re: "The Left Needs the A.C.L.U. to Keep Defending Awful Speech" (The New York Times, June 7, 2021)
Well said Michelle Goldberg. When liberal democracy is under attack by despots and brutish authoritarians around the world, free speech remains an essential foundation of both democratic principle and practice. It can't be compromised merely because some speech is vile, disgusting and lacking any merit.
Democracy requires that all people have an equal right to a voice in the wider social discussion that determines society's government and the laws that it then applies to all. This prescriptive principle is sufficient reason for strong legal protection for free speech.
A useful litmus test for our commitment to free speech, a test that Goldberg's example of the ACLU defending the right of the plainly disgusting pro-Nazi marchers deliberately offending the people of Skokie passes in exemplary fashion, is that we can list the similarly offensive, disgusting, and generally vile speech lacking any merit whatsoever, including base pornography and hateful racism, that we personally find repugnant in the extreme, yet demand be protected free speech.
Unless we can produce that list of truly hateful filth that must be accorded solid protection under the law, then our commitment to the strong free speech that is a cornerstone of democracy and therefore of a just society, is suspect.
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The above comment was submitted by Felix Qui to The New York Times article.
It is published there at https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/07/opinion/aclu-free-speech.html#commentsContainer&permid=113158119:113158119
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