often offensive and repulsive, even abominable. And in defending free speech, we're often forced to defend the indefensible. If we succumb to our natural impulses to limit this verbal assault to the forest where it can't be heard, it's free only in name. As the late Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas noted, "free speech is not to be regulated like diseased cattle and impure butter. The audience... that hissed yesterday may applaud today, even for the same performance."

My heart goes out to those families that have been subjected to the insanity and Medieval ignorance of such protests. But we cannot be lulled by a collective illusion of humanitarianism into selectively dismantling the basic foundation of American democracy. As difficult as it may be, we must protest any and all local legislative efforts to "ghettoize" open expression of opinion.

It serves no purpose to, in effect, drive such reprehensible fanatics underground, where they will simply cling tighter to their misguided philosophies, bolstered by a feeling of unjust persecution. Only in the harsh and unfettered light of day will they be exposed for the vermin they actually are.