College students protesting conservative campus speakers. The media arguing that all Hunter Biden critics are biased. Government officials promoting COVID-19 misinformation. These are just some of the examples many conservatives believe illustrate how “woke” liberals are promoting misinformation and threatening free speech in America.
Straight Arrow News contributor Timothy Carney explains why some of what liberals call “dangerous misinformation” today can prove to be the truth tomorrow.
You can’t have a debate with someone unless you share at least some values. I can’t convince you that turnstile hopping is wrong if you don’t think theft is wrong.
This is a problem in our current debates over free speech. When politicians say the government needs to crack down on misinformation or hate speech — and when colleges or other large institutions impose speech codes — you can’t appeal to them on the grounds of free speech, because they evidently don’t believe in free speech.
Yes, the Constitution bars Congress from infringing on free speech, but the Constitution isn’t very popular these days either. It’s just an old-fashioned document, we were told, forged by racist and sexist white men more than 200 years ago. So appealing to the principle of free speech, or appealing to the Constitution, doesn’t fly with the speech police.
How then can we convince them that censorship is a mistake? Maybe we can teach them a little bit of humility, and thus give them a practical reason not to silence misinformation. Specifically, some of what they call dangerous misinformation today will prove to be the truth tomorrow. How do I know? It’s already happened a bunch of times since the Left got on this misinformation kick a few years ago.
