Freedom of speech: the people

In the wake of last week's docudrama "The Road to 9/11," criticism from the left has rained down like patriot missiles on an al-Qaida barbecue. On the Web sites of liberal media criticism outlets such as Media Matters for America and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, the docudrama is attacked as conservative propaganda that put the Clinton Administration in a disproportionately bad light in comparison to how the Bush Administration was portrayed. \nIt is also attacked for presenting unsubstantiated rumors as dramatized fact. The left sustains that the program should not have been allowed to air. \nIn the same vein, Bill O'Reilly is also consistently attacked by these groups, as are Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, for their hurtful, offensive remarks. According to the left, they, too, should be censored.\nConversely, anyone in any form of the media or the popular arts who criticizes the Bush Administration or the Iraq war can expect the wrath of the right to smite them with vitriolic immediacy. Every day, you can look at conservative media criticism outlets like Accuracy in Media and the Media Research Center and find a parallel style of criticism attacking people and groups that the right does not agree with, accusing them of being liars, puppets and worse. Not only do these groups call for the censorship of these voices, but also the arrest and trial for treason of these people.\nWhat both of these groups fail to realize is the dangerous path they have begun to tread. They are calling for the elimination of unpopular opinions, a rhetoric often employed by people who are not savvy to the plethora of legal litigation on the topic of free speech. With significant Supreme Court cases like Hess v. Indiana, Falwell v. Flynt and Brandenburg v. Ohio, among others, protection is afforded to offensive, extreme and unpopular speech in order to protect the marketplace of ideas and our paramount ability to speak out against the government. \nThe point that the Supreme Court has made time and again is that all opinions, no matter how unpopular or divisive, must be protected in order to shield all opinions from governmental censorship. In short, if you value your right to voice your grievances with humanity, then you can't advocate the retraction of that right from others.\nIt's a truly beautiful thing that both Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann can exist in the same sphere and be protected, that I can join the Bloomington Peace Action Coalition to protest my government without fear of imprisonment and that religious fanatics can gather on a public campus and scream their doctrine at anyone within earshot. Yes, there are hurtful opinions in the world -- things that offend, things that anger, opinions whose mere existence is disturbing. But uglier than any of that is when naïve citizens push their governments to censor other members of society. The First Amendment was not written to protect the safe majority opinion. It stands to protect the extremes. Without that, none of us are free.