Unhelpful

Don’t doubt it for a second.

If we don’t fly to Vegas to spend $3,500, then the terrorists win.
If we don’t buy Britney Spears albums, then the terrorists win.
If we don’t spend money on frivolous luxuries, then the terrorists win.
If we’re forced to care about world events instead of stupid shit like college football, the Grammys, and the relationship of Jennifer Anniston and Brad Pitt, then the terrorists win.

By throwing away our First Amendment rights, however, apparently we win.

Apparently this is what America thinks. That’s what a recent poll by National Public Radio, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government found. Amidst what is otherwise a very predictable result of public opinion was once portion that I really wasn’t prepared for:

23. Should someone who says that terrorism is the fault of how our country behaves in the world be allowed to:

a. Make a speech at a college - 38% “NO”
b. Teach in the public schools - 64% “NO”
c. Work in the government - 63% “NO”

24. Should someone who expresses support for the terrorists be allowed to:

a. Make a speech at a college - 61% “NO”
b. Teach in the public schools - 85% “NO”
c. Work in the government - 90% “NO”

44. Now that the president has declared war on international terrorism, should the government be able to review and censor news stories that (INSERT), or shouldn’t the government be able to review and censor these news stories?

a. Discuss troop deployments or military plans - 71% “SHOULD BE ABLE TO CENSOR”
b. Criticize how the President is conducting military actions - 36% “SHOULD BE ABLE TO CENSOR”
c. Report on anti-war protests - 40% “SHOULD BE ABLE TO CENSOR”
d. Report the names of people arrested for terrorist actions - 55″ “SHOULD BE ABLE TO CENSOR”

While 44 concerns me, 23 and 24 disgust me, particularly 23a, 23b and 24a. At the risk of being called a radical supporter of the First Amendment - a description I wouldn’t shy away from - the idea that it is somehow morally required for people to pass a political litmus test in order to secure employment, teach, or even speak at a school is not even remotely acceptable.

Most of the political class seems to find it particularly vexing that anyone would even worry about “why” terrorism happens. The concept that terrorism happens because of a simple “good and evil” dichotomy is simple, tidy, and wrong. In fact, to say this in public is so unpopular that most people who do feel the need to utter a paragraph of disclaimer about how they “don’t support what the terrorists did” and “find the actions which took place on September 11 completely unacceptable” as if it were automatically assumed that anyone who disagrees with the prevailing conventional wisdom did, in fact, think that acts of terror were justifiable. I’m done with disclaimers.

In the real world, most people who eventually engage in morally abhorrent use of power don’t wake up one day and “decide to be evil”. They don’t consider themselves evil. It is almost always the case, in fact, that such individuals consider themselves to be upstanding moralists in a culture, belief, or cause under siege. This is, in part, what separates the truly dangerous idealogue from the garden-variety psychopath. The idealogue is powerful because he does believe what he espouses and can convince others to follow him. The psychopath, while still dangerous, often lacks the rationality to attain a position of power. Each are deeply disturbed, but the difference is that to stop the typical psychopath, an individual has to be located and restrained. The idealogue is able to get others to act for and with him.

Adolph Hitler. Ghenghis Khan. Joseph Stalin. Vlad the Impaler. Attila the Hun. Pol Pot. Mao Zedong. Jim Jones. Idi Amin. Fran Drecsher. History is stuffed with countless examples of people who did vile, evil acts to others. These ten examples aren’t meant to comprise a top ten list, they merely came to mind the quickest. With the possible exception of Fran, none of these people decided to be evil. To my knowledge, they all championed a terrible cause that they firmly believed in. Almost all of them are reviled worldwide with predictable exceptions - Vlad is an erstwhile despot and fiend whose atrocities are so buried in medieval history and modern myth as to make him something of a local hero in Transylvanian Romania, which is harmless enough - Chairman Mao is still revered and loved by much of the Party faithful, which is much less charming and far more relevant to our lives.

All of the causes and beliefs they championed, and their motivations are utterly legal to discuss… in the United States. While France and Germany pass laws to restrict unpopular speech and thought about Hitler, they also restrict public discourse in a rather unfortunate way. Various other threads of discourse are prohibited in those and other European countries. With the aforementioned reverence, Mao is stridently defended and championed in the official mouthpieces of the Chinese governmnent, and speaking one’s mind about him in China is entirely acceptable if you agree with Beijing’s version of history.

The United States prides itself on the ability to withstand unpopular speech; it’s been enshrined into that most important of our society’s documents, the Bill of Rights.

At least, it did until, in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in September, 2001, it decided that freedom of speech was just fine for Americans, providing they agree with received wisdom out of Administration mouthpieces.

We seem to have forgotten - along with France and Germany and their paranoia about Hitler paraphernalia for sale on Yahoo and Holocaust deniers blathering revisionist fantasy - that the best response to uncomfortable thought evinced by dangerous speech is more free speech. I have to believe this moment of national delusion is temporary, as the alternative is just too tragic to contemplate seriously; the American people can’t honestly look forward to a state whose main domestic agenda is thought control, can it? If they do, I sincerely suggest a free-speech-exploration vacation to Singapore, China, or Iran to get a feel for the product of this repression before we commit to buying it. The price of repressing free expression is far too high to skip a test drive.

Whether the idea that our country bears responsibility for some of the ill-will we receive is true or not is beside the point. What’s worse for us, it’s a very valid point, and no amount of switching CNN to MTV can change that. As terrorists aren’t motivated by some cartoon version of “evil” even when their actions are inherently evil, our country behaves in an unjustifiable manner in many places in the world, and as it’s happened under a variety of political administrations, it’s not the sole province of a particular party or political ideology. Just as throughly despicable men capable of heinous crimes are responsible for their actions, less despicable men are responsible for their actions, too.

In the real world, the bad guy doesn’t always wear a goofy black cowboy hat, and the good guy’s ends don’t justify the means. Life isn’t that simple. Ethical foreign policy isn’t that simple, and it scares me that most Americans would approve of my being prevented to express this notion in an establishment of higher education as well as approve of my being blacklisted from seeking to return to public sector employment…

…because if we toss out the First Amendment in order to bolster up a fantasy view of world affairs and our place in them, then the terrorists w

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