The best way to preserve cherished rights is to make sure they also protect those we find most repellent.
If you support the rights of Nazis to march in Skokie, however appalling that might be, you understand what the First Amendment is all about. If you approve of shutting down speech you don't like, including Nazis marching in Jewish suburbs, your view of speech essentially boils down to "for me but not thee."
An "absolutist" position in defense of free speech is the only tenable position because anything less ultimately becomes no defense at all; since it is impossible to split hairs over what can and can't be said it becomes necessary to err in favor of government letting just about everything be said.
Along these lines, a thought experiment: What if the Republican governor of a conservative state openly declared a desire to use the powers of his office and the public agencies under it to harass and even bankrupt any organization that advocated positions he disagreed with, such as a legal right to abortion, same-sex marriage, or abolition of capital punishment?
What would the liberal reaction to such an effort be?
If you believed in the First Amendment and the right of free speech it guarantees, you would be appalled, regardless of what position you took on abortion, same-sex marriage or capital punishment. If, on the other hand, you applauded such actions, you might get invited to participate in the next neo-Nazi goosestep in jackboots parade.
Commitment to freedom of speech comes with an obligation to support any group whose speech the state is attempting to suppress for fear that it will be our speech that gets suppressed next.
Thus we come to the demagogic governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, whose dislike of the Second Amendment is so great that he is using unconstitutional tactics to shut down groups that support it.
What leftists accuse President Donald Trump of wanting to do--use the power of the state to crush his political opponents--Cuomo is now openly doing in New York.
In October 2017 Maria Vullo, head of the New York Department of Financial Services, sent, at her boss Cuomo's behest, a letter to banks, financial companies and insurance companies advising them to "review any relationships they have with the National Rifle Association or similar gun promotion organizations, and to take prompt actions to [manage] these risks and promote public health and safety."
As one pundit put it, "It's a nice little business you have there. It would be a pity if something should happen to it."
The very next day Cuomo himself confirmed his intention of using state regulatory agencies to drive a legal advocacy group out of business by tweeting that "The NRA is an extremist organization. I urge companies in New York State to revisit any ties they have to the NRA and consider their reputations, and responsibility to the public," followed by a Facebook post bragging that "We're forcing the NRA into financial jeopardy. We won't stop until we shut them down."
The NRA has, not surprisingly, sued Cuomo and his apparatchiks on First Amendment grounds.
Perhaps more surprising is that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), otherwise hardly a friend of the NRA, has now filed a legal brief on behalf of the suit.
In arguing that Cuomo's efforts to deny the NRA financial services violated the First Amendment, ACLU Legal Director David Cole noted that "Public officials are, of course, free to criticize groups with which they disagree. But they cannot use their regulatory authority to penalize advocacy groups by threatening companies that do business with those groups. ... Substitute Planned Parenthood or the Communist Party for the NRA and the point is clear."
Indeed, the thought must have never occurred to little goose-steppers like Cuomo that what's good for the goose is good for the gander--that Republican governors could apply the same tactics to liberal advocacy groups that they don't like. And there are more Republican governors than Democratic governors.
Alas, the disgrace here is found not so much in Cuomo's authoritarianism per se but the manner in which illiberal New York liberals have applauded his actions, for the simple reason that they too dislike the party adversely affected by them.
Cuomo knows that what he is doing is likely to be struck down in the courts, but he's doing it anyway because the New York electorate is apparently as unconcerned about questions of constitutionality and abuse of power as he is and hates the NRA and guns as much as he does.
That the NRA and the ACLU can make common cause in response to Cuomo's thuggery does, however, remind us that it is still possible for Americans on opposite ends of the spectrum to agree on certain basic rules of conduct essential to the functioning of democracy (such as preventing government from infringing upon political speech).
If memory serves, it was actually the ACLU that took the lead in arguing on behalf of the constitutional right of Nazis to march back then in Skokie.
So welcome back to the good fight, the fight on behalf of the First Amendment.
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Freelance columnist Bradley R. Gitz, who lives and teaches in Batesville, received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois.
Editorial on 10/01/2018