Following their inherent authoritarian instincts, statists are blaming the organizers of that free speech event in Texas for having incited the armed attack on the event by a pair of adherents to the "religion of peace."
Their views are in line with those of the University of California chancellor who said he stood four square behind free speech so long as its exercise didn't disturb or offend anyone.
Terrific. Never mind that speech that doesn't disturb or offend anyone does not require any defense.
The fact is that a free society constantly requires disturbing and offensive speech. A right . . . any right . . . that is not exercised atrophies and dies. And that is a result that authoritarian statists would welcome. It is easier to control a silent population, than a raucous and outspoken one.
The Texas event provided the kind of exercise that maintenance of freedom of speech requires . . . and it had the added benefit of having resulted in the deaths of two Jihadists.
It's a sad commentary on the state of our supposedly free press that its leading components often engaged in self censorship as they did when they were too afraid of inciting Mad Muslim attacks such as the one in Texas to republish Danish and French satirical materials that led to Jihadist attacks there.
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