"Freedom of Speech, Baby"

Jonah Goldberg addresses one of my pet peeves today. His peg is a quote from Dan Savage, guest blogging at Andrew Sullivan's site:

I'm all for what she's trying to do. Yes, she appears to be — say it ain't so! — slightly partisan. But since when does being slightly partisan disqualify someone from having an opinion? Rightwing bloggers would have us believe that, unless you're a Republican (and an R who supports the war, no questions asked), you have no right to speak out about the war.

I knew instantly where he was going. This "freedom of speech" defense is the biggest red herring going and it is ubiquitous. Most rightwing bloggers aren't saying she can't say what she's saying. They're saying what she's saying is wrong. They're addressing her arguments with more arguments and they're met with an army of straw men.

Or as Jonah puts it:

But, if you want to defend somebody's controversial statements, saying "so-and-so has the right to his opinion" doesn't get you out of the gate. It just sucks up air and fills space. Intellectually, it's got the nutritional value of Styrofoam. You might as well say "Oo-ee-oo-ah-ah, ting-tang-walla-walla-bing-bang" instead and then move on to your next point. It's not interesting, not smart, not insightful. Saying Cindy Sheehan has a right to criticize the president is like saying she's a carbon-based life form: True, but utterly beside the point.

I think Jonah hits on why this is so annoying:

I mean, if you immediately assert that someone has the right to say something as a way to rebut criticism, aren't you implying that such criticism violated their rights — which is, by definition, unconstitutional.

The paranoia enters into it when you consider the nature of the accusation. If you immediately assume that criticism from the political Right is tantamount to questioning someone's constitutional right to speak in the first place, what you are really saying (Pace Dan Savage) is that if you scratch a conservative you'll find a Storm Trooper just under the surface.

When I meet this "argument", I always assume the person wishes to change the subject, since the statement is non-responsive, the conversation equivalent of putting one's hands over one's ears and singing "La, la, la, I can't hear you."

Update: Spoons comments:

You have a right to your opinion...But to actually say so, and to pretend that that is a substantive argument, is asinine.

Jonah's G-File should be read to every high school student on his first day of civics class, and every new college student on the first day of Freshman orientation.