Free Speech

Every once in a while, I visitor to this blog throws a tantrum and says, “You banned me from the blog! You deleted my comment! You don’t respect my free speech rights!”

Such people are idiots.

Free speech protections exist to prevent the government from persecuting you for your speech acts. They DO NOT, however, promise to force people to hear your speech. If people refuse to hear you out, that’s their right. Nobody is guaranteed an audience. Nobody should be forced to listen.

Free speech protections do not guarantee anybody a busload of willing listeners. If you decide not to read my blog, I will not have the recourse to chase you around and whine about how you infringe on my free speech by choosing not to listen to it.

This is why mentioning free speech in the context of protests at Yale and Mizzou is idiotic. Students are not a governmental agency. They are not vested with the power to guarantee anybody’s free speech rights. In their capacity of private citizens, they are not obligated to listen to anybody they don’t want to. If students don’t want to hear what the Master of their college or his wife have to say to them, then they are absolutely entitled not to listen. Just like you are entitled not to finish reading my post. And just like I’m entitled not to read your comment if you choose to leave it.

I believe that students at Yale are acting like obnoxious little brats. It’s my right to think that. And it’s their right to keep being bratty. When students ban speakers from their campus or shout down an administrator, that’s idiotic, ridiculous behavior that makes me cringe. It is not, however, an assault on free speech simply because there is a bizillion and one other venues where this speaker or administrator can express everything that this particular audience refused to hear.