Antiwar fight for free speech hypocritical

Free speech is good. So is critical, objective, informed thought, especially today, when the fact that ideas have consequences is so clear as to be unquestionable. WeÕve heard a lot about both over the past month-and-a-half. Read an antiwar column or an article about a peace protest, and youÕre bound to find somebody worried about maintaining Òfree and critical discourse.Ó IÕm all for the First Amendment. IÕd have no problem with the antiwar movementÕs invocation of it if their sentiment wasnÕt stained by hypocrisy and elitism.

Over the past two decades, the far leftÑfrom which a substantial chunk of the current antiwar movement hailsÑhas shown that it wants freedom of expression about as much as it wants George W. Bush, DC Õ68, reelected in 2004. Anything deemed ÒoffensiveÓ doesnÕt make the cut. Speech codes enacted across American higher education institutionalized this stance during the Ô80s and Ô90s. Opposition to ÒoffensiveÓ speech spurred attacks by ethnic and Òsocial justiceÓ activists against the Brown Daily Herald (BDH) after it printed an advertisement by conservative commentator David Horowitz opposing reparations for slavery. Activists seized 4,000 copies of the paper and attempted to break into the BDHÕs officeÑactions a match and a can of lighter fluid from book burning. Anybody doubt that members of the coalition against the BDHÑgroups like Brown Critical Resistance and the Brown Coalition for Social JusticeÑare leading the charge to preserve Òfree and critical discourseÓ right now?

Of course, they donÕt have to worry about being silenced. Ari FleischerÕs moronic assertion that Americans need to Òwatch what they say, watch what they doÓ was disturbing, but Bill Maher hasnÕt been fired for calling the U.S. military Òcowards.Ó Several pro-war professors havenÕt gotten off as lightly. Academics at Johns Hopkins, Penn State, and Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, Calif. were either reprimanded or placed on leave by administrators concerned that their hawkish statements had offended students.

The American right hardly has a sterling record on First Amendment rights, and the New York Post and its ilk have attacked antiwar writers like Susan Sonntag and Noam Chomsky as Òtraitors.Ó But they continue to publish, and protestors continue to protest unmolested. This is the crucial difference between criticism, however vehement or misguided, and censorship. So far itÕs pro-war voices that have been silenced, not the other way around.

Far more disturbing is the fact that the antiwar movement presumes that Òfree and critical discourseÓ has only one conclusion: theirs. Calls for objective analysis of U.S. policy usually accompany complaints about near-unanimous support for the war on terrorismÑthe goal of inquiry isnÕt to see whether 90 percent of Americans are right, but to show theyÕre wrong. Protest rhetoric assumes that scrutinizing our actions will inevitably prove them unjustified, immoral, and counterproductive. Follow the antiwar argument to its logical conclusion, and only an idiot or a racist could support military action. Dissent is the inevitable result of a brain and a well-developed conscience.

It wasnÕt long ago that many current antiwar activists were falling over themselves to praise working and middle-class Americans. The anti-globalization movement churned out paeans to AFL-CIO members manning the pickets in Seattle alongside student protestors. Now it seems the far left would rather Middle America shut its collective mouth and listen. It might learn that, contrary to its assumption that the U.S. is fighting to defend itself against a movement bent on destroying it, the war on terrorism is actually an extension of predatory capitalism.

All it takes is critical inquiry and unbiased information free from the propaganda of Republican rags like The New York Times and The New Republic.

What the American public needs, activists argue, is facts, and theyÕre happy to point them out. While major newspapers and TV networks are bastions of misinformation, the Daily Californian, the Village Voice, and any number of Internet sites offer fair, unbiased war coverage. You can trust their facts, since their facts prove what any intelligent person will believe after examining the situation objectively. Lest todayÕs antiwar movement forget, 30 years ago many Americans supporting the war on terrorism protested the Vietnam War after the mainstream media showed that it had turned into a quagmire. Was that decision rational, and this one not? Was the Washington Post unbiased when it published the Pentagon Papers and a propaganda organ now? Are Ari Fleischer and Condoleeza Rice greater threats to free expression than J. Edgar Hoover? Obviously not.

The antiwar movementÕs problem isnÕt suppression of dissent or the lack of Òfree and critical discourse.Ó ItÕs the need for a rallying cry more compelling than stale slogans and transparent rants about the moral equivalency of murder and capitalism. ItÕs an ideology that excels at telling the U.S. what it shouldnÕt do but has yet to explain how it ought defend itself. Or, perhaps IÕm wrong.

Maybe the real problem is that average Americans arenÕt critical enough to trust the Daily Californian, which is miraculously still publishing despite a government-orchestrated plot to silence its heroic voice of dissent.

Back to Opinion...