Offended into surrendering freedom

Of the many things that concern me about the current political environment, one thing that worries me most is the erosion of our freedom of speech. People have become so afraid of being offended that they’re demanding it be taken away from the people they disagree with, all the while forgetting that anything that can be taken away from one can be taken away from all.

So far this disturbing trend seems to be most centered in our college campuses, which strikes me as bizarre. Colleges and universities used to be the place to go to be exposed to different and differing perspectives and ideas. Now they’re increasingly becoming enormous, publicly funded panic rooms where the small-minded can escape anything that might challenge their beliefs.

I went to a university in an area where a particular religion represented a majority of the population, yet even then a large portion of the faculty felt it a duty to oppose and criticize that religion, and both professors and other students would sometimes single out that religion for criticism and mockery in class. It bothered me, but I was a big boy. I could take it. I grew up understanding that our First Amendment rights were not there to protect popular speech, but unpopular speech. I may not have liked the criticism–much of which was quite bigoted, ill-informed and offensive–but felt our freedom of speech too important to try to censor those with the views I disagreed with.

I had an economics professor that I loved. He was often blunt, and he could often be critical in his lectures, though I saw he didn’t usually single any one group out–anyone was fair game, and often was. His criticisms of my own religion were uncomfortable and sometimes unfair in their generalizations, but not exactly wrong. It didn’t matter to me, as he was a darn good teacher, and to this day I remember more from his class than most of the classes I took (and I took a LOT of classes in my -mumble-mumble-mumble- years of college).

But someone took offense, and reported him to the administration. He was an adjunct professor, and his contract was not renewed. I don’t know for sure what the complaint was about, but I can guess, and I sadly suspect it was from someone of my own religious persuasion. We lost a good teacher because someone felt they didn’t need to endure criticism of something they held dear.

Today entire groups are being singled out, ostracized, and even banned from campuses simply because a large, vocal contingent (I won’t go so far as to call them a majority, though that may very well be true) don’t want to be exposed to ideas they don’t like–no, worse than that, they don’t want anyone else to be exposed to them either. It’s not like they have to go to listen to certain speakers or join certain student groups. They just don’t want them to exist. And their administrations are supporting them in this denial of rights, insisting that universities are immune to the rules of the rest of the country. Even publicly-funded institutions are denying they are subject to the same rules as the public that pays their salaries.

This trend is escaping out into the public forum as well, and I doubt it’s limited entirely to one political or social group. It’s becoming increasingly popular to believe dangerous ideologies can be safely silenced, even while the definition of “dangerous” continues to expand to the point of meaninglessness. Promoting behaviors that have long been viewed as simple foundations of a functional society and economy are now being decried as racist, sexist, elitist, etc., to the point that these terms have largely come to mean “someone I disagree with or don’t like.” Far too often the argument boils down to something like:

A: We shouldn’t allow this speaker to speak. It’s not safe.
B: Why not?
A: His presence might provoke violence.
B: By whom?
A: Me.

There is hope, however. There are still many out there who realize that our freedom to say what we want is more important than what we say. Take this example from Bremerton, Washington:

Kevin Chambers is a local radio host in Bremerton, Washington, and a Democrat – albeit one with a good sense of humor. While out of town in November, a Republican friend put up a Trump/Pence 2020 field sign in his yard as a joke. The sign got defaced with graffiti, so another sign took its place – this time on 15-foot stilts.

That’s when, Chambers says, things got a little weird. Two days before Christmas, he received a letter from the city of Bremerton informing him that the new sign violated city code concerning commercial signs. And that’s when he became defiant.
…
He told me that some folks made comments in a Facebook group for the local community that they would come to his house to deface the sign, egg the sign, and damage his property. Chambers then said, with a chuckle, “At that point, I decided the sign was going to stay up. As much as I’m not a Trump fan, I’m even less of a fan of people threatening to come to my house and damage my property. I figured if I took the sign down, it would somehow allow them to think that they caused me to take it down.”
…
In our interview, Chambers told me that the larger issue around the sign is whether other people can tell him what to do with his property. “We can argue whether Trump is a good president or not,” he said, “or whether he’s a quality guy. I’ll have that conversation all day long. The larger issue for me is, why do we allow neighbors to tell other neighbors what they can do in their yard? The sign is not a safety issue. It doesn’t overhang into the sidewalk. You literally cannot see the sign unless you’re looking directly at my house as you drive by. “
…
The lengths to which political opponents will go to censor each other really bothers Chambers. “The thing that has been highlighted in this thing is how divided we’ve become politically,” he said. “We used to be able in this country to agree to disagree. I now must stop you from sharing your opinion because you’ve offended me. I think it’s dangerous.”

— Jeff Reynolds, “Washington Democrat Forced to Take Down Trump Sign, Will Put Up Even Bigger One“

For the longest time I’ve been hearing people call for dialogue, insisting that only by talking about the issues can we resolve them and improve our society as a whole. I whole-heartedly agree. And that’s why it’s so dangerous that too many are deciding their only option is to keep others from expressing any viewpoint contrary to their own. When only one side can talk no one learns anything. Perhaps I’m old fashioned, but I feel that to be a bug, not a feature.

As I said at the start: Anything that can be taken away from one can be taken away from all. Once we cross that line we give everyone else permission to do the exact same to us.

Some lines should never be crossed.