And who should draw those lines? Perhaps that is the central question. Do we draw them for ourselves based upon our own sense of morality and ethics or shall they be drawn for us by outside forces? In the former case we are men, perhaps deeply flawed, but men. In the latter case we are but mice bred for the experiments of our masters.
I think we draw should them ourselves in 99.999% of the cases. The flip side of this should be the freedom of others to establish their own sites. In a perfect world both Pamela Geller and the RevolutionMuslim site should be allowed to continue until either one of them goes broke or is judged according to the justice system as having crossed the overall line. Now maybe Paypal is worried about liability. If so, it underscores the larger problem of “lawfare”. Taken beyond a certain point it has a chilling effect on debate. Mark Steyn got hauled before a “human rights” tribunal in Canada. Savage got banned for traveling to the UK. Hirsi Ali is persona non grata with a large section of polite society. Lawfare is everywhere. It is the new ‘McCarthyism’ of the age.
The reality is that the political opposition is going to go after you with everything at their disposal and more besides. That’s just a fact. Look at O’Keefe. He hit Acorn and eventually someone got back at him. The culture wars are dangerous in their own way and you can get hit with vilification, financial loss or a jail term. In certain cases it can go further. The real rite of passage in politics and political action is when you figure out you are playing with real money; for keeps. You can lose a real amount of personal freedom; you can lose a real limb. What all stable democracies do is keep the stakes from being raised to revolution-like levels. That way we can all be friends against after the ballots are counted. One of the real danger signals is when the cap on the consequences to speech is removed. When people get too greedy, ambitious or afraid then the stops are removed. Then the hurts are no longer forgettable and people start keeping score. And if one thing creates instability it is the existence of scores which can’t be erased by an election.
Ironically a real ‘revolutionary’ in the sense of the Founding Fathers understands that part of the change process is not only to destroy but also to limit destruction. That is a peculiar conservative curse to which is the Left is not bound. If anything worries me about the Left it is that they don’t have that instinct to preserve nor feel an obligation to do it. History demonstrates this time and again. They keep raising the stakes, often on their own hook. And that’s destabilizing in itself. The challenge is not only to defeat the Left to manage their incidental destructiveness. You’ll have to catch the plates they drop while you hustle them off the stage.
Can it be done? Who knows. But eventually the sun rises in the morning and things work out, though everything may look a little and unnecessarily the worse for wear.
