Scott Shackford at Reason noticed it first, the sudden appearance of myriad op-eds arguing against free speech “absolutism.”

This week, The Washington Post joins several other large media outlets in giving commentary space to an academic who thinks the First Amendment maybe shouldn’t protect so much free speech.

I’ll give Jennifer Delton—Skidmore College’s “Douglas Family Chair in American culture, history, and literary and interdisciplinary studies”—this much: She’s not disguising her calls for censorship of conservative opinion by claiming this will achieve some sort of racial enlightenment or equality. She openly describes this censorship as a tool for stopping the spread of political arguments she sees as dangerous.

The title given to Delton’s polemic reflects not just a peculiar take, but a very bold attempt at using the big-lie theory to make her case.

When ‘free speech’ becomes a political weapon

Well, yeah. That is the highest use of free speech, to serve as a political weapon. It’s one thing to rail against “cheap speech,” name-calling and vulgar epithets, threats and lies. But that’s not Delton’s concern.

Here’s the dilemma college presidents face in the fall: Either uphold free speech on campus and risk violent counterprotests, or ban conservative provocateurs and confirm the “freedom of speech” crisis on campuses. Either way their institution’s legitimacy is undermined.

Putting aside the loaded words, which are only loaded to a nonbeliever and are totally proper characterizations to the unduly woke, the first thing one notes is that she offers a false binary choice. Nowhere does she mention the option of allowing free speech and defending it from the violent. It’s worthy of note that calling the violent side “counterprotesters” when there is no protest they’re countering is a bit over the top. But then, when one’s argument is divorced from reality, any words will do.

At the New Republic, Sarah Jones tries to play honest broker of the left, reaching the conclusion that “absolutists” need to be more like the ACLU and rethink their devotion to the First Amedment.

Still, it’s undeniable that the group’s new policy is a softening of what has been held up as a timeless, impartial principle of American democracy. It seems like a radical gesture for radical times, an admission that Charlottesville had pit competing claims to free expression against each other. The ACLU’s compromise balances its historical absolutism with pragmatism. But it also raises a question: Is it ever possible to define, and then fairly restrict, dangerous speech?

To someone versed in rhetoric, Jones begs the question. And because she wants to pose as an unbiased voice, she sets up the strawmen carefully.

Caroline Mala Corbin, who teaches at the University of Miami School of Law and has worked for the ACLU, explained, “The most persuasive free speech justification for this protection is not that white supremacists have anything worth saying. They don’t. Rather, it is that we do not trust the government to make decisions about who should be allowed speak and who should not.”

The ball is teed up. And Jones takes her swing:

But the ACLU’s recent policy change also responds to fears that the absolutist position chills the free speech of others. In The New York Times last week, K-Sue Park echoed the criticism expressed by the ACLU’s California affiliates. “The danger that communities face because of their speech isn’t equal. The ACLU’s decision to offer legal support to a right-wing cause, then a left-wing cause, won’t make it so,” Park argued. “Rather, it perpetuates a misguided theory that all radical views are equal. And it fuels right-wing free-speech hypocrisy. Perhaps most painful, it also redistributes some of the substantial funds the organization has received to fight white supremacy toward defending that cause.”

Views aren’t “equal.” The dangers faced by “communities” from speech aren’t equal. The answer is some views are good and some are evil, and the evil ones are evil. So there you go. Question answered.

But that still leaves the mechanism to purge society of undesired speech outstanding. While Wired sets up a committee of “experts” to run the Ministry of Truthful Algorithms, Delton goes old school.

Liberals had historically supported freedom of speech and assembly; they saw themselves as champions of the First Amendment. To deny communists freedom of speech and assembly — to run them out of politics on the basis of their ideas and political connections — seemed like the height of hypocrisy. Communists constantly pointed this out, as did those liberals who rejected the anticommunist agenda.

So anticommunist liberals made a series of arguments that justified denying communists these rights on account of their disingenuous intentions and totalitarian ideology.

Liberals would be chumps to let a principled commitment to “freedom of speech” undercut the pragmatic goal of political survival, which was the only way to ensure progress in civil rights and social welfare.

Nobody wants to be a “chump,” right? So the commie threat had to be stopped.

Subsequent liberals (and most of my professors) condemned these anticommunist liberals for opening the door to McCarthyism and Cold War militarism. But given our current political moment and the threat posed by the actions of alt-right provocateurs, Schlesinger’s and Hook’s arguments may bear revisiting.

Both worried that liberals’ commitment to the absoluteness of rights made them unable to confront an enemy that didn’t share that commitment. Both understood that the CPUSA, like the alt-right, was engaged in a struggle to destroy the cultural and political legitimacy of western democratic liberalism. And both understood that First Amendment absolutism was a luxury that only a stable, peaceable society could afford. I can’t help but think that even William F. Buckley would have agreed with this.

It’s back. It won’t be at the hand of Joseph McCarthy, or named the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, but there will likely be blacklists of evil thinkers even if written in crayon by academics rather than on typewriters by Roy Cohen.

While Delton “can’t help but think” Bill Buckley would go along with this, that reflects more on Delton’s insanity than Buckley’s pragmatic politics. The flip side of pragmatism is that irrational beliefs don’t form a foundation for fallacious conclusions. But now that there are plenty of spots for new statues, and they can’t all be of Frederick Douglass, don’t be surprised when you see this face staring back at you in a public park in Portlandia.

I’m baa-aaack.