Free Speech, Political Identity, and the Post-Coulter Debate (UPDATED and UPDATED AGAIN. And AGAIN!)
I received an email this morning that I think is worth sharing inasmuch as it—when coupled with my reply—crystallizes certain of my positions on speech and identity politics. Under the subject line “Ann Coulter,” “esmyth” writes:
Ah, the irony!
When I was a little girl and anti-war liberals and hippies were tearing up the country with their explitive-laced vitriol, conservatives were the ones who stood for decent, respectful speech.
Now I’m a big, grown-up lady and it is the liberals who call for decent, respectful speech. Why? Because it is the *conservative* media, the *conservative* readership and the *conservative* politicos that have made Ann Coulter the movement’s mouthpiece (and a millionaire, let’s not forget!)
Ann Coulter may not speak for you personally, but she doesn’t care. And as long as she continues to rake it in, it’s not unfair to assume she speaks for *somebody.* A lot of somebodies. Who are they, then, if not the collective “you”? It’s not like CPAC didn’t know what she was like when they put her at the top of the bill last week.
And you know what? The shoe is on the other foot now. Now it is liberal America that can, with the ‘08 election just around the corner, say (quietly at first, and just to each other) “they must be insane - why are they just handing us the country like this?”
Well, I won’t worry too long about that. I’ll just laugh all the way to the voting booth!
I fear you not.
My reply:
Uh, I’m glad you don’t fear me, really I am.
But I didn’t attend CPAC—and many of those who did have already condemned Coulter’s joke. Others (like me) noted that we would, had we been asked, admit that we didn’t think the remarks particularly funny (having now seen the video-clip, I don’t believe it was intended as homophobic; Coulter claims, as I ventured in my original post, that she was using the word colloquially, and she specifically, in the same speech, lays claim to a pro-gay position, so I’m now inclined to defend her on principle)—but saying so when asked personally is quite a bit different than having a political opponent demand you distance yourself from something you didn’t say. Because to do so is to admit tacitly that your “side” is represented by anyone willing to claim its mantle—and as I don’t think there is a homogeneity to “conservative” speech (or to “conservatives” as a group, today so broadly defined as to be politically meaningless), I refuse to accept the tacit premise, which, as I argued in my original post, dignifies certain ideas about identity politics that progressives wish to see insinuate themselves structurally into the various modes of discourse.
Once that happens, the battle for individualism is, in my opinion, all but lost.
I do, however, find it telling that you view the policing of speech as a kind of game between competing political sides—and that it’s your side’s “turn” to make the rules. Far be it for me to offer advice to someone who believes herself to be so personally vindicated by the outcome of certain elections, but perhaps you need to step outside of your political identity for a few moments and look at things from the perspective of whether or not speech should, in fact, be policed based on how “respectful” it is—particularly when, as you all but concede in your petty tirade here, those in power get to decide what is, in fact, “respectful.”
For my part, I have never called for any such thing (does that mean I’m not really “conservative”?)—and when I was a little boy, and “hippies were tearing up the country with their explitive-laced vitriol,” I was on their side—if not politically, at least Constitutionally. It is only when the hippies grew up and, having mainstreamed their power, began instituting “free speech zones” and “hate speech” codes and insisting on a “tolerance” that has robbed useful discourse of its necessary saltiness and variance, that they lost me.
You, on the other hand, presume to decide what is respectful based on a combination of politics and schadenfreude—and what’s worse, you don’t even seem to believe that you’re doing so for any other reason than that you now can.
So I DO fear people like you…
One thing never really talked about is this assumption on the part of many “progressives” that those of us who are now identified as “conservative” would, in generations past, have been identified in that same way...
