October 13, 2006
John Steele Gordon and State Power Posted by Joshua Zeitz at 06:00 PM EST In my earlier post, I wrote that “Mr. Gordon is a black-and-white kind of guy, so he’ll almost certainly muster up a lame retort” to my list of right-wing infringements on free speech. I was right. His response was lame. For someone with such strong libertarian convictions when it comes to taxes, wage controls, and business regulations, Mr. Gordon is surprisingly comfortable with the use of state power to suppress free speech. The crux of his argument seems to be that when a state actor violates the First Amendment—and make no mistake: this is precisely what happened in New York City, where over 1,500 people were found to have been falsely or illegally arrested; and it’s looking quite likely that civil juries are going to come down hard on the Secret Service for its actions in Colorado and West Virginia—there must be a good reason for it, and good citizens should nod their heads in approval and accept the wisdom of their leaders. By this logic, the city of Albany, Georgia, was only doing its job when it preserved the peace by peaceably arresting hundreds of civil rights demonstrators in 1962. As for the argument that Cindy Sheehan and Beverly Young violated House rules by wearing shirts that bore political messages: How is the relevant House rule not in flagrant violation of the First Amendment? The House of Representatives is not a private eating club. It’s the people’s House. If one can’t don a political button or shirt with a political slogan in the House chamber, then where? That the offenders in question wore jackets and ties and purported to have the state’s interest in mind does not make their violation of free speech any less offensive than the incident at Columbia University. That Mr. Gordon can’t see this comes as no surprise to me. His interest in free speech seems to begin and end with protecting the First Amendment rights of those who agree with him. Finally, readers will note that I haven’t used Mr. Gordon’s advanced age against him. I certainly wouldn’t suggest that senility or hypertension are clouding his judgment, because they aren’t. He might, then, cease and desist the nasty and gratuitous comments about my age.
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