Words. Actions. Freedom.

It was great entertainment, as Trump's addresses always are. But it also contained an important truth.

Hillary Clinton, his presidential opponent, challenged him in debate on his private "Grab 'em by the pussy" remark. After enumerating her husband Bill's decades-long history of physical predations, Trump specified the pivotal distinction:

Mine was words. His were actions.

But that they substantially differ is being blurred:

Today’s white supremacist and neo-Nazi social media trolls have much in common with the angry mobs that beat civil rights activists at lunch counters, defaced houses of worship and stood in the schoolhouse door, wrote Kristin Clarke of the National Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and David Brody of the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, in The Hill.

Of course, they do not. Words. Actions.

Clarke and Brody's essential argument is that those two are as one, and that governmental censorship of citizens' online speech is needed to ensure public safety.  

They specify "white supremacist and neo-Nazi media trolls." But everyone following political news knows those categories have been bent to cartoonish proportions to accommodate any speaker or organization the Resistance and its allies deem impediments to the
goal of fundamental societal transformation.

Consider: The Southern Poverty Law Center lumps Ben Carson and mainstream conservative and Christian groups in with the KKK and skinhead gangs. The American Civil Liberties Union has officially changed from neutral defender of Constitutional rights to a rigged proposition that tailors its courtroom animations to partisan patterns.

Clarke and Brody note that "hateful actions" can chill speech. And that's a legitimate concern, specifically involving "actions." 

But phrases are not physical implements of destruction.  And the writers seem oblivious to the irony of their claiming worry for speech while heartily endorsing clampdown governmental censorship.

If you don't care for someone's message, don't read their posts, attend their events, or buy their books. But those who would prevent others' free expression infringe on not only that speaker's First Amendment right, but also those of persons desiring to hear the message. 

To stifle voices is to shut down ideas. 

It's an old story, power seeking to silence speakers who are considered threatening or contrary to preferred values. The fight can be protracted and costly.

But it is worth the battle, as freedom always is.