Ever hear the joke about the guy who couldn't afford a personalized license
plate for his car so he changed his name to XJR-321?
Weirdly, I kept thinking of that joke this week as the entire brainiac world
debated the half-pint whack-job Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's
appearance at Columbia University. Defenders of A'Jad's address insisted
that "such core American principles as academic freedom and freedom of
speech" were being shown "disrespect" by critics, in the words of a Los
Angeles Times editorial.
But here's the thing, whether you favored or opposed the teeny dictator's
lecture: Free speech had nothing to do with it.
You have to stay on your toes, like Ahmadinejad at a urinal, to grasp this
point since it's so often confused in our public discourse: Free-speech
rights aren't violated when private institutions deny speech in their name.
My free-speech rights have not been denied by the fact that for years the
Democratic National Committee has refused to invite me to speak at its
confabs. Nor would it be censorship if this newspaper dropped my column.
Freedom of speech also includes the right not to say something.
In other words, had Columbia denied Ahmadinejad a platform, it would have
been exercising freedom of speech just as much as it was when it invited him
to give his prison-house philosopher spiel.
Which is why I kept thinking of poor Mr. XJR-321. Both the left and, on
occasion, the right are guilty of simply changing the name of the problem
rather than tackling it head-on. Not every controversial decision or
statement is a free-speech issue simply because you get flak for it.
Remember, shortly after 9/11, when then-Georgia Rep. Cynthia McKinney tried
to sweet-talk blood money out of a Saudi Prince who wanted to blame the
attacks on America's Israel policy? When criticized, she immediately claimed
that such criticism amounted to an attack on her "right to speak." Well,
criticism of speech is still, you know, speech.
Admittedly, McKinney's not sharp enough to slice warm Jell-O, but she's
hardly alone in employing this tactic.
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