Free Speech Attacks Come from Both Sides | National Review

Free Speech Attacks Come from Both Sides | National Review
We want to hurt those we disagree with, Left and Right. "Bloomberg’s Megan McArdle, a sharp thinker not prone to hyperbole, wrote yesterday decrying the rise of online mobs and Internet shaming. The goal of the mob isn’t to rebut bad arguments but to destroy careers and permanently ruin reputations. She said this: I find myself in more and more conversations that sound as if we’re living in one of the later-stage Communist regimes. Not the ones that shot people, but the ones that discovered you didn’t need to shoot dissidents, as long as you could make them pariahs — no job, no apartment, no one willing to be seen talking to them in public. Does this sound overwrought? Well, consider that a major American corporation just launched an investigation into a private conversation between two of its employees because a left-wing Hollywood star was offended by their opinions about transgenderism. Consider the fact that even the most innocuous expressions of dissent from hard-left identity politics have triggered violence and threats of violence on campus. There are reasons why conservative professors have called me from their office, closed the door, and shared their true opinions only in whispers. They knew their lives would be turned upside down if the wrong ears were listening. But we on the right are wrong and smug to think that only the Left is losing its sense of proportion or perspective. From the Bully Pulpit of the White House to the tiny pulpits of personal social media, amoral angry populists lash out with a degree of fury and rage that I’ve never seen in my adult life. The goals are similar, to “destroy” careers or to wage “war” on opponents, and it’s not just pundits fighting pundits or politicians fighting politicians. It’s neighbors versus neighbors. We on the right are wrong and smug to think that only the Left is losing its sense of proportion. The young mom I met last week wasn’t a Never Trump pundit. She was a Christian who had concerns with Trump’s morality. Yet she didn’t feel free to share her opinion with her colleagues. I’ve seen shouting matches at social gatherings and social-media flame wars between old friends. And often the goal isn’t so much to win the argument as it is to hurt the other person, to deter them from ever speaking about politics again. Our political system is remarkably stable. It’s built to last through incompetent presidents and rudderless Congresses. The Founders erected safeguard after safeguard to prevent any one election or any one movement from toppling our constitutional republic. But I fear that our culture is less durable than our Constitution."