What sets the United States apart from other nations, argues attorney and legal scholar Jonathan Turley, is its commitment to free speech. Turley, the J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of public interest law at George Washington University, led a discussion hosted by Colgate’s Center for Freedom and Western Civilization in April.
Turley has testified in multiple congressional proceedings, and his columns have appeared in publications including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Additionally, he serves as a legal analyst for Fox News.
The First Amendment, he said, is “the most revolutionary thing we ever produced in this country.” But right now, he cautions, “rage is all around us,” threatening unity and providing “something of a license to say and do things that you would not ordinarily do.” “It’s addictive. It’s contagious,” he said. “If you agree with someone, their rage seems righteous, and if you don’t, it’s dangerous.”
The tension between rage and free speech, he added, is a delicate issue. “The greatest danger is not the speech itself — it’s when the government uses the rage in speech to limit it, curtail it, and arrest people who use it,” Turley argued. “We’re not defined by the rage. We’re defined by free speech, by the hope that with the help of free speech, we might be able to overcome the things we hate most about each other.”
Turley’s forthcoming book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage, attempts to define and defend the American right to free speech.