By Charles C. W. Cooke
Monday, January 23, 2017
The New York Times
asks:
Is it O.K. to punch a Nazi?
That is not a brainteaser or a
hypothetical question posed by a magazine on Twitter. It is an actual question
bouncing around the internet after an attack on a well-known far-right
activist, Richard B. Spencer, in Washington after the inauguration of Donald J.
Trump as president on Friday.
I must confess to being surprised that we’re debating
this as earnestly as we are, and to being even more alarmed at how many
self-described “liberals” are among those answering “yes.” Of course it’s not acceptable to punch
non-violent actors in the face. This isn’t a matter of degree. It’s not a
question of timing. It’s a matter of foundational Enlightenment principle.
It is uncontroversial to note that violence can be an
acceptable response to violence. It is widely accepted, too, that if violence
is imminent or guaranteed, some preemptive action can be warranted. But
violence can never be an acceptable
response to passive ideology. That goes for Richard Spencer as much as for
anyone. As far as I can see, the most common “argument” in favor of punching
Nazis rests upon some pretty brazen special pleading: To wit, that Nazism is
“different” because a) it exists outside our accepted cultural tramlines and b)
it has a shocking history when put into practice. But that’s always the argument for the violation of
norms, which is precisely why we have those norms in the first instance. To
prevent the government from deciding who is permitted to speak and who is
“different,” we enjoy the First Amendment. To prevent private citizens from
making the same determination, we have laws against assault and battery. In
neither provision is there a lacuna-creating asterisk: “* Unless you really dislike them.”
“Different,” by definition is invariably in the eye of
the beholder. Do I personally think that Richard Spencer’s views are illiberal
and toxic? Yes, I do. Do I think that the ideology he espouses is inimical to
the order that I cherish? Yes, I do. Does that give me the right to punch him
in the face? No, it damn well does not. You don’t fight for liberalism by
abandoning liberalism, and you can’t burnish your “anti-fascist” credentials by
appropriating that which you hate. Richard Spencer is an American citizen. He’s
as entitled to be as wrong and as destructive and as ugly and as doltish as is
anybody else with that privilege.
This is not mere philosophy; it’s practically important, too. Why? Well, because those who would
carve out an exception for Spencer and his ilk are, whether they know it or
not, opening the door to a suicidal debate as to which ideologies can be deemed
sufficiently threatening to lose civilizational protection. I will grant
happily that Nazism is incompatible with American liberty. But there are a good
many other doctrines that share that honor, among them communism and radical
Islam. Does this mean I can punch Angela Davis in the face, or that my doing so
would be fine? Should I have been given a free pass and a shrug of the
shoulders if I’d clocked Eric Hobsbawm? And how much latitude should we give to
individuals to draw up their own lists of Acceptable Punchees? I happen to
believe that the half
of Democrats who want to ban “hate speech” are enemies of liberty. Can I
assault them?
A great test of any free country is how it treats its
dissenters. The man who agrees with the majority is in no more need of protection
than the man who parrots the talking points of the cultural and political
establishment. But the heretic — the
man who for better (Martin Luther King) or for worse (Richard Spencer) declines
to endorse the tenets of the status quo? That’s the guy who you need to watch.
Within the bounds of liberty he may be reviled or championed, ignored or
followed, and shunned or emulated. But he should never, ever be punched in the
face for his opinion.
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