Tolerating Extreme Speech

Abstract

How should free societies deal with people who profess support for the use of unlawful violence to achieve political ends? I believe that what tends to be called extreme speech should not be subject to any additional legal restrictions beyond the ordinary legal constraints on criminal activity. Police and lawmakers should focus on preventing active conspiracies to commit violence against persons and property rather than identifying extreme speech for prosecution. My argument is as follows. Violent rhetoric is a common part of political discourse. ‘Lawful’ violence itself is a core feature of the way all states maintain social order. People disagree a great deal about how violence may legitimately be used and for what ends. So advocating for the use of violence as a matter of policy or morality, rather than against specific individuals, cannot plausibly be considered extreme. It is hard to distinguish extreme political positions from mainstream political positions expressed in slightly different terms or from actors in different social positions. Any legal restrictions would be unevenly, and likely arbitrarily, enforced.