This entire web short with veteran Village Voice reporter, author, syndicated columnist, and my former Cato Institute colleague Nat Hentoff is outstanding:

Nat Hentoff on Free Speech, Jazz, and FIRE

Like FIRE on Facebook: http://facebook.com/thefireorg Follow FIRE on Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheFIREorg Subscribe to FIRE’s email lists: https://www.thefire.org/subscribe-to-fires-updates/ The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is proud to release our newest video, an interview with legendary critic and civil libertarian Nat Hentoff.

But the best line in the whole thing is “Free speech is to support the right to speech of people you hate, whose speech you hate. That makes us unique, I think, in countries all over the world, when we have that.” Hentoff, a Jewish American, goes on to talk about defending the American Nazi Party’s right to speak, organize, and demonstrate in Illinois.

That “when we have that” phrase is an excellent cautionary qualifier, as the battle for the freedom of speech in the United States is almost as old as the country itself. Hentoff notes earlier in the video that the Alien and Sedition Acts, championed by America’s second president, John Adams, “made it a crime for American citizens…to ‘print, utter, or publish…any false, scandalous and malicious writing’ about the government!”

Hat tip: Glenn Reynolds