Stardate 20020522.1932

(Captain's log): I received a rather strange letter today, which inspires me to write. I'll refer to my correspondent as "George", though that is not his name. What he said, more or less, was that he disagreed vehemently with something I had written recently, that he thought I was full of crap, and that I should publicly apologize and do penance.

The demanded penance was that I should write an article which made the case for a position with which I do not agree, the opposite point of view to the one I actually hold. That struck me as being a rather odd request, somewhere between rudeness and presumptuousness. More important, however, is that it suggested that George doesn't understand how the marketplace of ideas is supposed to work, which gives me an opportunity to preach about Mill's ideas regarding free expression. (George would do well to read Mill's "On Liberty".)

In a free society, there will be diversity. Left to themselves, humans are enormously variable, and unless some sort of coercion is used then they'll come to believe different things and have different opinions. Sometimes some of them will think that the opinions of others are quite offensive. That is the price we pay for freedom: If we wish the right to hold opinions that others find offensive, then we must accept that others will have opinions that we also despise.

Mill argues persuasively that nothing and no-one are served by active efforts to suppress points of view. He argues that liberty is maximized when everyone has the right to speak but no-one has a right to an audience. If someone says things you actively hate, then you have a perfect right to shun them. If enough people do that, he may decide to change his mind, but if not then it is his right to be objectionable and put up with being avoided by others.

If you don't like what I write, then you should stop reading my site. If enough people agree with you, then I will be punished by having no readers.

If you think my ideas are dangerous, then you should publish arguments against them. Each of us adds our voices to the public discussion, and with enough voices, everyone will be given the opportunity to hear all sides of the issue. If one side is more persuasive, then that idea will predominate in the populace. The process is slow and inefficient, but that inefficiency is exactly its strength, for it gives maximum opportunity for unusual ideas to get exposure and perhaps become consensus. Truly convincing ideas will spread; unconvincing ones will stagnate.

But to demand that I apologize for an idea simply because you don't like it is to miss the point: it isn't wrong for me to say things you don't like, and it is actively wrong for you to try to force me to change my opinions against my will. I think that George's problem wasn't so much that he himself didn't want to read what I'd written as that he didn't want anyone else to, either. George wanted an apology and penance from me to undo the damage I had done by expressing my opinion on the subject. At that point, George crossed the line.

George has his own web site, which I will not link because I do not reward pretentiousness. George has his own platform for distributing his point of view. George doesn't want to compete in the marketplace of ideas; he wants to suppress my opinions that he disagrees with and prevent me from expressing them.

It doesn't matter what specifically I said with which George disagreed. George has the right to disagree with me. He has the right to post his own opposing opinions on his own web site. But he doesn't have the right to demand that I retract my own opinion unless he can prove that I've violated one of a very small number of relevant laws on the subject – and I didn't.

I will not apologize for holding an extreme opinion on a subject. I will not apologize because others find that opinion objectionable. I have done nothing to apologize for, and I certainly have done nothing requiring atonement. I am using my Constitutional Right to express my opinion, and I spend a great deal of money each month to support distribution of my opinions. I take not a dime from anyone to help pay for it.

I deeply resent the implication that I'm not permitted to post anything unless George agrees with it. If George would like an apology, I would need to know which of his bodily orifices he would like me to insert it into.

Whenever you read something you find infuriating, you should rejoice. It proves that you still live in a society which permits free thought and free expression.