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Unlearning Liberty

Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate
Oct 03, 2016ScienceMommy rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
This book is FANTASTIC! Here's why -- to my surprise, I have learned that my daughter's generation -- especially those educated at more selective liberal arts schools, often do not share our family's view that free speech is an extremely important legal right, that we need to watch closely and protect. In fact one of my daughter's friends said that she didn't think free speech was that important -- and that she thinks it is MORE important to be able to restrict speech considered offensive -- especially when it is racist or derogatory to religion.) . Here are a few favorite passages from this book: . "it may be very tempting for high school students entering college to have sympathy for the advocates of speech codes, but that is only because they misunderstand the purpose of the First Amendment and lack knowledge of the legal, philosophical, and historical principles that support it. The First Amendment exists to protect minority point of view in a democracy, and anything that undermines it necessarily gives more power to the authorities. It is ultimately the best protection of the weak, the unpopular, the oddballs, the misfits, and the underdogs. If the only price that we have to pay for this freedom is that we sometimes hear words that we find offensive, it is well worth it." . "Probably the simplest but most successful argument for restrictions on speech I hear today is that censorship can protect people from hurtful or bigoted speech. The implicit question I run into all the time on campuses is, “Can’t censorship be acceptable if one’s intentions are pure, compassionate and generally good?” . History tells us that the answer is flatly “no”. I cannot think of a single anti-free-speech movement in American history that did not sprout from someone believing that they were fighting for truth, justice, decency, and goodness itself. This is so common a friend of mine has an acronym for it: the “GIRA Effect,” standing for “Good Intentions Run Amok.”. John Adams thought he was saving the country from ruin by instituting the Alien and Sedition Acts. Northerners who believed that abolitionists needed to be silenced thought they were preventing a bloody civil war."