Monkeyfist.com: Freedom to Spew: Appropriate Responses?

I can't believe I'm writing about David Horowitz, even indirectly. Oh well, the things we have to do.

So Horowitz has a new publicity stunt and the money to make it happen. My personal thought is to ignore him whenever possible and dismiss and denigrate him otherwise. It's not like anything useful comes out of debating with him or his allies. Typically, tactically speaking, opposing his little pranks is exactly what he wants, and it only feeds his sense of self-righteousness, his popularity, and his coffers. Of course, not opposing them isn't great either. Horowitz is skilled at setting up this catch-22, and he's had years and dollars enough to elaborate his traps. I suspect, if some response is required, light-hearted seeming humor and ridicule would better sneak by his defenses than direct confrontation.

But what's going on with these spokeswhiners for the left who buy into Horowitz's premises? Witness Matthew Rothschild's:

The ad, "Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Slavery Is a Bad Idea and Racist Too," has prompted exercises in censorship by many of the papers and acts of intimidation against papers that did run the ad.

These responses show what little respect there is for the free exchange of ideas on campus--and, I'm sorry to say, among segments of the left.

Why don't we just quote the Horowitz playbook? (Note: Lest we forget, he was up in arms about Time "slandering" him by running an opinion piece calling him a bigot. We do well to recall who we're dealing with.) Any slam of anti-Horowitzers, especially by the left, should be tempered by noting his hypocrisy and his tactics.

Clearly, Horowitz is not primarily after free exchange of ideas. His bombast and name calling are designed to stifle opposition. I've never read anything by Horowitz that remotely invokes the principle of merely vague hostility, much less of charity. This is a man who regularly blames all the problems of African Americans on (among a few others) Jesse Jackson.

There are four specific accusations in Rothschild's editorial which, together, are supposed to entail the "lack of respect for free speech" charge:

Newspapers which don't run "politically inflammatory" ads are engaged in censorship. ("It's not up to them to shield their readers from ideas that may be "inflammatory" or to set up shop as censors who are empowered to make decisions on which ads are "appropriate" and which are "inappropriate"...They should not discriminate against advertisers on the basis of their political beliefs. This is fundamental.")
Removing, burning, or replacing issues of a free and freely available newspaper is "intimidation", "gang suppression of speech", and "an old and discredited tactic of brownshirts everywhere."
"Our tradition of free speech in this country is to protect the expression not only of views we agree with, but also those we abhor."
"...the proper response to bad speech is good speech."

Clearly, the problem isn't whether Horowitz can air his views. He can. And he does. The ad was derived from an article published in Salon.com, and the subject of a flurry of follow up columns, side columns, commentaries, letters, etc. This idea is out there. It's obvious and unoriginal and if you want to get it, it's easy to get. So, there's no shielding, no suppression of the idea. At best, there is the attempt to close one avenue of particular expression of that idea by this particular person.

Let's examine each claim in turn.

1. The so-called censoring of ads and the duties of newspapers

Surely the freedom of speech includes the freedom not to say something. Of course, when we're talking about an institution that controls a forum things get dicier. It's one thing for an editorial board not to run a Horowitz-written piece as its own, and another not to run it under his name. But it's also true that space is limited and costly -- no one has to subsidize another's speech if they don't want to. As a newspaper publisher, I don't have to run columnists that I don't think will appeal to my audience. If I'm a lefty rag, that pretty much precludes running Horowitz.

Ads are trickier. After all, the point of running ads is to raise revenue. In general, one tries not to dampen circulation by running ads that will, for whatever reason, make people not buy or read your paper. Isn't this just normal? And ads are, in general, already discriminated zones of speech: you have to have money to speak there.

Further, Horowitz's "ad" isn't an advertisement; it's an editorial. It makes no announcement of an event, sells no product, or the like. Suppose if Horowitz had offered the student newspapers a bribe to run his article on their op-ed pages? (This is a standard right-wing tactic pioneered by William F. Buckley and the noxious Dartmouth Review.) Would that be a worrisome infringement of the editorial integrity of the paper? These are student papers after all.

And it's pure slander to claim that the papers were turning down Horowitz's ad because of his political beliefs. Clearly they turned down the ad becaue of its content. If Horowitz placed an ad for his newsletter or lecture series, especially if it were sanely presented, I bet all the papers would have run it. Is it permissible for the papers to turn down an ad favoring pornography because of objectionable graphics? Or one that was pro-animal rights? Isn't it possible to turn down those ads because they're tasteless and inflammatory and not merely because of the ideas expressed or the beliefs of the people placing the ads?

Of course.

2. The papers are free, dammit

I've never understood the charge of "stealing" free papers. Presumably I can take as many copies of a free paper as I want? I can take the whole stack if I have urgent need for massive amounts of papier-mache material?

Why not?

Can't I take 50 copies of the school paper when it contains my witty editorial so I can send copies to all my relatives? I would think so.

If I need a bit of paper to help light my grill, can I grab a handy school paper? Why not?

If the problem is the scale and intent, would there be any objection to a group encouraging as many people to "take one and toss it"? Take one, ignore it, and throw it in our protest bonfire? Why not?

Can I take some copies and make a protest collage? Why not?

Why, why, why not? How is any of this stealing? Intimidation? Thuggery?

How is it different (circulation-wise) than organizing a boycott? "Don't read the paper! It's running gross Horowitz stuff!" Is that a brown shirt tactic?

3. "Our tradition of free speech in this country is to protect the expression not only of views we agree with, but also those we abhor."

There has to be some sort of separation between what I, the citizen, have to do and what the government has to do. It's not my job to protect Horowitz. I'm not going to give him a forum, especially on my nickel. I'm going to recommend people avoid him. If by sustained consumer action I can get Salon.com to dump him, I shall. If by skillful competition, Monkeyfist drives Salon.com out of business, I'm not going to offer him a slot.

It's not my job.

For a country where freedom of speech has been interpreted so narrowly (and broadly) as to make bribery protected and community-based micro-radio unprotected, I don't see the tradition as all that worthy of following.

And to be a bit silly, aren't these sorts of protests and non-publishing instances of free speech? Why must we "protect" Horowitz's speech by restraining our own?

More seriously, clearly the responses criticized are exactly the ones Horowitz wanted and designed his efforts to elicit. If one is going to be wildly annoying, one should expect that people won't be at their absolute best. So Matthew Rothschild is wrong to say, "And whether abhorrent speech inflames or not is really besides the point." It does matter. If Horowitz were really concerned with ideas, there's a simple alternative: Run a non-inflammatory version of the ad. Oh, whoops, the editors don't have editorial control over ads.

The issue isn't about the ideas or about debate; it's about letting Horowitz spew.

4. Good speech and proper responses

There are many proper responses to "bad" speech. If my senator utters racial slurs, I'm going to vote against him and encourage others to. I won't donate money to him. I'll work against him. I'll throw away the direct mail he sends me.

If an author I liked publishes a torrent of horrid sexist screeds, I'm going to stop buying and perhaps stop reading those books. If I'm on a committee that wants to invite him to speak, I'm going to think hard about going along with it.

A lot of these actions depend crucially on the nature of the response and the nature of the offense. I might well invite Anton Scalia or Clarence Thomas to speak at a constitutional law class, but neither would be my first choice, and I would pick either only to give my students an opportunity to shoot them down. I'd certainly be hesitant to give them a protected, free hand to blather. I'd love to have Clinton, Albright, Powell, and Cheney on a panel defending their collective Iraqi positions, but I wouldn't think it worth the effort if they were just going to attack each other over who wasn't tough enough.

The verdict

It is surely ironic that Rothschild advocates good speech while providing no compelling example himself. His school marm's tone alone is repellent, but, more importantly, he's failed to establish the tactical or moral credentials to give this lecture. I don't feel all warm and admiring of a leftist who writes:

Now I can understand why people disagree with Horowitz's position on reparations and with the specifics of his ad (to say nothing of his self-promotion as sixties-radical-who-now-sees-the-light).

He can understand? Maybe if he tries? I take it he doesn't disagree, but he can understand why people do. Can he understand why reasonable people are driven into a frothing rage?

It's not clear that these offenses are wedges in the great edifice of respect for freedom of speech. As indications of lack of respect, they seem to me relatively minor. As openings for Horowitz to trash African Americans and leftists and further weaken respect for free speech, they seem somewhat more serious.

Not the least because of people like Rothschild.