speech and respect - College of Social Sciences and International ...

The Impossibility of State Neutrality
Buchanan was gaining too much political advantage by criticising
the NEA. Frohnmayer's valedictory compared this "Frankenstein
monster's" "shameless" attacks to the Nazi exhibit of "Entartete
Kunst" (Degenerate Art): "A sign on the wall of that show said: 'Your
tax money goes to support this filth.' That could come from the
Congressional Record, my friends." 44
Politics infects other government-supported expression. 45 Lynne
Cheney, the conservative chair of the National Endowment for the
Humanities, overruled several grant recommendations at each quarterly
meeting of her national advisory council. To avoid this embarrassment,
President Bush sought to pack the council with
conservatives, such as University of Pennsylvania history professor
Alan C. Kors, who compared his institution to Beijing University and
urged fellow members of the conservative National Association of
Scholars to transform universities into "the monasteries of the Dark
Ages, preserving what is worth preserving amid the barbaric ravages
in the countrysides and towns of academe." 46 Several senators
sought to block funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Conrad Burns (R-Mont) was angry at "The Range Wars" for criticising
grazing on public lands: "my constituency, which is a lot of
cattlemen and sheepmen, absolutely went through the roof." John
McCain (R-Az) attacked "Maria's Story" for "glorifying the life of a
F.M.L.N. guerrilla in El Salvador." Jesse Helms lambasted "Tongues
Untied" for portraying "homosexual men dancing around naked"
and "blatantly promot[ing] homosexuality as an acceptable life
style." Minority leader Robert Dole (R-Kan) summarised their fury:
"I have never been more turned off and more fed up with the
increasing lack of balance and unrelenting liberal cheerleading I see
and hear on the public airwaves." 47
Neutrality is unattainable. Indeed, no one wants it. All speakers,
whether employed or supported by government, are expressing their
partisan positions. Balance is a chimera; every mixture of views
favours some over others.
V. The Illusion of Private Freedom
Civil libertarians oppose state regulation and partisanship because
they see it as the primary source of constraint. Once that is removed,
private expression will again become a realm of authentic freedom.
The implicit image of free speech is the colonial New England town
meeting or Hyde Park's speakers' corner. In these mythic or marginal
47