From the Editor’s Desk: First Amendment can’t be just a fad – Northwest Herald

TRIGGER WARNING The following column contains opinions that you might not share. Despite all cultural signals, this columnist is going to go ahead and write what he thinks. If you believe theres a chance that the columnist, based on past reading experiences or sheer hunch, might have an alternative opinion to your own, please proceed at your own risk.

People who regularly read newspaper columns dont need that warning, because theyve already signed up for free thought. Others cant handle the terrifying possibility that something that someone writes or says might influence the intricate but delicate worldview theyve carefully constructed in the sterile laboratory of their own minds.

This is why we cant possibly have someone as tall and blond as Ann Coulter saying words at the University of California at Berkeley. While Coulters a cult hero to some on the right, shes not my cup of tea, but Id defend her right to speak anywhere even though I probably wont listen, and Id guess shed defend my right to pen columns shed never read.

This phenomenon is flaring up again just after we stopped hearing about safe spaces where puppets and Play-Doh help college students more than the age of 18 process their icky feelings.

I came across a paper released last week by Jeffrey Herbst, president and CEO of Newseum, about what he considered a crisis on college campuses regarding free expression.

With little comment, an alternate understanding of the First Amendment has emerged among young people that can be called the right to nonoffensive speech, Herbst wrote.

The intentions are good, but although I havent been there yet, Tripadvisor says thats the odd thing about the road surface on the boulevard to Hell.

Many millennials just believe that members of certain groups should be protected from offensive speech.

Thats hardly a radical notion. Its actually quite humane. We can call out others for using offensive slurs wherever we like, on campus, on social media, even in your friendly neighborhood Letters to the Editor pages.

The danger lies in tasking the government with legally determining what can and what cannot be said. If the past two election cycles taught us anything, its that the political pendulum of the government swings mightily, and we should expect the definition of offensive speech to swing with it.

I am among the last of people whod complain about millennials on my lawn playing their loud hip hop cassettes, but there does seem to be some generational peculiarities.

According to a recent Pew Foundation poll, 40 percent of millennials support limiting speech that is offensive to minorities. By contrast, only 27 percent of my nihilist Generation Xers, 24 percent of Baby Boomers and 12 percent of the Silent Generation said that government should limit speech in those circumstances.

College campuses are where minds should be challenged most. This is something that education will have to correct, and while their are generational differences with respect to some speech, I still frequently get confused about calls, emails and letters from people who I guarantee are well past 50 about content they disagree with in the newspaper.

Yes, that political cartoon is, in fact, biased. Thats the definition of a political cartoon and thats why The Family Circus isnt on the Opinion Page. No, I dont necessarily expect you to agree with the person quoted in that story. In fact, the controversy about the subject matter is kind of what made it newsworthy in the first place.

Heres a deep, dark editors secret: I dont agree with everything in the newspaper, and I have something to do with a few things that go into it. I disagree with columns, cartoons, points of view in stories on a daily basis. The same goes for other key newspaper employees. We just dont assume that our opinions are the only ones that matter. If we work for a newspaper, we happen to believe in a free marketplace of ideas.

But a newspaper is different from the government. We edit and self-censor. We dont make a habit of offending minority groups. The difference is that we arent subject to the whim of government regulation. Were allowed to have our own principles and our readers help guide them. We welcome the criticism from readers, but if the government wants to censor us, they can expect a fight.

What we do know is that there is not a homogeneous point of view even in relatively conservative McHenry County. There isnt one on college campuses, no matter how much some colleges might wish for one. And letting bad ideas be heard is the only way people know that theyre bad ideas.

We need to fight this tendency to refuse to hear anything we dont want to hear. Were a better country than this and weve been better by allowing speech to remain free for a few centuries now.

Feel free to disagree. Its your right.

Kevin Lyons is managing editor of the Northwest Herald. Email him at kelyons@shawmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @KevinLyonsNWH.

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From the Editor's Desk: First Amendment can't be just a fad - Northwest Herald