Tolerating Intolerance. Free speech is always in danger, in this country as much as any other, despite an express provision in our Constitution protecting freedom of speech. AOL today hilited a story about a protest by white supremacists at the Antietam National Battlefield that drew counterprotestors, as demonstrations by white supremacists always draw counterdemonstrators, people who do not respect the right of people they disagree with to air their views. Their stance seems to be that we cannot tolerate intolerance. Plainly, however, that is a form of intolerance, so we can't tolerate that, now can we?

"The Supreme Court has ruled consistently that national parks in particular are places of freedom of expression," said park superintendent John Howard.

AOL ran a poll along with its story, and the results, at mid-afternoon, are disturbing.

Should groups be permitted to protest at national parks?
No 67%
Yes 33%
Total Votes: 143,278

Note the neutral language: "groups" — not "white supremacist groups", just "groups". Any group. Boy Scouts, Hare Krishna, Jehovah's Witnesses, Catholics, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, ACLU, People for the American Way, VFW, American Legion, Focus on the Family — any group.
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The poll does not ask "If not, why not?", and give various options. Nor, "If not, where should groups be allowed to protest?" That would be an interesting poll. I'd like to see where this 67% think people (groups or individuals) have a right to protest. Public street? Their own private property? Nowhere?
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The fascistic "homeowners associations" that have sprouted up all over this country in recent years have actually attacked the right of private persons to display 'poltical' signs on their own private property. These organizations should be broken up by government, after their leaders have been duly flogged 50 or 100 lashes and warned that any attempt to attack their neighbors' rights again will be met with 10 times the beating.
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There is always a temptation by the majority to impose conformity, of opinion as much as of dress, hair length and cut, religious belief, and lifestyle. The Founders of this Republic understood that the majority (the "mob") can be oppressive if not reined in, so they went to the trouble of drafting a protection for freedom of speech and enacting it as part of the national Constitution in the very First Amendment of the Bill of Rights, and then broadening its application to the states (and their subdivisions) in the Fourteenth Amendment. That does not keep some people from trying to prevent disapproved opinions from being expressed.
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Sometimes people merely suggest that it is "unpatriotic" to dissent or openly criticize the government, especially "in time of war", and use disapprobation as intimidation. New York City's mayor, Mike Bloomberg, remarked yesterday that that is exactly wrong, and it is fundamentally patriotic to criticize the government when we think it is wrong.

During a graduation speech at the University of Chicago, the Republican mayor said there is a "spirit of intolerance" for people with opposing views, who often are accused of being unpatriotic. * * *

"We all have to get together in this country and stop this right now and stand up to those who would demagogue," he said. "There is nothing — absolutely nothing — wrong with criticizing our government, on any topic, and challenging it to live up to the democratic ideals. It is not unpatriotic. In fact, what could be more patriotic?"

But many yahoos disagree.
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Some Americans — Americans! — do not believe that people they disagree with have the right to hold the views they hold, or at least have the nerve to say aloud things they shouldn't even think! Such "Americans" smile upon police intimidation of protests, even police inaction when counterprotestors 'take the law into their own hands' to beat the crap out of people they disagree with. And some "Americans" would actually entrust the government with the right to censor anything they don't want to appear in the papers or other media, including the Internet, and even arrest and punish anyone who says anything the government really dislikes.
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While we would like to think such people few and far between in the United States, I suspect they are actually very numerous, especially if the question were phrased to break out specific punishments: firing from a government job, broken down into ordinary worker or policymaker; a $5 fine; a $25 fine; a $500 or $1,000 or $10,000 fine; etc.
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When I was fired by a law firm for things I had written on the Internet, and remarked to a co-worker (who was accompanying me to my car so he could take back my cardkey after I had passed the locked doors to the parking garage) that I thought a law firm would have more respect for freedom of speech, he said you can say anything you want as long as you're willing to pay the price. That is an oxymoron. "Free" speech entails no "price", not a $5 fine, not losing your job.
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No constitution, no Bill of Rights, can protect people from the viciousness of people. Only a culture of tolerance and a government that actively protects dissent can guarantee people the right to say whatever they want, whenever they want, wherever they want, be it at a national battlefield or any other place, public or private, physical or virtual.
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It is only wide adherence to our informal national motto "Live and Let Live" that has kept us from multitudinous minor and major wars among ourselves. But there are always people who think they are so firmly in charge that they can safely impose their views on others and the minority will just have to go along. They forget that minorities don't have to go along at all. They can fite back. With guns and pipe bombs and fires set in the middle of the nite. They can make truck bombs from commercially-available fertilizer (as some Canadian would-be terrorists were planning to do and Timothy McVeigh actually did).
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"Live and Let Live", The American Way, is very good advice indeed, because the alternative is "Kill and Be Killed", which is, or has to date been, a very foreign way. I prefer the American way.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 2,492.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 5:08 PM