In his 2007 book Freedom for the Thought That We Hate, legal scholar Anthony Lewis chronicles the  history of the First Amendment’s protection of free speech.  Though the amendment was ratified in 1791, it wasn’t until the 20th century, that the Supreme Court ever overturned a law as a violation of free speech.  Though the history of America’s broad speech protections is younger than we might think, these protections are products of the Enlightenment spirit— that the elevation of knowledge and rationality are the keys to human flourishing.  (French author Michel Houellebecq disagrees, but that’s another matter.)

Lewis drew the title of his book from Oliver Wendell Holmes’s dissenting opinion in U.S. v. Schwimmer (1929):

[I]f there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought — not free thought for those who agree with us, but freedom for the thought that we hate.

Since popular opinions need no protection in a democracy, the First Amendment’s raison d’être must be the protection of unpopular opinions— including the thought that we hate.

In previous times, including the times of Holmes, the hated thoughts included pacifism and communist sympathy.  Congress and states banned various expressions they deemed seditious, usually limiting the political debate that the more philosophical Founders had likely wanted to foster.  In more recent times, contentious speech is typically the opinions and rantings of racists and bigots convinced that society is far too tolerant of this or that group.  (How ironic that the intolerant demand tolerance of their own opinions!)

Though we have lamented speech restrictions before at the University of Maryland, in the supposedly libertine Netherlands and in holier-than-thou Canada, the slow repeal of free expression in western democracies is on the march.

An op-ed in the Washington Post’s Sunday Outlook section chronicles the slow disintegration of speech protections in many western countries as the concern for multicultural tolerance conflicts with the more xenophobic views on the European fringe.  The author lists some troubling cases:

• French actress Brigitte Bardot has been convicted four times in France for demeaning Muslims and gays.
• A 15-year-old Briton was arrested for holding up a sign stating, “Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult”.
• An Austrian legislator narrowly avoided jail, but was fined, for accusing Mohamed of pedophilia.
• A Dutch cartoonist, as we wrote earlier, was arrested for drawing cartoons denigrating fundamentalist Muslims.
• Italian prosecutors launched an investigation into an Italian comedienne for insulting the pope.
• A British political aide was arrested for anti-Semitic rants directed at a TV in a gym.
• A xenophobic Dutch parliamentarian was denied entry into the U.K. for espousing anti-Muslim opinions deemed too dangerous.

Yes, many of these controversial views are blatantly racist, mean, and (more importantly) specious, but that doesn’t warrant their restriction.

Anthony Lewis, though on the Left, actually thinks America’s First Amendment protections might be too broad.  He believes the state is justified in squelching the incendiary recruitment speech of Islamic radicals, even if these radicals do not call for immediate lawlessness.  Their ability to persuade alienated young men inclined toward eventual violence warrants state intervention, he writes.

We disagree, however, and are curious as to whether Mr. Lewis would extend this interventionism to non-Muslims who speak to alienated groups.  Under Mr. Lewis’s reasoning, one could argue that Martin Luther King, though decidedly non-violent, should have been muzzled (well, more so than he was).  Such a speech restriction could open the door to the prosecution of anyone demanding significant socio-political change, as there are surely unrestrained elements of any otherwise legitimate movement.

Furthermore, determining what is controversial is easy, but it is indeed too easy.  If one could unleash the local prosecutor simply on the grounds that one feels “offended”, we will have to hire more prosecutors, as there are infinite opportunities to take offense, and enough delicate sensibilities to feel offended.  Don’t like that someone called same-sex marriage unnatural?  Call the prosecutor!  Don’t like that gay-right supporters call you a bigot?  Call the prosecutor!

The Left and Right will find ways to litigate and counter-litigate every provocative utterance out of the public realm.

There is plenty of despicable speech, no doubt, but any attempt to regulate it— to determine what is legitimate and what is not— could easily lead to capricious and unfair restrictions, where the well-counseled quash the obscure bloggers, where political parties sue newspapers for their opinion pages, and where courts rule that emotions trump truth.  A speech regime will cause many more problems than it fixes.

The best response to blatant nonsense is an articulate rebuttal exposing lies and reinforcing the truth.  Justice Louis Brandeis, who sat on the court with Holmes, famously wrote that sunlight is the best disinfectant.

I’ve often thought of elitism as meaning that one simply has high standards. A dictionary’s definition is probably more nuanced (dare I say elitist?) than mine, but I suggest a read of Paul Farhi’s article in Friday’s Post about the term’s use in politics:

It doesn’t matter that those who run for president are almost always better educated, better dressed, more telegenic, far wealthier and more articulate — all in all, drawn from an elite class — than just about every voter in the country. We know it, but prefer to hear about log cabin beginnings and back stories brimming with Horatio Alger spunk and Norman Rockwell imagery. We want politicians, in the cliched formulation, that we’d be comfortable having a beer with (tellingly, no one ever says “have a nice glass of merlot with”; we are not France).

Elitism isn’t about money or privilege, it’s about attitude, says Farhi:

It might seem a tad ironic for multimillionaires such as Clinton and Limbaugh to be calling anyone “elitist,” but “elitism” isn’t really about money. Donald Trump has money, but few think “elitist” when thinking of Trump. Elitism is instead an attitude, a demeanor, a vocabulary, a self-possessed air. It suggests condescension and contempt, a lack of empathy, an arrogant aloofness.

It’s worth a read.

One of the most disappointing moments in the recent Democratic debates came when Sens. Clinton and Obama nearly tripped over each other in a contest to denounce the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Threatening a unilateral withdrawal from NAFTA upon her increasingly unlikely election, Sen. Clinton admitted that some regions of the country do benefit from NAFTA, while others, primarily in the rust belt, suffer. Sadly, Sen. Clinton fails to explain why the economic interests of those who benefit, including American consumers, should take a back seat to the economic interests of a few rust belt manufacturers.

A recent article in the Post explains that many economists estimate that NAFTA has benefited the United States, particularly Texas:

Overall, the Texas economy has profited from NAFTA, studies have found, with manufacturers taking advantage of cuts in Mexican tariffs to send more electronics, industrial machinery, chemicals and instruments south, according to a 2006 Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas study. The same report found that the export of Texas lumber and furniture declined after NAFTA.

Though Clinton and Obama both promise to “renegotiate” NAFTA, it is unlikely that any renegotiation could reasonably be called a free-trade agreement. Both Canada and Mexico have their share of upset constituencies that would demand more protection in any deal, as would American textile mills and manufacturing unions.

American consumers benefit from cheaper goods and American farmers, particularly corn farmers, benefit from export opportunities to Mexico. One group with a particularly strong interest in protectionism is organized labor. As U.S. manufacturing output has increased steadily over the decades, the number of American employed in manufacturing has dropped. Though output is up, labor unions benefit not one bit from output increases, since their economic lifelines come from the dues of employees. Clearly the anti-trade rhetoric of Sens. Clinton and Obama will woo the hearts of union leaders.

Though Sen. McCain steadfastly supports NAFTA even in front of skeptical audiences in the rust belt, it is unlikely that a possible Democratic win in November would number the days of NAFTA. Shortly after the February debate in the video above, Canadian news outlet CTV reported that a senior Obama staff member quietly reassured Canada’s ambassador to the U.S. that Obama’s words were just to please the crowd:

The staff member reassured Wilson that the criticisms would only be campaign rhetoric, and should not be taken at face value.

The Obama campaign stood by the NAFTA-bashing, of course, but did not deny that his campaign had contacted the ambassador.

I am impressed with Sen. McCain’s defense of NAFTA, since it takes a good deal of courage to support something unpopular. His courage on this matter, though, is only admirable because he is right in his assessment on the long-term benefits of trade. Free trade is always a politically fragile issue since the benefits are subtle (decreases in costs of consumer goods), whereas the resulting job losses, even if only for a few, are obvious and painful.

Despite Ross Perot’s famous prediction that NAFTA would result in a “giant sucking sound” of U.S. jobs fleeing to Mexico, the unemployment rate in the U.S. actually declined after the agreement’s ratification. Furthermore, the biggest competitor for U.S. manufacturing jobs is not Mexico, but China, which lies outside the scope of NAFTA.

Nonetheless, NAFTA-bashing, though popular with the more xenophobic section of the electorate, is widely considered by economists to be a net benefit to America. This is probably why the Obama campaign official quietly reassured the Canadian ambassador that the senator had no plans for withdrawal.

The Clinton campaign, as I have noted, also double-talks on trade issues. It was recently revealed that Mark Penn, one of Sen. Clinton’s senior advisors, also consulted the Colombian ambassador about how to secure a U.S.-Colombia free-trade pact. Upon public revelation of this seeming double-dealing, Penn resigned. All for election-year politics. George Will explains:

Mark Penn’s sin was to be caught doing something sensible, surreptitiously. That is the only way Democrats can do sensible things regarding trade when their party is pandering to organized labor. Penn’s downfall makes him a member of a species that many Democrats insist is large and about which Democrats theatrically grieve: Penn is a casualty of free trade.

Penn’s consultations with the Colombian ambassador were to no avail. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised today to change House rules to kill the bilateral deal—a deal that she helped negotiate! The New York Times explains:

What Democrats do not want, many of them say, is a vote that would force lawmakers to choose between the labor and working-class opponents of the measure, who say that trade has cost American jobs and led to wage stagnation, and the Wall Street and manufacturing interests that favor the deal.

Interestingly the article notes that both Sens. Clinton and Obama oppose the deal (publicly, at least), “in part because labor groups say that President Álvaro Uribe of Colombia has not done a sufficient job of cracking down on anti-labor violence committed by right-wing groups.”

George Will fires back:

Colombia’s unions, however, document that the number of murders of their members has sharply declined. Edward Schumacher-Matos, visiting professor of Latin American studies at Harvard, notes that “it was far safer to be in a union than to be an ordinary citizen in Colombia last year”: The murder rate of unionists was less than one-eighth the murder rate of Colombians generally.

Sen. Clinton’s opposition to free trade is in markèd contrast to her husband’s position on trade. Though one should not expect her to adopt unswervingly the views of her husband, it is doubtful that her NAFTA threats are sincere. She is pandering to her a core constituency of union members, whom she needs to turn out in significant numbers in Pennsylvania’s upcoming primary. Be it with Mexico, Canada, or Colombia, the Democratic Party has turned against the nation’s overall best interest in trade. The Washington Post’s editorial board, certainly no bastion of conservatism, put it well:

Are [Clinton and Obama] unaware of the real statistics on NAFTA’s effects? Voters are left to wonder, and to ponder which would be worse: that the candidates are sincere and misguided or are insincere and lacking the courage to speak honestly.

Good question.