"It just seems to be a human trait to want to protect the speech of people with whom we agree. For the First Amendment, that is not good enough. So it is really important that we protect First Amendment rights of people no matter what side of the line they are on"
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Floyd Abrams distills a hard civic truth: our instincts run toward defending our allies and silencing our adversaries, but the First Amendment demands the opposite impulse. The constitutional commitment is to viewpoint neutrality. Government may regulate time, place, and manner, but it does not get to bless one side of a debate while punishing the other. The measure of free speech is not how we treat ideas we find agreeable; it is how we treat ideas we find wrong, provocative, or even repugnant.
Coming from Abrams, the point carries history. He is one of the most prominent First Amendment lawyers of the last half-century, associated with the Pentagon Papers case and with fights over campaign finance restrictions. His career illustrates that free expression protections often live or die at the margins, where speakers are controversial and the public mood is unforgiving. If protection is withheld until a viewpoint seems safe or popular, the right has already withered.
The phrase "what side of the line" evokes the tribal divisions that tempt officials and citizens to weaponize law against opponents. Once that habit takes hold, the principle collapses into a partisan tool, chilling dissent and entrenching orthodoxy. The Supreme Court has long recognized this danger, insisting that no authority can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics or force citizens to confess their faith therein. That logic precludes a hecklers veto and forbids punishment merely because speech offends.
None of this erases the narrow exceptions for incitement, true threats, or defamation. But within the vast realm of protected expression, the discipline of constitutional fidelity is to defend the rights of those we oppose so that our own rights will not depend on who holds power. Abrams urges that fidelity not as abstract piety but as the price of a resilient, pluralistic democracy.
Coming from Abrams, the point carries history. He is one of the most prominent First Amendment lawyers of the last half-century, associated with the Pentagon Papers case and with fights over campaign finance restrictions. His career illustrates that free expression protections often live or die at the margins, where speakers are controversial and the public mood is unforgiving. If protection is withheld until a viewpoint seems safe or popular, the right has already withered.
The phrase "what side of the line" evokes the tribal divisions that tempt officials and citizens to weaponize law against opponents. Once that habit takes hold, the principle collapses into a partisan tool, chilling dissent and entrenching orthodoxy. The Supreme Court has long recognized this danger, insisting that no authority can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics or force citizens to confess their faith therein. That logic precludes a hecklers veto and forbids punishment merely because speech offends.
None of this erases the narrow exceptions for incitement, true threats, or defamation. But within the vast realm of protected expression, the discipline of constitutional fidelity is to defend the rights of those we oppose so that our own rights will not depend on who holds power. Abrams urges that fidelity not as abstract piety but as the price of a resilient, pluralistic democracy.
Quote Details
| Topic | Freedom |
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