Let the (Bigoted, Ignorant) Man Alone

Let the (Bigoted, Ignorant) Man Alone
by Michael R. Allen

Tuesday, November 16, 1999

Free speech in the US is constantly being attacked by the government and those censors who see the state as their tool. Yet, in recent times, the freedom to think has been battered even more severely. Political correctness is the most visible symbol of the attack on free thinking that is being conducted by the government and academia. These two institutions are often partners in the cause, as events in Illinois illustrate.

On November 12, the Illinois State Supreme Court refused to hear Matthew Hale's appeal of the state bar ruling against him. The bar held that Hale, the leader of the white-supremacist World Church of the Creator in East Peoria, was unfit to serve as an attorney due to his opinions on matters of race.

Hale is sharply perverted and plain ignorant. What else can I say? He believes that what he calls the "white race" is superior to all others, and has invented a god that is the good shepherd for only white people. Hale uses emotion to attract his lonely, downtrodden church members, and proceeds to preach to the choir with his pamphlets and speeches.

However, one important fact should be considered: Hale has never committed an act that would deprive another person of his liberty. While the killer who went on a rampage against blacks, Jews, and Asians this July, Benjamin Smith, was associated with Hale's church, Hale himself had no part in the killings. Any moral culpability Hale has in the killings - if he doesn't feel any then he must be sick - cannot be determined by the state bar.

That the bar should have the power to screen lawyers is an affront to the free use of the courts by citizens. Hale has the right to go into a courtroom and represent a client; it's what he does in court that should determine his future as a lawyer. He's not likely to be a very effective attorney, given his penchant for racism, but if he respects the rules of the court there is no cause to ban his practicing law. It is not as if Hale would be the first ignorant lawyer in American history.

Undeterred in his mission to proclaim his message, Hale is planning to petition Northwestern University for a campus World Church of the Creator ministry. The university is walking on egg shells as academia’s waning civil libertarian impulses are smothered by political correctness. Officials have told Hale that he will need at least 15 students to join the ministry for the petition to be considered. While I'm pleased to see that no students are going to join the racist crusade, I also would like to see just what would happen if Hale met the quota. The resulting mayhem might be the spark that torches academic liberty.

Many students at Northwestern are eager to man the ramparts of enforced correctness. Student groups arranged a rally to protest the university’s perceived inaction. Senior Joel Feinman told the Chicago Tribune that the president of Northwestern should issue a condemnation of Hale that would begin, "You know, I have to give Matt Hale the freedom of speech and the freedom to petition."

Feinman’s attitude is typical of someone who sees civil liberties as a threat to correct thinking. Why does the president have to give Hale his rights? Hale already has the right to speak openly and petition openly, though the university does have the right to regulate its property. In days of old, the university would hear every view. Charlatans and other assorted idiots could be beaten with the power of better ideas, but they would be given the chance to speak.

As Yale University President Benno Schmidt once said of another controversial case: "There is no speech so horrendous in content that it does not in principle serve our purposes."

The core of Schmidt's statement is that a civil society will tolerate any range of thoughts and words. Deriving from this tolerance is that only actions are illegal in the free society. That Hale's ideology may have spurred a killing spree is frightening, but there is no justification in that fact for censorship of that ideology. If the intent of Smith was to be judged so that his impure thoughts could be eliminated, who would be trusted to determine what the killer believed? Or what was an acceptable belief?

The answer put forward by the Illinois Supreme Court is that the state has the right to punish its citizens not only for their uncouth expression, but for their uncouth thoughts. If the state can gain this 'right' through the acclamation of its own institutions, then the free society is imperilled. The threat to natural liberty lies not merely in the creep of this punishment from bigotry to unpopular political opinion. By punishing bigotry itself, the state has crushed one man's right to think freely.

It is becoming less and less acceptable to proclaim agreement with the principle of free thought, but it is also becoming more important to do so. Matthew Hale does not deserve a robust defense, but his and all of our rights do.

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