Lori Rasmussen

On the Aug. 17, 2018, edition of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” Maher and the panel devoted a chunk of time to the discussion of free speech and how it pertains to Alex Jones and the recent news of his booting from some of the large social media platforms. Maher is well known for being a First Amendment absolutist, himself once having been fired for comments he made on his ABC show years ago in the wake of 9/11. Maher seemed at odds with the panel over whether Facebook and YouTube should have taken those actions against Jones, although Maher did acknowledge those are private platforms and it was their right to do so.

The debate was eerily reminiscent of our class discussion earlier the same week. As in class, there seems to be no good answer to this conundrum. Jones’ views are repellent, there is no question of that. Private companies do in fact have the right to censor his content on their platforms. But what of the slippery slope question? If decorum dictates we gag Alex Jones, does that slowly begin eroding the concept of free expression of ideas? Would that pave the path toward the censorship of artists who are genuinely questioning the power structure in our nation because those ideas might be “dangerous,” at least to those interested in preserving their power?

I think about Oklahoma-native folk singer Woody Guthrie, whose guitar famously carried the message “This machine kills fascists.” His music, spurred by the Great Depression, inspired people politically and socially to seek justice. His views could have been fairly described as socialist, certainly not popular opinions to hold during the McCarthy era. He was undoubtedly described as loony or nutty by the contemporary standards of those desperately clinging to wealth and power despite the massive inequality that was the status quo of the day. Yet he was allowed to speak and sing, and there was movement toward social progress. What if he and so many other progressives of their eras had been silenced?

One of my favorite movies growing up was the 1960 classic “Inherit the Wind,” the fictionalized version of the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial. The true events of the trial involved a Tennessee high school teacher in 1925 who was accused of violating a state law making it illegal to teach evolution in public high schools. This movie should be required watching for anyone pursuing a journalism education anywhere. In the movie, which centers on the courtroom battle after the teacher’s arrest, the prosecutors are themselves fundamentalist Christians who publicly oppose the teaching of evolution. The attorney representing the defendant is a famous civil liberties proponent who comes to town for the trial.

In a scene that has always stuck with me, the prosecutor welcomes the defense attorney by saying to him “I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” This quote is actually attributable to Evelyn Beatrice Hall, an English writer who said it in the early 1900s, but the movie was my first exposure to the idea.

Rushing to defend speech we find repellent? Well, we don’t do that anymore. We find ways to shut people down. We dox them on social media, we get them fired. We remind them (correctly) that actions have consequences. We police thoughts and words not only of others, but those of ourselves. We live in fear of saying the wrong thing. As Maher pointed out during his show, we create avatars for ourselves on social media – a pleasant inoffensive face for the world to see and keep our employers happy. Only to our closest confidants do we reveal our real thoughts, those which might be considered by some in power to be “nutty” or even “dangerous.”

Some might see this as a desirable outcome. I think we have to question it. Growth comes from pushing boundaries. I think we need to be free to make others uncomfortable at times. I think our future may even depend on it.