The liberal fascist war against free speech

Rich Lowry:

Barack Obama has already brought change: He's ended the "chilling effect."

Any restrictions on speech - real or imagined - were once inevitably deemed to have a "chilling effect" on people who would otherwise exercise their First Amendment rights if they weren't so frightened by the possibility of running afoul of the law. Claims of a "chilling effect" were the most reliable weapon in the American Civil Liberties Union's absolutist campaign against, say, even the most common-sensical laws against obscenity.

But the politics of free speech has been subtly shifting. Opponents of the ACLU on the right increasingly worry about overreaching rules against "hate speech" defining legitimate opinions as out of bounds.

Meanwhile, the same people who forever decry the country's imminent descent into the dark night of fascism are now comfortable regulating political speech and banning speech on college campuses. The left has learned to like some chill with its free speech.

Enter the Obama campaign, which reflects the new ethos. It twice issued "Obama Action Wire" alerts for activists to call a Chicago radio station and try to shut down appearances by two Obama critics, writers Stanley Kurtz and David Freddoso. No "chilling effect" here. CNN and the Chicago Tribune reported on the effort to silence Obama's detractors, but mostly by way of noting the Obama camp's tech-savvy mustering of its supporters.

When an outside group ran TV ads pointing out links between Obama and the former Weatherman terrorist Bill Ayers, the Obama campaign asked the Bush Justice Department - yes, that Bush Justice Department, the fount of all evil - to open a criminal investigation.

The Obama campaign's effort dovetails with the work of an outfit called Accountable America, run by a former MoveOn.org operative. It is devoted to threatening conservative donors with legal action and exposure of any embarrassing details of their private lives if they give money to groups running ads against Obama.

The New York Times account says the group hopes to create "a chilling effect," but the phrase is used non-pejoratively.

Liberal editorial boards have apparently lost their former zest for the First Amendment. Consider this approving sentence from a Times editorial: "The wholesale descent into Swift Boat campaigning has been blocked - for now - by a federal judge in Virginia." It was written about a judge denying an injunction against the Federal Election Commission sought by a pro-life group running radio ads attacking Obama. The group thinks the First Amendment protects political speech; unfortunately, the courts disagree.

But the Times goes beyond mere legalities. It asserts with no evidence that the group's advertising is "lies," then urges the FEC to "be vigilant for what will inevitably be fresh attempts to mislead voters with fresh lies." Here's a newspaper charging a governmental agency with policing and shutting down campaign ads it doesn't like.

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The left is the most intolerant group in American politics today. They don't just disagree with Fox News and Rush Limbaugh they want to see them silenced and are willing to use the coercive powers of the state to shut up those who gives voice to a point of view that differs from theirs. You see it on the campuses where the liberal fascist are the ones who shout down speakers who are conservatives. They can't handle the truth.