Recently at University of California-Berkeley, Milo Yiannopoulos was set to give a talk about cultural appropriation and he had to be evacuated by his security detail and police, who feared that he was in danger because of protests that broke out on the campus. Since this event took place, I have heard many liberals argue that Yiannopoulos should not be afforded the right to speak on Berkeley’s campus, or any campus. As a liberal I find this to be a shocking response and an absolute betrayal of the liberal principles that I believe in. Despite the fact that I am a liberal and I disagree with much of Yiannopoulos’ thoughts on a variety of issues, I think it is fundamentally important that his right to say what he thinks is protected.

I am certainly sympathetic to the protesters who find Yiannopoulos’ presence inappropriate. At this time, possibly more than any other time in my life I think it is reasonable for liberals to be on their guard and maybe even to feel sensitive. However, the idea that I would feel it necessary to defend free speech is pretty surprising to me. I don’t find it necessary to point out why free speech is inherently a good thing. I think most people know its benefits. I don’t think liberals are reacting so strongly to Yiannopoulos’ speech because they don’t see the merit in free speech, but rather because they are scared of his ideas. They shouldn’t be. So instead of listing the benefits of free speech we all already know, I would put forward this question: If you think that your ideas are better, or even the correct ones, then why are you afraid of having a debate? I think it may be reasonable to say that if you want to stand behind a liberal idea, let’s say in this case the idea of cultural appropriation, then stand behind it. If you really think that it will fail when challenged by a conservative’s viewpoint, then why do you support it in the first place?

One thing that I have heard liberals say about this issue that I find particularly concerning is this idea of “normalizing hate speech as free speech.” I am not taking sides on whether what Yiannopoulos says is hate speech or not, as that is not the point I am interested in making. The idea that something can be normalized as free speech is an oxymoron, necessarily. This statement implies that there is something that can be said that also does not fall under the category of free speech. This obviously would not be any serious kind of free speech. A freedom to say anything you want except for a few things is but a mockery of free speech and should be seen for the farce it is.

Now, if liberals are not concerned with maintaining free speech because of its merits alone and if they want to limit access to free speech in an effort to protect the marginalized minorities, then they are still making a mistake. If ignoring the benefits of free speech, it may seem like a good idea to limit the speech of someone like Yiannopoulos, who argues for the conservatives because you want to protect those groups that lack power in our society. That’s a laudable goal if there ever was one, but unfortunately I think even that fails to provide justification for limiting Yiannopoulos’ free speech. This is because as soon as we put limiting free speech on the table, it is not the groups out of power who will be able to use it generally; it is those groups that already have power who can use it to maintain that power. History is riddled with examples of power groups limiting the civil rights of others, including free speech, to maintain their dominance. Unless you want to return to a time like the Red Scare, where the spreading of communist literature can be compared to yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theatre, then it may be a better idea to not let the idea of removing free speech ever to be seen as legitimate, even if it helps those who are marginalized at first glance.