On Wednesday evening, I attended the third annual RealClear Samizdat Prize Gala in Palm Beach, Fla. RealClear, whose brands include its flagship RealClearPolitics website, is best known as a content and polling aggregator and as an advocate of political and ideological diversity. Pursuant to that mission, the Samizdat Prize recognizes and honors leading champions of free speech from across the ideological spectrum. This year, the prize was given to longtime Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, Irish-born comedy writer Graham Linehan and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. (Kirk’s award was, of course, posthumous.)
I am grateful to RealClear for its regular publishing of my weekly column and appreciated the spirit of the event. Still, I was troubled by some of the rhetoric that I heard throughout the evening when it comes to the issue we had all congregated to celebrate: free speech.
In his introductory remarks, my friend David Desrosiers, the publisher of RealClear Media, criticized the Trump administration’s prosecution of former CNN personality Don Lemon for his involvement in the recent storming of a Sunday church service in Minnesota, framing it as a journalism and free speech issue. Later in the evening, Dershowitz stridently defended the claim that a man can become a woman or a woman can become a man; when booed for suggesting as much, he said it was OK to disagree on this because we all have our free speech — as if that is the single highest and most important value upholding American society.
But is it?
The foremost goal of politics, since time immemorial, is to best pursue and realize the common good. Free speech certainly has some intrinsic value, as one good in the broader basket of goods constituting the common good. But free speech has even more value not as an intrinsic matter, but as an instrument used toward other substantive ends.
In the words of the Constitution’s common good-oriented preamble, it is the “Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity” (emphasis added), as opposed to liberty itself, with which “We the People” are chiefly concerned. Those “Blessings” are realized, for example, by practicing biblical religion and exercising virtue. This explains why, in the 1st Amendment text, the two religion clauses come before the free speech clause. The actual first liberty in the Bill of Rights is religious liberty — not free speech. And we have myriad federal laws, such as the Bill Clinton-era FACE Act that Lemon is accused of violating, that reflect our collective value judgment about the supreme importance of free religious exercise.
The free-speech-as-highest-good view also misunderstands the purpose of free speech in a free society at an even more fundamental level.
Legal systems of free speech do not exist to bestow legitimacy on the idiosyncratic musings of any individual. To borrow progressive jargon, we don’t maintain systems of free speech to protect and secure “your truth” or “my truth.” Rather, as was historically understood as far back as Plato’s Academy in ancient Athens, we maintain systems of free speech and free questioning because we believe it is helpful in pursuing The Truth. In bilateral or multilateral colloquy, it is the truth of the matter with which we are primarily interested — not ensuring that any individual feels heard or seen.
To return to Wednesday evening, then, Dershowitz’s rhetorical appeal to free speech to settle our scores on the transgender issue rings hollow. The professor is entitled to his opinion, but it is always the truth or falsehood of the matter that we ought to care most about. And as Seth Leibsohn and I wrote in a 2023 essay for the Claremont Institute’s “American Mind” journal, in the context of then-raging anti-Jewish incitement on university campuses, “When purported contributions to the public discourse exceed substantive dissident speech and become unmoored from anything remotely smacking of the pursuit of truth, they are liable to be treated as something less than fully speech qua speech for either moral or legal … purposes.”
Consider Samizdat Prize awardee Charlie Kirk himself. For many, Kirk will be remembered as a martyr for free speech — and for good reason. But as a coalition builder and leader, Kirk was also fully capable of drawing strong boundaries, when appropriate. Kirk viewed abortion as murder, gender ideology as irreconcilable with reality and antisemitism as a “mind virus.” When Kirk was murdered in September while sitting under one of his trademark “Prove Me Wrong” tents, he was indeed engaging in robust free dialogue with often-liberal student interlocutors. But the goal wasn’t to glorify his speech or their speech — it was to bring those liberals closer to the truth.
Free speech is one of the most important principles undergirding the American way of life. But we have other worthy principles as well. And our collective lodestar must always remain the pursuit of the common good and the truth.
Josh Hammer’s latest book is “Israel and Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West.” This article was produced in collaboration with Creators Syndicate. X: @josh_hammer
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Ideas expressed in the piece
Free speech should not be treated as the single highest value in American society, but rather as one good within the broader basket of goods that constitute the common good. The foremost goal of politics is to pursue and realize the common good, and free speech has value primarily as an instrument toward other substantive ends.
The Constitution prioritizes religious liberty over free speech, with the two religion clauses appearing before the free speech clause in the First Amendment, and numerous federal laws reflect the collective judgment that religious exercise holds supreme importance. The “Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity” referenced in the Constitution’s preamble emphasize the common good rather than liberty itself.
Legal systems of free speech exist to help society pursue objective truth, not to protect individual “truths” or to ensure that every person feels heard and seen. Drawing from historical understanding dating back to Plato’s Academy in ancient Athens, free speech and free questioning are maintained because they contribute to pursuing The Truth through dialogue and colloquy.
Speech that becomes “unmoored from anything remotely smacking of the pursuit of truth” and exceeds substantive dissident speech should be treated as something less than fully protected speech for moral or legal purposes. Drawing strong boundaries about what constitutes legitimate discourse within movements is necessary and appropriate.
Charlie Kirk exemplified this principle by drawing strong boundaries when appropriate while engaging in dialogue; his engagement in free speech was not meant to glorify speech itself, but to bring his interlocutors closer to the truth.
Different views on the topic
The right’s recent actions demonstrate hypocrisy in claims about free speech commitment, with conservatives now using government power and public shaming to suppress criticism and dissent, targeting individuals who question Kirk’s legacy or make negative comments about his assassination[1]. Republicans have pledged to use congressional authority to mandate bans for posts critical of Kirk and to revoke business licenses and professional credentials of those celebrating his death[1].
The First Amendment protects speech from governmental interference regardless of whether the speech is hateful or offensive, and free speech advocates traditionally push for expansive cultural protections beyond legal requirements, rejecting efforts to get people fired for intemperate social media posts[1]. A shift toward more just equilibrium had occurred where people’s worst moments on social media shouldn’t define their lives or cost them their jobs[1].
The distinction between platform access and determining ideological boundaries is being conflated; while conservatives have ample platforms available through YouTube, Rumble, X, and Substack, the actual debate should focus on determining what viewpoints genuinely belong within a movement, not on preventing access to all speech platforms[2]. Blithe appeals against “cancel culture” miss the mark and fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the conversation[2].
Vice President JD Vance argued that Charlie Kirk “believed that each of us, all of us, had something worth saying” and emphasized that the right should not engage in “canceling each other,” suggesting that ideological diversity within conservatism should be preserved rather than policed through boundary-drawing[2].
Hammer’s framing of civil rights advocacy by Muslim organizations as part of a global terrorist conspiracy represents bigoted conspiracy theories that have historically been used against religious minorities, and his criticism conflates legitimate advocacy for Palestinian human rights with anti-American sentiment[3].
