(TW: brief suicide mention)
In the wake of the very ironic resignation of Milo Yiannopoulos from his position as senior editor of Breitbart News, many are hailing his downfall as a victory for the righteous, while others are deeming the incident a loss for freedom of speech. What the entire series of events is is proof of this: defending your hatefulness and general perversion with the freedom of speech clause only works until it doesn’t.
Milo’s resignation comes after the outrage that ensued after the emergence of 3 year old footage of Yiannopoulos wordily defending statutory rape among gay men and boys, which also resulted in his losing both a book deal and CPAC invite. As we know, this is not the first time he has made controversial remarks. Yiannopoulos has fought for attention throughout his heyday through purposefully incendiary comments and actions: he has called feminism cancer, equated transgenderism to a mental illness, and created a fake college grant exclusively available to white men. As the popularity of the self-proclaimed libertarian grew, so did his disapproval. This disapproval culminated in the UC Berkeley riots over a scheduled speech by Yiannopoulos. The speech was eventually cancelled by the university due to safety concerns. Conservatives branded the incident as liberal intolerance and hatred of free speech, while liberals deemed it as an intolerance for intolerance.
Fast forward a little less than three weeks, and we have now learned that the normalization of pedophilia, according to conservatives, is too far. Still, this incident is not one of partisanship, nor is it a chance to question why most conservatives draw the line where they do. This incident is, however, a glorious reminder of what freedom of speech does and does not mean. Freedom of speech means that you can say whatever you want without the government punishing you for it. That’s it. Freedom of speech does not mean that you can say whatever you want and not be criticized for it, and it does not mean that those who criticize you are unquestionably intolerant. Freedom of speech is to be used to defend the act of speaking one’s mind. It is not to be used to defend the specific opinions and ideas that are expressed through the act of speaking. Making the mistake of misusing freedom of speech has repercussions.
As Mr. Yiannopoulos so effortlessly demonstrates, problems arise when the meaning of freedom of speech is distorted and perverted to fit a political agenda. In our current political atmosphere, most things are political. Freedom of speech is the exception. You can defend your corrupt, hateful remarks by screaming “freedom of speech” for as long as you want, and you may even grow a fanbase in the meantime. Eventually, that method won’t cut it. So, for the rest of the country which is not gravely unscrupulous, it is not necessary to censor people like Milo, who enthusiastically intend to offend as many people as possible through extreme statements. Let us instead allow the tragic tale of the alt-right poster boy to stand as evidence that when you give someone enough rope, eventually they will hang themselves.
