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Panelists
ask if free speech has limits
BY SALLY ACHARYA
Can a person be a patriot and still criticize the president? That
was the question on the table last week when panelists at Kay Spiritual
Life Center debated free speech, and whether it has limits in dangerous
times.
The Table Talk discussion quickly evolved into a lively demonstration
of the topic in action, as some speakers backed the administration,
others criticized it for chilling free speech, and students and
staff chimed in on each side.
The speakers were Chris Simpson, School of Communication; Phil Christenson,
who has worked on the Hill, penned speeches for Congress, and editorialized
in major newspapers; and Steve Rickard, whose leadership posts have
ranged from Amnesty International to the State Department.
The three agreed that open dissent is part of what it means to be
American. “I consider myself an extremely patriotic American,”
Rickard said. “For me it is precisely our right and obligation
to criticize leaders . . . The paradox of flag burning is that it’s
the right to burn the flag that makes the flag worth venerating.”
“Dissent is not only your right, it’s also your duty,”
added Simpson. “Historically speaking, dissent has been important
in opening up rights for Americans.”
Yet there are times, Christenson argued, when a line is crossed.
He cited the recent trip to Baghdad by Reps. Jim McDermott, D-Wash.;
David Bonior, D-Mich.; and Mike Thompson, D-Calif. In a televised
interview from Baghdad on ABC-TV, they questioned the administration’s
motives in threatening war against Iraq.
“When [politicians] go to Baghdad and attack the president
from Baghdad, they are deliberately associating themselves with
Saddam Hussein,” said Christenson, a former Senate Foreign
Relations Committee staffer, noting that politicians are far from
oblivious to the implications of nonverbal communication and go
to great lengths to place themselves in situations where they will
convey a message.
He added, “When Jimmy Carter goes to Cuba and stands with the
dictator attacking U.S. policy to Cuba, he is giving aid and comfort
to Cuba.” Christenson differentiated between speech at a conference
where ideas are being bandied about, and speech that uses the loaded
setting of Cuba “as a launch pad” for verbal attacks on
the administration.
If those who attack the administration from a hostile setting claim
they are being patriotic, they’re mistaken, he insisted. “Obviously
you can love anything you think you love. You can kick your dog
and still insist you love your dog
. . . But there is a necessity to divide actions and feelings.”
Simpson, however, saw this view as dovetailing with a “trust
us or shut up” attitude of the Bush administration towards
free speech. “As I see it, we have an administration in power
exploiting Sept. 11 for its own aims,” he said, citing such
statements as “You’re either with us or against us”
as rhetoric that paints critics as traitors, tars all critical speech
as unpatriotic, and chills debate.
Asked by a student if there would ever be an instance when national
security would override the public’s right to know, he said
that this was “hypothetical”—a characterization with
which the student disagreed.
Another student said she has a problem digesting the characterization
of the current debate on Iraq as little but inflammatory “rhetoric”
when even Bush critics, such as Simpson, admit that Saddam has committed
genocide. “Hitler was a genocidist, and we sat by and watched
him,” she said. “And we’re going to let [Saddam]
kill more people because he’s not that bad of a guy yet?”
Simpson countered, “It’s easy to make the world black
and white . . . Simplistic answers are usually not good ones.”
The panelists disagreed on the timing of the recent vote on Iraq.
Could it be characterized as a positive and freeing use of speech
that enabled politicians to debate openly before the election, so
that people could make informed choices? Or was it in fact a way
of stifling debate among politicians wary of opposing Bush policy
before the upcoming election?
Rickard said the truth was not necessarily a simple one. “I
think Moliere said, ‘Doubt is unpleasant but certainty is absurd.’
Clearly this administration has mixed motives,” such as getting
the economy off the front page, he said. “But if you can’t
hold these two motives in your mind—that they have mixed motives,
and that they think they’re doing the right thing—then
you can’t think intelligently about politics.”
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