Ann Althouse writes a blog that has featured a running war on the call for civility in the public discourse. When Sarah Palin used the term "blood libel" and got some immediate heat, Ms. Althouse shot back in defense - not so much of Mr. Palin as Althouse is a crafty woman who enjoys a very rabid right wing following - but as the call to civility being a danger to free speech....well as best as I can tell as I don't find her very clear on the subject and frankly her writing is "lawyerly" which is English for purposefully vague.
I don't think there are limits to free speech other than the "fire in the crowded theater" routine. None. You should be able to say what ever pops into your noggin. The only limits to free speech should be your own and hopefully we have a society that teaches enough common sense and manners so as not to have to demonstrate what is out of place or just offensive to the situation.
What Althouse doesn't like is when someone takes offense and/or attributes things - rightly or wrongly - to what someone else says; or in particular what she says. The case in point is many felt that the shootings in Tucson were 'blamed on the right wing' for fermenting a climate of hate and rage. The right leaning pundits are now listing all the "offensive comments" ever made by the liberals and calling them to blame and not us type of thing.
Ms. Althouse is attacking the liberals based on calls for civilitythat effectively are calls to limit free speech and are just a ruse to stop the conservative side from engaging the liberals over what they have said. Frankly I think she is full of shit....how's that for free speech??
I don't see the steady drumbeat of put downs, accusations, and badmouthing coming from the liberal side of the dial or in print. I just don't. Mainly because the real rabid haters with any audience that matters in this discussion is on the right - Rush, Sean, Savage, Beck and a pile of others who spend 3 hours a day 5 -7 days a week spewing whatever comes to mind - true or not. Ok. I get it that it is free speech and there is no recourse or antidote.
But to call a desire for civility by another name - that of anti-free speech - is just dumb. It is purposefully misreading a message for positional gain and that stinks. Civility is civility. Manners are manners. Things can be what they say they are and just because this partisan wants to play to her base, well call it for what it is, free speech but WITH NO CIVILITY.