Asymmetrical Censorship

Conventional wisdom holds that "both sides" want to restrict speech and lack respect for the First Amendment and free speech values. But that "both sides" framing overlooks the mechanisms through which each side disrespects speech. Vastly overgeneralizing and we can find exceptions, but:

    • From the left, private persons or entities exercise some form of free speech to oppose or counter speech and speakers they do not like--shouting down speaker, banning speakers from social-media sites, boycotting speakers, etc. That is, what gets framed as "cancel culture," especially on college campuses. One can disagree with such tactics. And these tactics can run afoul of some neutral rules--such as the rules governing a forum. But we cannot deny that those exercising it are: 1) private persons and 2) exercising some form of their own expression, however stupid we might believe them to be.

    • From the right, officials use the power of the state to silence speakers--banning drag shows, making some classroom speech unlawful, threatening reprisal against speakers who criticize government officials, arresting protesters and journalists, overruling speech-protective precedent to make suing critics easier, etc.

It seems to me that one is worse, because one has many more formal and practical consequences. But the intense pull of "both sides" in national coverage requires that a sophomore at Oberlin is as great a threat as the governor of Florida (and wannabee president).

This dynamic appears in the fallout from the events at Judge Duncan's Stanford speech. Judge Ho (Fifth Circuit) and Judge Branch (Eleventh Circuit)--who previously threatened to stop hiring Yale grads as law clerks--argue in the National Review that disruptive students should suffer consequences, including denying bar admission on character-and-fitness grounds. So lefty Stanford students do not want  Judge Duncan to speak and wield practical actions (some of which are arguably their own form of free speech) to stop him. Righty judges respond by using the full force of the state to punish them for their speech. And everyone will treat them as equivalents.