An entire country mourned the death of Heather Heyer, a paralegal, who went to Charlottesville to protest the hateful march of neo-Nazis and clansmen — only to be murdered when James A. Fields, 20, allegedly rammed his car into protesters. Now the organizer of the racist march has sent out a tweet calling her a “fat, disgusting Communist” — a tweet he later blamed on being drugged out of his gourd. Jason Kessler explained that he has been doing some heavy drugs and drinking lately.
I have 
I have been writing for years about the rising wave of intolerance for free speech that has swept over Europe and is now reaching our own shores in the United States. Attacks on free speech are increasing from the left which has cracked down on speech deemed offensive or intimidating to any group. Thus far, the United States has been a bulwark against this trend, but an editorial in the New York Times this week is a chilling example of how voices against free speech are now becoming mainstream. The editorial was written by K-Sue Park is a housing attorney and the Critical Race Studies fellow at the U.C.L.A. School of Law. Park criticizes the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for what she views as blind fealty to free speech and suggests that it is time to stop defending Nazis because sometimes standing on the wrong side of history in defense of a cause you think is right is still just standing on the wrong side of history. Of course, many of us believe that the wrong side of history is the side where free speech depends on what you want to say — and whether people like Park agree with it.
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi has always displayed a rather fluid view of constitutional rights (though in fairness, that is not a major distinction from other politicians). However, this week Pelosi appeared to embrace content based discrimination in the area of free speech. Pelosi is demanding that the National Park Service reconsider a permit for what she called a “white supremacist rally” in San Francisco. In light of the violence in Charlottesville, Pelosi insists that “The NPS should reevaluate its decision and its capacity to protect the public during such a toxic rally.” The problem is leaving it to the government to declare what groups are toxic from Pelosi’s list of constructive banned viewpoints. I felt ill watching the torch march of neo-Nazis in Charlottesville as white supremacists yelled disgusting anti-Semitic and racist chants. It reminded me of the Nazi rallies before World War II — before my father and so many others went off to fight fascism. However, despite that revulsion, I remain committed to the right of everyone to speak and protest regardless of the content of their views.
A web host called “DreamHost” has gone to court to challenge a demand from the Trump Administration for information on more than 1 million visitors to an anti-Trump website. The demand would covered 1.3 million IP addresses and raises highly troubling free speech and associational concerns. At a minimum, the demand appears wildly too broad and could easily chill political speech for those who oppose this Administration.
We recently discussed the arrest of two Chinese tourists for taking pictures of giving the Nazi salute in Berlin. Now, an 
I have been a long critic of the erosion of free speech on college campuses and the use of the ill-defined concept of “micro aggressions” to sanction students and faculty alike. Those concerns were magnified with the release of a guide by The New School, a university in New York City, 