Recently, I saw someone complaining that the Biden administration’s attempts to suppress free speech on social media are inconsistent with promises that Biden made to ‘bring decency and morality’ back to government.
But wait — isn’t it widely accepted that the way to promote decency and morality is to suppress indecency and immorality?
Isn’t that the goal of progressive administrations when they try to curate speech? To keep people from saying things that are indecent (for example, that you ought to be able to own an AR-15) or immoral (for example, that maybe not everyone should get vaccinated)? So that the rest of us can be ‘protected’ from exposure to people with such horrid beliefs?
And isn’t that also the goal of conservative administrations when they try to curate behavior? To keep people from doing things that are indecent (like using recreational drugs) or immoral (like paying for sex)? So that the rest of us can be ‘protected’ from exposure to people with such horrid beliefs?
The cause of all the fuss seems to be that progressives and conservatives agree on the need to suppress indecency and immorality. They disagree only on what constitutes decency and morality.
So when either group gets into power, it tries to force its views on the other group. And when either group gets out of power, it complains about having the other group’s views forced on it.
Probably the most important ‘constitutional principle’ that people tend to forget is that — as Ron Paul pointed out — you can’t give up less than 100 percent of a right. How many conservatives who are now complaining about government censorship would be willing to agree with Hugo Black?
Without deviation, without exception, without any ifs, buts, or whereases, freedom of speech means that you shall not do something to people either for the views they express, or the words they speak or write.
In my experience, most people — including most conservatives — agree in principle with Joe Biden when he says that ‘no rights are absolute.’ They just differ in which exceptions to allow. Which means they have to resort to politics to fight over those exceptions.
As with global nuclear war, the only way to win that game is to stop playing it — to stop thinking of rights as causing problems, and start thinking of them as having consequences:
https://granitegrok.com/blog/2021/03/problem-or-consequence
https://granitegrok.com/blog/2022/05/consequences-are-not-problems
The former view leads to one-size-fits-none government solutions.
The latter view leads to infinitely-customizable individual responses. (It’s also consistent with the idea that governments are formed to protect rights and derive their just powers from the consent of the governed — an idea that, for more than 160 years, GOP platforms have said that the party exists to protect.)
What progressives and conservatives both need to learn is that the best way to get what you want is give up the idea that in order to get it, you have to force everyone else to go along with you:
https://granitegrok.com/blog/2019/03/the-js-have-it
Democrats could have a single-payer health care system for Democrats next year… if they would just leave non-Democrats out of it:
https://granitegrok.com/blog/2019/03/the-single-payer-party
Republicans could have a system that punishes Republicans, but not anyone else, for failing to live up to their own religious principles… if they would just leave non-Republicans out of it:
https://granitegrok.com/blog/2019/03/the-voluntary-exclusion-party
And everyone else could take advantage of what Justice Brandeis called the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men: the right to be let alone.
As Jesus said, before worrying about the mote in your brother’s eye, remove the beam from your own.
