Tucker Carlson’s free speech isn’t a blank check for hate speech

Let me tell you a story about two generations of my family. First there’s my grandmother, Aurora get escansa and pas. May she rest in peace. She used to have this cute saying that you blurred out in her broken English, when I did something I wasn’t supposed to do, or made a mistake or maybe misbehaved, she’d point her finger at me and say in a stern voice, you don’t do that one. That was it. That was the law. It was pretty cut and dried, and there was no need for further elaboration, and certainly no process by which to appeal. Then there are my teenage kids, ages 1517, and 19. I’m trying to teach them to think critically and boldly challenge whatever the set Orthodoxy is. I don’t want to raise conformists or cowards. I want them to have strong opinions, but just as importantly, I want them to think through those opinions so they don’t just simply express what they believe. That’s easy. Anybody can do that. I want them to be able to explain why they believe what they believe. Nothing is off limits. Well, almost nothing. And here’s where the story gets interesting, and where my advice to my kids gets a little confusing. I admit, yes, I want my kids to think critically and not be afraid to push back against conventional wisdom, but they have to do all this within certain limits. There have to be bright lines and guardrails. There are still going to be things they should not say or do thinking in daring and creative ways doesn’t give you a ticket to jump on the next train to crazy town. Sure, it’s a free country where people have the right to free speech and free expression. That doesn’t mean it’s a free for all with rights come responsibilities, and chief among them is the responsibility to express your views at the right time and place and under the right circumstances with the utmost respect for the rights of others, not to feel harassed, intimidated or threatened, and when you color outside the lines, you can expect repercussions and to be held accountable. I hope my kids get that they should. They play tennis. You have to be able to hit the ball hard enough to get over the net, but you also have to make sure that whatever you serve up stays between the lines. After all, there’s good speech and bad speech. A guy dressed up like Benjamin Franklin standing on a wooden soap box in town square giving a speech about the illegitimacy of a poll tax. Fine. More power to you, pal a mob of masked young people blocking a pathway on a university campus, preventing Jewish students from attending class. No, not fine, not cool. In fact, that’s evil. And you know what else is evil? Racist, Nativists, sexist, anti Semites, the garbage that all those people spew we don’t need, were full apparently, Tucker Carlson never learned these lessons. You see, the Conservative commentator who was fired by Fox News in 2023 now hosts the very popular Tucker Carlson show on the social media site X Carlson got into hot water recently, when he welcomed onto his show a podcaster and Holocaust revisionist named Daryl Cooper, who the host dubbed the nation’s quote, most important popular historian during the interview, which has been viewed more than 30 million times, Cooper described British Prime Minister Winston Churchill as the quote, Chief villain of World War Two. He seemed to suggest that Adolf Hitler acted in self defense in fighting off aggressive nations like Great Britain. Cooper also claimed that the 6 million Jews who, quote, ended up dead at the hand of the Nazis, perished due to poor planning about how to care for the interned, and certainly not as part of any sort of genocide. Carlson deserves all the criticism he is catching and more this time, the commentator colored way outside the lines. Or, as my grandmother would say, you don’t do that one.