"I'm a Free Speech Absolutist, Which Makes Me Better Than You!"

No. No, you're not.

There are certain terms and phrases that become tediously repetitive depending on the political moment. They may sound bombastic on the surface, but they actually betray a perfunctory understanding of the issue. Ceasefire now = “I don’t understand what war means.” Very mindful, very demure = “I am blind to the fact that Kamala is definitely losing.” Genocide Joe = “I don’t care if what I’m doing gets Trump back into office.” All eyes on Gaza = “I don’t really know anything about this conflict.”

Lately, the following collection of words has sent my eyes rolling in disgust: “I’m a free speech absolutist.” It’s a phrase that is having a moment in light of the arrests and possible deportation of anti-Israel demonstrators. It tends to go in one of the following directions, depending on the orientation of the speaker:

“I’m a free speech absolutist, but I think anti-Israel demonstrators should be deported.”

“I’m a free speech absolutist, so I’m pretty sure that pro-Hamas literature and chants for an intifada are completely legal.”

“I’m a free speech absolutist, so I think non-citizens living in the United States should have the same First Amendment rights as everyone else.”

“I’m a free speech absolutist who believes that non-citizens in the United States don’t have the same rights under the First Amendment as I do.”

First of all, it’s interesting how everyone is suddenly an armchair immigration lawyer now that students’ visas are getting revoked and ICE is detaining people for being antisemitic assholes. I’m no lawyer, so I won’t attempt to pontificate on what constitutional rights non-citizens actually possess. I also won’t speculate as to what point one’s Jew-hating assholery rises to the point of necessitating deportation—because I do not know.

What I will say, however, is that framing the anti-Israel nonsense of the last year and a half as a free speech issue is completely besides the point. What we are witnessing now is not about the rights enshrined in the First Amendment as much as it is about the identities of the people yelling that what they’re doing is about the First Amendment. The truth is that no one is a free speech absolutist. That is because there is no absolute right to free speech, here or anywhere. And it goes well beyond “yelling fire in a crowded theater.” There is no private institution in the United States that does not have the ability to regulate speech. There is no institution anywhere that lacks the power to crack down on hate speech—unless they choose not to.

We can debate whether or not the anti-Israel demonstrators’ actions rise to the level of hate speech. But that argument keeps the focus on the terror-supporting hoodlums and not on, say, Edan Alexander, a U.S. citizen still being held by Hamas. Anyone else bothered by the fact that Mahmoud Khalil is a far more recognizable name now than an actual American held captive in Gaza for nearly 600 days? I can pretty much guarantee that Edan’s captors are denying him his free speech (among other important rights) as we speak.

Khalil currently has 19 lawyers who are fighting for his ability to spread Hamas propaganda in an effort to pretend like he’s freeing Palestine. I’m sure they all fancy themselves as “free speech absolutists,” especially when it comes to the freedom to demand that everyone identify their pronouns whilst yelling for an intifada. But none of these fine legal scholars ever defined themselves that way before they took on this case, and none of them would dare put their careers on the line to defend, say,

Shai Davidai

’s right to free speech on the same campus that Khalil was involved in terrorizing. And of course, we can talk about the fact that these attorneys actually believe they are taking on this major civil rights case for a hard-luck client while they are, in reality, defending someone with the privileges of an Ivy League education and a green card that millions of others are desperate to have.

What we are witnessing now is not so much a free speech issue as it is a censorship issue. We all have an expectation of basic censorship in our daily lives, even if we don’t fully realize it. For example, we have the right to expect all public areas to be free of hate speech. A student should be able to walk the halls of their $90k/year school without being bombarded with pro-Hamas propaganda. Private institutions like Columbia have all of the power at their disposal to censor speech on their campuses. Their choice not to do it ushered in a scorched-earth crackdown from those evil Zionists the federal government.

It appears that the only issue that today’s ‘social justice’ activist class defines themselves as “free speech absolutists” for is the spread of vile antisemitic rhetoric. Of course, we are seeing the same hypocrisy on the other end of the aisle—the same folks who ran on anti-woke platforms are now happy to detain and deport people whose speech “makes us feel unsafe.” Free speech should be a cornerstone of any democratic society. Instead, it’s quickly losing all meaning thanks to misguided ideologues using the concept as nothing more than a personal branding tool. Unfortunately, narcissism is not protected by the First Amendment.