Letter: Milo's speech is not deserving of being called "free speech"

Editor,

Nikole McKibben’s Feb. 2 column, titled “Milo has as much a right to a platform as protesters do,” is a masterful example of the deep well of hypocrisy that much of the right-wing American ignorati cheerfully draw from. There is, apparently, enough hours in the day to attend the speech of a hate-monger -- but not quite enough for the author of the column to exercise what is known to some university students as “research.”

There is (or so it would seem) time for the author to drop verbal why-don’t-you-just-listen-to-what-he-has-to-say bombs on protesters, but not enough time to read a peer-reviewed paper like “The Taxation of Undocumented Immigrants: Separate, Unequal, and Without Representation,” from the William S. Boyd School of Law.

Had the author of the column done that -- and researched the dozens of other scholarly papers on the subject -- she would have discovered that undocumented immigrants contribute more to the economy through their tax dollars than they receive from public coffers. She would have discovered that programs like DACA are a pump to the economy, not a brake. That her hard-working father benefits from the presence of undocumented immigrants, while his daughter simultaneously disparages them with snapshot conclusions and de-humanizing word choices.

Nonetheless (and despite a glaringly obvious failure to read the relevant literature), the author agrees with Milo Yianopoulos that the nation shouldn’t provide resources to undocumented immigrants. “It’s simple economics, and a valid argument,” she says, with all the righteous aplomb of a young earth creationist telling biologists that the modern evolutionary synthesis is woefully wrong.

The author then harkens back to the title of the column, masquerading as an expert on U.S. constitutional law with gems like “It’s [Milo’s] First Amendment right” to have a platform on campus. Yet hate speech is ostensibly not covered by the First Amendment -- which is open to divergent interpretations by legal scholars (for a critique of First Amendment protection of hate speech, see Tsesis, 2000, vol. 40 of Santa Clara Law Review, p. 729).

Finally, the author is wrong when she states that Milo’s visit allowed “both sides” to exercise free speech. While the author was cozying up to Milo’s fascistic worldview, those of us demonstrating outside were coerced away by lines of riot police threatening to dispense tear gas on non-violent protesters.

The author saves the ultimate irony of her already irony-laden jeremiad with this concluding line: “I implore you to please be an informed citizen.” While those of us protesting were busy being informed citizens -- knowledgeable about the comprehensive rubbish of Milo’s views -- she and many other event-goers were doing exactly the opposite, muddying themselves with grimy splotches of a speech that can be aptly described as a mind-crushing homage to unfettered ignorance.

Livingstone Marmon
Daily Lobo reader