Overreaction Posits Bad News for Free Speech

Sometime in the past, Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling made a private comment to his now-ex-girlfriend.  He asked that she refrain from bringing Black people to Clippers basketball games.  Sterling did not intend to publicly broadcast the comment.  Nevertheless, a recording of it appeared on the celebrity gossip website TMZ earlier this week.  Now, amid public outrage at Sterling’s thoughtcrime, the NBA has opened an “investigation” of the matter;

The Last Stop for Free Speech?

Originally posted at Independent Political Report (IPR)

No visitor retains the right to post on IPR. The owner can manage the site as he pleases. But there is no reason IPR cannot attempt to replicate the free and fair society that its owner, contributors, and followers envision.

IPR currently faces a crisis of conscience. Two years ago, it took the unlibertarian step of banning one good faith commenter.  Now, some on the site are calling for the ban of another good faith commenter.  This reaction is a symptom of a much larger disease affecting the entire United States. Rather than forgiving unfortunate comments and disputing ideas on the highest levels of Graham’s hierarchy of disagreement, some opt to silence voices completely; the IPR equivalent of a ban. In argument, these tactics do not win. As Thomas Dewey expressed in a 1948 GOP presidential debate, pushing disputed views underground only allows those views to fester unchallenged.

Challenge ideas through public debate

Ideas, including those concerning race, should not be banned in free society. I subscribe to the view New York Governor Thomas Dewey expressed during his 1948 presidential campaign.

Dewey, best known as the subject in the unfortunate headline Harry Truman proudly brandished in an iconic photo, had a little-known, yet historic radio debate ahead of the 1948 Oregon GOP Primary.

In the debate, Dewey faced “boy wonder” Harold Stassen, the perennial presidential candidate who ran for the office eight more times before his 2001 death. Stassen argued in favor of banning the U.S. Communist Party.  Dewey countered this view, maintaining that an idea like Communism could not be defeated with legal force. Rather, forcing it underground would itself constitute totalitarianism and would only strengthen the Communist cause.