Newt Plays the Outrage Card

Newt in New Hampshire. Last night in Manchester, New Hampshire, Newt Gingrich proclaimed that the U. S. "will be forced to reexamine freedom of speech to meet the threat of terrorism." Newt's immediate reference was to changing "the rules" so that terrorist groups couldn't get their message out through the internet. But Gingrich is a complex guy and he was talking on many levels. As a result, we need to exercise care in parsing out what Newt meant.

Playing the Outrage Card. Frankly, I think Newt challenged the freedom of speech to incite liberal "outrage" as a way to keep his name in the media. In other words, he was playing people on the left for suckers as a way to promote his long-shot presidential candidacy. On right-wing radio, figures like Rush Limbaugh and their callers get special pleasure out of outraging liberals. It's a form of psychological power that they see themselves as having over the left. One liberal who's already taken the bait is Bob Cesca who couldn't resist the temptation to proclaim that he would be willing to die (and by implication, see whole cities go under) in defense of free speech.

So, let's resist the urge to be outraged.

Nibbling around the issue. Instead, what Gingrich said should be examined in the context of right-wing political discourse. People on the right have been talking about the constitution not being a suicide pact and you can't have civil liberties if you're dead for some time now. Conservative figures ranging from Bill O'Reilly to President Bush have been trying to establish a distinction between "responsible" dissent and "irresponsible" accusations that the administration engaged in systematic lying in order to promote the Iraq invasion (which they of course did). There's the everyday treason accusations made by Ann Coulter and all her bombthrowing imitators. Although the right has yet to launch a full assault on freedom of speech, they've certainly done a lot of nibbling around the issue, looking for a pretext to promote their own schemes for limiting free speech while complaining about the limits that McCain-Feingold puts on their ability to extort money from corporations.

Who's the target? Gingrich talked about curtailing the ability of terrorists to use the internet as if we already did not have laws against criminal conspiracy and recruiting for terrorism that apply to the internet. But, of course, the target is the left. What worries Newt much more than terrorism is the rise of a left-wing blogosphere that has been much more determined and effective than the Democratic leadership and the mainstream media in opposing the Iraq war, the Bush administration, and the right-wing in general. By the eve of the invasion in April 2003, the Bush administration had thoroughly cowed the Democrats and the mainstream media, but the internet turned out to be a powerful mechanism both for rallying anti-war sentiment and challenging the Democrats and the regular media to be more critical. Conservatives have always viewed the development of an anti-war politics as a treasonable exercise in giving aid and comfort to the terrorists. With Republican defeats in the 2006 election, it looks like the current anti-war movement is an intolerable threat to the war effort. As a result, Newt is taking his probe of free speech up another notch. If the Republicans lose another election in 2008, Newt will probably wonder if elections are really that necessary.

The Benefits of Free Speech. In the case of the Iraq War, the exercise of free speech rights has not only been a manifestation of the natural freedom at the core of human existence, it has also been extremely good for the nation. Outside the initial invasion, the Bush administration has bungled the war in Iraq so badly that Baghdad and other cities have become hells on earth. Because the liberal blogosphere and a few Republicans like John McCain and Chuck Hagel had the free speech rights to pount away at the Bush administrations failures from an early point in the occupation, the whole country has a context for understanding the current disaster and an intellectual basis for debating future policy. If dissenters had not had free speech rights, the Republicans would have occupied Iraq for ten or twenty years, wasting lives, money, and military assets, and getting nowhere.

Conclusion. I'm far from being outraged by the right-wing's little campaign against free speech. However, the right is just as wrong about free speech as it was wrong on Iraq, the Civil Rights Movement, women's rights, gay marriage, social security, McCarthyism, the New Deal, government regulation of business, and abolitionism. There are few things more reliable than the wrong-headedness of the right.