NOTE THIS INTERESTING PARALLEL, IN A NEW YORKER PIECE ON FREE SPEECH: “Speech nuts, like gun nuts, have amassed plenty of arguments, but they—we—are driven, too, by a shared sensibility that can seem irrational by European standards.”

For the New Yorker’s target audience, the equivalence of free speech advocates to “gun nuts” is clear signal of where they’re supposed to fall on the argument. But all I can say is that if the “speech nuts” do as well as the “gun nuts” have done over the past couple of decades, we’ll be in pretty good shape. And the lesson from the “gun nuts” is: Don’t compromise, don’t admit that there’s such a thing as a “reasonable restriction,” don’t back down, and keep pointing out that your opponents are liars and hypocrites. And punish the hell out of politicians who vote with the other side.