Free Speech for Me--But Not for Thee: How the American Left and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other
by Nat Hentoff
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For years now, Nat Hentoff has been the best-known lay guardian of the magnificent spirit and letter of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. His principled advocacy of free expression for all seems to be needed more than ever today, at a time of appalling assaults on expression not only by traditional opponents on the political right - those offended by what they consider obscene or radical or otherwise taboo - but also from the left - radical feminists calling for show more the suppression of pornography, members of minorities banning language they consider psychologically damaging, and various other proponents of so-called political correctness. These more recently minted censors are now to be found within such former bastions of free speech as the universities and even the American Civil Liberties Union. This urgently important book is not a mere collection of legal cases; neither is it a history of free expression or a polemic from either left or right. It is rather a wide-ranging report on - and analysis of - the many kinds of conflicts throughout our country between the illusion that this is a land of unfettered free speech and the reality when that illusion is acted upon. It is a book of many stories - of the continuing efforts to deprive students of Mark Twain's masterpiece, Huckleberry Finn, and of attempts to deprive other students of the right not to read books that offend them; of the well-intentioned rulings that result in speech codes and loyalty oaths; of the wide-spread lack of understanding, over the years, of such basic concepts as the marketplace of ideas and of the overriding value of untrammeled speech. Free Speech for Me - But Not for Thee is a book about fear, duplicity, some courage, a lot of hypocrisy, and a good deal of irony. It is a book of dramatic confrontations, of people acting, for better or for worse, on one of the most important of our domestic battlefields. And above all, it presents hopeful, practical suggestions for ways toward saving perhaps the most fragile of our cherished freedoms. show lessTags
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A history of censorship in the United States. Not sparing any sacred cows (including himself), Hentoff shows how the urge to suppress unpalatable ideas is nigh-universal, and why we need to guard against those urges for a free society.
attacks on free speech from both left and right
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52+ Works 1,979 Members
Nathan Irving Hentoff was born in Boston, Massachusetts on June 10, 1925. He graduated from Northeastern University in 1946. After several years with a Boston radio station, he moved to New York in 1953 and covered jazz for Down Beat until 1957. In 1958, he was a founding editor of The Jazz Review that lasted until 1961. He wrote for The New show more Yorker from 1960 to 1986, for The Washington Post from 1984 to 2000, and for The Village Voice from 1958 to 2009. During his freelance career, his work appeared in Esquire, Harper's, Commonweal, The Reporter, Playboy, The New York Herald Tribune, Jewish World Review, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Times. In 1995, he received the National Press Foundation's award for lifetime achievement in contributions to journalism. He wrote more than 35 books during his lifetime. His nonfiction works included The Jazz Life, Peace Agitator: The Story of A. J. Muste, The New Equality, Living the Bill of Rights, and Free Speech for Me - but Not for Thee: How the American Left and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other. He wrote several memoirs including Boston Boy and Speaking Freely. In 1955, he co-edited with Nat Shapiro Hear Me Talkin' to Ya: The Story of Jazz as Told by the Men Who Made It. His young adult novels included Jazz Country, This School Is Driving Me Crazy, Does This School Have Capital Punishment?, and The Day They Came to Arrest the Book. He died on January 7, 2017 at the age of 91. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1992
- Epigraph
- Driven from every other corner of the earth, freedom of thought and the right of private judgement in matters of conscience, direct their course to this happy country as their last asylum.
—Samuel Adams
We began w... (show all)ell. No inquisition here. No kings, no nobles. No dominant church here, heresy has lost its terror.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
If large numbers of people believe in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it. But if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws protect to exist them.
—George Orwell
Every time I criticize what I consider to be excesses or faults in the news business, I am accused of repression, and the leaders of the various media professional groups wave the First Amendment as they denounce me.
That happens to be my amendment, too. It guarantees my free speech as it does their freedom of the press. ... There is room for all of us—and for our divergent interests—under the First Amendment.
—Spiro Agnew
Liberty wasn't guaranteed by the Constitution. It was only given a chance.
—Stephen Chapman, Chicago Tribune - Dedication
- For Margo, who never lets my right to free speech get in the way of her skeptical assessment of each word, and then some.
And for Alan Dershowitz, who never flinches from defending the most unpopular speech. - Blurbers
- Kirsch, Jonathan; Abrams, Floyd; Strossen, Nadine; Gunther, Gerald; Winship, Thomas
Classifications
- Genres
- Politics and Government, Nonfiction, General Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 342.73 — Society, government, & culture Law U.S. Constitution - Bill of Rights, Amendments North America Constitutional law--United States
- LCC
- KF4772 .H46 — Law Law of the United States Law of the United States (Federal) Constitutional law Individual and state Civil and political rights and liberties
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- 167
- Popularity
- 195,965
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (4.27)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 3






















































