Calls To Censor Anti-Muslim Film Are New McCarthyism
Bacile’s anti-Muslim film was an amateurish piece of trash. So is the drivel we get from the Ku Klux Klan and spinoffs. But America’s First Amendment protects them both.
Bacile certainly is stupid, stupid, stupid. But Professor Butler is wrong, wrong, wrong.
She tried to walk some of that back — or sugarcoat it a little — in this piece published in USA Today but her piece still reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of free speech in America..
Why?
I’ll let the following piece — “The New McCarthyism” — that I wrote for the Los Angeles Times back when I was on the UCLA faculty speak for why she has a seriously flawed view of the First Amendment.
And yes — note the date: 1981. Sadly, in 31 years, nothing has changed among too many of those who benefit from free speech wanting to gag those with whom they disagree. (Click to enlarge.)
Click image to get a larger one that’s more readable.
Some disgusting things are constitutionally protected because those are the fringes that form the First Amendment boundaries that protect everything else. Remember, birth control, civil rights and breast feeding in public were once illegal and considered disgusting.
The free marketplace of ideas is the appropriate battleground. Fight the battle with the superiority of your own position, not by outlawing those you disagree with or shouting them down to prevent them from speaking.
On a related note, this recent piece of mine may be of interest: What Would The Prophet Protest Today?
