If there were ever a "I'm not in favor of censorship, but" moment for liberal-minded Americans, these post-Charlottesville days are it, maybe especially in Boston, where we're being treated to a "free speech rally" on the Common on Saturday. Free speech appears to be the self-rebranding of ultra-right, neo-Nazi and other racist and anti-Semitic groups with the apparent aim of confusing the issue. It's working, at least to a degree. Even the ACLU (who once defended Nazis wanting to march in Skokie, Illinois) is contending with it, balking at representing groups carrying guns. John Medlar, an organizer of the Boston rally (who sounds like he's in over his head, but maybe that's giving him too much credit) was interviewed on Radio Boston and fell all over himself attesting to the peaceful intentions of the event. My favorite line was when he implied that his guys were under threat of injury from violent counter-demonstrators, but they, the victims, were nonetheless "going in full Mahatma Gandhi." Let's hope so.
Once again, it bears repeating that we can champion free speech, in both theory and practice, and at the same time dispute racist speech and stop or counterbalance racist actions -- as we must. (What about all those politicians who are outraged, outraged! to find that racism is going on here, while giving full support to vitiated health care, deportation and blocking of immigrants, and ever more money to wage war -- all of which have racist consequences?) The option of simply ignoring such hateful and hate-filled speech was eliminated by the murder of Heather Heyer and the pusillanimous response of Donald Trump, but, as someone suggested wisely, let's counter the rightwing assholes on our terms, not theirs.
