When Speech becomes Extortion
In response to the arrests of more than 2,000 persons related to recent pro-Palestinian campus protests, one NBC article begins:
The protests provoked debates about how leaders should enforce laws without infringing on speech.
No one is materially infringing upon “free speech.” The cacophony of shrieks and shrills prove that protesters are speaking often and loudly. However, truth and veracity are not determined by volume or frequency. Protesters wish not just the ability to speak but the ability to compel agreement and to force changes in the behaviors of others. The freedom of speech affords them no such benefits or privileges.
The freedom of speech precludes GOVERNMENT from abridging speech based upon its content. That freedom does NOT guarantee a speaker a particular forum. It does NOT guarantee one an audience for his speech. It does NOT guarantee that any party will be receptive to the speech or agree with the positions and propositions. It does NOT guarantee that the speaker can speak with impunity — without adverse consequences imposed by offended or opposing parties (other than the state). The freedom of speech comes with the concurrent rights of others to ignore that speech, to revile the speaker, and to view the speaker or treat his message with disdain.
The ACTIONS by disruptors, which are intended to cause inconvenience and inefficiency to others, are not “speech.” Blocking roads, highways, bridges, and other public spaces is not speech. This is not “peaceable assembly.” Effectively holding others hostage by limiting the ability to move about freely and to live their lives as they choose should not be protected actions.
Those actions are not intended to convey any “message” other than extortion. The objectives are not reasoned debate, informed agreement, or beneficial consensus. The objectives of such protestors, disruptors, and rioters are to cause pain, harm, and loss to others. The “message” being communicated is:
We will cause more pain, harm, and loss to you and yours unless you capitulate, surrender, and subjugate yourselves to our self-serving will.
They are extortionists, and one should never give in to extortionists. There may be a natural and rational desire to buy one’s peace, but one cannot succeed in buying a lasting peace. The price of each moment of peace becomes increasingly exorbitant to the point of being cost prohibitive if not unconscionable.
Having profited from their bad acts, extortionists become emboldened and others similarly situated are encouraged to follow suit. They are motivated to make increasingly unreasonable demands for an increasingly fleeting peace. The costs for an unsatisfying peace increase until there is nothing left to give or surrender, or until the targets of the extortion commit to defending themselves and to protecting their interest against those, who are determined to make life difficult and unsatisfying.
We cannot concede unless we are prepared to surrender everything, and we should not expect those, who wish to be our masters, to be benevolent and benign.
