Where My Nose Begins
America has a long, proud tradition of free political expression. As a society, we have the strongest support for freedom of expression, and nearly no legal restrictions on the content of political speech. However, there is a hard limit on the manner in which we express ourselves. We do not believe that violence is an acceptable form of political expression, because it undercuts freedom of expression more broadly. If stating ideas can make one a legitimate target for harm, particularly physical harm, then those ideas are not free in practice. Whatever they may be, those ideas have been excluded from our discourse, and we have thus put those ideas beyond public debate. When that happens, we can no longer claim that our speech is free.
The merits of free speech itself can be set aside for a later time. For now, suffice it to say that our desire for open, civil discourse is built into the very structure of our government. It is so important that when ratifying our Constitution, many had their doubts that it went far enough in protecting our fundamental liberties. This led to the creation of our Bill of Rights, the first item of which states:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
But our commitment to peaceful discourse goes beyond just our First Amendment protections. It is worth remarking that despite being the most powerful military force on the planet, the American military has remarkably little influence on our politics. Yes, veterans groups and representatives often rally around a need to support our troops, but advocacy by active soldiers is conspicuously absent. Their participation, beyond their role as a private, voting citizen, is limited: Servicemen are explicitly forbidden from partisan activities. As General MacArthur once reminded his comrades: “Let civilian voices argue the merits or demerits of our processes of government…these great national problems are not for your professional participation or military solution.” The segregation of our military, the world’s most potent tool for violence, from direct political participation reflects the deeper American commitment to free speech without the threat of retaliation.
There is a method to our political process. First, you petition. You write to your Congressmen, your state representatives, your governor or mayor. You tell them what you need from them as a member of their constituency, so they can represent your interests, be it on the local, state, or national level. If that fails, then you vote. If your representatives fail to represent you, vote for an alternative, whether it be in the party primary or in the final election. Finally, if even that fails, you protest, peacefully. No matter what your grievance, this is the process which we adhere to, because that is the only way our political system can be allowed to operate effectively. Anyone who abandons these steps has not allowed our politic process to function, and cannot then claim that they must go beyond what is provided in the law. As Americans, we are not ruled by any man or men, but by the laws we agree upon through our democratic process. This is what it means to be a government of laws, and not of men. Only when these methods are exhausted or unavailable are we morally allowed to break the law, but even then, we can only do so without bring violence upon others. These days, we rightly honor Martin Luther King, Jr., as one of the finest Americans of his or any generation for his moral clarity. But the greatness of King lies not only in his opposition to Jim Crow, and the enfranchisement of black Americans, but in his methods. Having exhausted the other methods available — petitions ignored, the vote denied — King turned to the last tool of our political process: Protest. Specifically, civil disobedience: breaking the law, and accepting the consequences, to demonstrate how fundamentally unjust those laws were. I want to turn now to the most pressing current event: The Unite the Right march in Charlottesville, where a car attack killed a member of the counterprotest.
There is no equivalency in the message given out by the marchers and counter-marchers. Many of the groups who attended the Unite the Right march have regularly espoused racist and anti-Semitic views. The march itself rallied to preserve a statue of Robert E. Lee, best known as a general of the Confederacy and therefore, a defender of slavery. The marchers invoked some of the most prominent symbols of bigoted terror in the last century, from Nazi swastika and the neo-Nazi Black Sun, to lit torches and the Confederate flag. Slavery is this country’s founding sin, and there is a special obligation within our society to object to it and its legacy. However constitutionally protected it may be, the exclusionary, racial message of white nationalists and neo-Nazis is especially odious and worthy of condemnation.
This is the fundamental distinction that is missing in Trump’s response, and why he deserved the criticism he received over the last few days. Even if there had been no violence on either side, there should have been a rejection of the white nationalism the march promoted. When it comes to the duty of a president when faced with this sort of crisis, there is only one right answer. Trump failed to provide it, or any other form of moral leadership, in the aftermath of Charlottesville.
But increasingly worrisome is the increased use of violence by protesters from the political left. Again, there is no equivalency here: Only one side ran a car into a group of protesters, resulting in the only death caused by protesters directly. But Trump is right to point out that there is violence on both sides. Consider some other photographs of the protests:
Not shown here are the multiple accounts by witnesses of the slinging of feces and the spraying of mace, pepper spray, urine, and rat poison. By all indications, there are lawless elements among the counter-protesters as well, and their actions clearly crossed the line. Seeing the alt-right show up in riot gear may have been disturbing, but they clearly knew what they would be encountering. However hateful and distasteful the march itself was, freedom of speech is protected for everyone in the United States, and had the alt-right done so peacefully, the march should only have clarified the iniquity that our country continues to struggle against.
Seeing these photos of counter-protestors, I immediately recalled the fire set on Sproul Plaza at Berkeley last February, when Milo Yiannopoulos was scheduled to speak there. As repulsive as Yiannopoulos’s views may be, my main takeaway from that incident was not that Yiannopoulos was obnoxious — that much was clear long ago — but that the self-proclaimed Antifascists, or “Antifa”, are no friends of mine, and have little respect for American principles. They attacked my community, and sullied the reputation of the many student protesters who protested peacefully while also putting them in harm’s way. This is not the discourse America aspires to, and there is no justification for it so long as we remain a society above the rule of the mob. This brings me to another piece of wisdom, this time from across the pond, courtesy of Bertrand Russell:
If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you are subconsciously aware of having no good reason for thinking as you do. If some one maintains that two and two are five, or that Iceland is on the equator, you feel pity rather than anger, unless you know so little of arithmetic or geography that his opinion shakes your own contrary conviction.
However wrong white nationalists are — however inimical their beliefs are to American society — meeting them with violence demonstrates not the strength of one’s convictions, but the depths of one’s insecurity or one’s folly. To respond to political speech with violence is fundamentally incompatible with the American principle of freedom of speech. The society that shelters its most forward thinkers must also shield its most backwards ones. Judging which is which is not always as clear as it was at Charlottesville.
Originally published at ourselfevidenttruths.blogspot.com.

