"The Silencing" (Regnery)

by Kirsten Powers            

                       

review by DC Larson

Suppressing beyond-boundaries expression has always enjoyed popularity in the more authoritarian precincts across the ideological spectrum. 

Liberals argue that the guilt in this lies mainly with conservatives. They are no longer able to support that claim, a point I'll illustrate, momentarily. 

Indeed, as conservatism by its nature reviles change, it has a most utlitarian ally in the censor. Examples abound - suppressing anti-war speakers, quashing political dissidents, barring the mailing of reproductive pamphlets, governmental crackdowns on plebian musics, 'safeguarding' public morality from creative writings and art deemed unsavory - the list writes itself. 

But that clampdown impulse increasingly finds purchase in the American liberal. Audience attempts to shout down public speakers, college student petition drives to pressure universities into withdrawing speaking invitations (Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Bill Maher, George Will), hate speech legislation, "safe spaces," "free speech zones," and campus speech codes that include punitive sanctions, are fit examples. 

One recent instance of a peculiar interest seeking to shackle public expression is the quixotic "Ban Bossy" campaign endorsed in a PSA by Beyonce, Jane Lynch, and others. It points up the fashionableness of suppression that this trendy and frivolous effort enjoys the official support of the Girl Scouts, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In, and the AARP. 

Consider, too, the ongoing "Flush Rush" campaign to oust that right-wing voice from radio. Here there is some difference. The airwaves are publicly owned. And as landlords, we the people have the right to object when we feel a broadcaster is not operating in the public interest. 

Limbaugh does say outrageous and sometimes despicable things. And personally, I would prefer that no one thought his way, let alone talked it. But we must never reach the point where we respect only pleasant and harmonious speech, or expression that conforms to our own values. 

It is telling that the "Flush Rush" contingent does not ask that opposing voices also be presented, only that the one to which they object be exiled. 

Sadly, the notions of countering bad speech with good, of more speech being preferable to less, seem to have faded from fashion. 

Noble historic liberal efforts pushing for racial and sexual rights have, their practical goals now largely achieved, become twisted. Too often today, those causes are exploited for political or debate point-scoring interests that have nothing to do with the civil rights mission. And they are thereby cheapened: Once legitimate, now reduced to blackjacks swung by partisan bullies. 

Has it not become standard for political hit-men to hurl epithets like "racist," "sexist," and "homophobic" as a means to shut down debate rather than cultivate philosophically comparative conversation?  

Always remember that the First Amendment's protection was of incalculable help to historic movements promoting greater recognition of constitutional rights. There aren't numerous free speech rights, one for each point of view. There is but one, and every time it is weakened - even when we might disagree with an impacted perspective - it is made less reliable for us and for ideas we do support.

In other words, we silence opponents at our own peril.

I took up Kirsten Powers' timely and scrupulously documented book, "The Silencing," with two purposes: to learn and to review. It's broad in scope, offering plentiful examples of campus/political sphere speech clampdowns. Powers forges airtight arguments (which enjoy rock-solid buttress by philosopher authors like De Toqueville and Jefferson, as well as contemporary First Amendment law experts, such as Floyd Abrams) that are both persuasive and inspirational.

Powers' documented list of offenders includes liberal stars from media, government, entertainment, and 'issue adocacy' organizations: MSNBC's Chris Matthews, Chicago's Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, mega-famed actor Ben Affleck (who was recently caught out scissoring mortifying revelations from a PBS/Henry Louis Gates documentary), and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Powers quotes Kennedy wishing a law existed to imprison the Koch brothers for Climate Change heresy.

And the author skillfully weaves educational information with an accessible, engaging narrative style. In her crucial work, one is as likely to encounter the wisdom of liberty giants as smile appreciatively at Powers' own pointed and knowing wit.  

Predictably, online ideological storm-troopers representing Salon, Alternet, and other organs of notoriously suspect constitution deployed scattershot munitions, doubtless to the delight of goggle-brained loyalists who will never actually read this important book, themselves.

In dismissing "The Silencing," an intellectually brutish DailyKos torpedo sneered, "Kirsten Powers has long been a member of the Fake Democrat Society...The truth is that this book is a self-serving response by Powers to the derision she endures for her conservative activism while pretending to be a liberal."

Of course, Powers had forseen as much: 

"Demonizing is another tactic favored by the illiberal left to delegitimize opponents. They simultaneously make racist and misogynistic attacks against opponents [Clarence Thomas, Michelle Malkin, Colin Powell, Michael Steele, and Mia Love come to mind] and accuse opponents of being racists, bigots, misogynists, rape apologists, traitors, and homophobes...

"The purpose of delegitimizing opponents is to make them radioactive to the broader culture. The illiberal left uses character assassination to ensure their opponents won't be treated as sincere or thoughtful contributers to the national conversation. The illiberal left doesn't desire debate, it wants a monologue on one side and silence on the other." (pages 32-33)

In the clampdown-fevered imagining of the illiberal leftist, there are but two sides to every issue: their own correct one, and the morally foul, ethically ramshackle alternative. Reasonable people, of course, understand that legitimate views can and do differ by degree, without losing essential soundness. But to the authoritarian, whether he be located toward one ideological margin or another, even the slightest deviation from what writer Fredrik deboer terms the "We are all already decided" sect is cause for not only excommunication but annihilation.  

Not long ago, comedian and "Politically Incorrect" television host Bill Maher was invited to speak at Berkeley. But he quickly found himself the object of would-be Social Justice Warrior speech-banners. 

Maher's wonderful, call-to-arms remarks to viewers of his show warrant recollection:

“The irony of the Berkeley situation" Maher said, "is I thought campuses were places where free speech was championed. And one of my problems with Islam is that they are not big on free speech–which so offended the Muslims at Berkeley, they wanted to ban my speech.

You know, I’m a liberal," he continued. "My message is: be a liberal. Find out what liberalism means and join up. Liberalism certainly should not mean squelching free speech...I would just say to all liberals: we should own the First Amendment the way the right-wingers own the Second.”    

Inspirational ideas, to be sure. But they are more than that. Like "The Silencing," they remind of a fundamental inclination that is, sadly, often regarded as counterproductive by today's decidedly authoritarian American left.  

I wish I'd written "The Silencing." I'm glad that Kirsten Powers did.

Iowa's DC Larson is a novelist and freelance journalist. His writings have appeared in Counterpunch, USA Today, the Huffington Post, Daily Caller, Independent Political Report, and others. In 2004, he worked as independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader's Iowa Coordinator.