This week has furnished us with two object lessons in the debate over free speech in the US.
On the one hand, NFL athletes kneel in protest during the national anthem in protest at the deaths of black American at police hands, and the minority president himself sees fit to berate them and call for their silencing.
On the other hand, a putative "Free Speech Week" planned by alt-right agitators across the Bay from me at UC Berkeley collapses in a fog of confusion and acrimony.
Do both equally merit our concern?
The athletes follow their consciences and protest without harming or insulting anyone. Their views merit our consideration, for surely there is a case to answer for natural justice and equality when innocent black lives are lost and no one is held to account or remedy.
Now, the paid champions of right-wing "free speech" follow their speaking fees and political patrons, but their opinions amount only to their assertion of the right to their own opinions. When pressed to actually make their case, they produce only bigotry and personal abuse. The free-speech "radicals" and their supporters often offer the canard that colleges and universities have become "echo chambers", but nothing echoes more loudly, or frequently, than a bigot's opinion that he is entitled to his opinion, whereas you are not entitled to question, much less dismiss, the same. We might lend them credence or even some of our time if they had a case to make, but not otherwise. A robust diversity of opinion does not necessitate a universality of folly.
