'The Constitution is not a suicide pact'

In a well-functioning democracy, institutions reduce the risks that accompany conformity, in part because they ensure that conformists will see and learn from dissenters, and hence increase the likelihood that more information will emerge, to the benefit of all. A high-level official during World War II attributed the successes of the Allies, and t

to make the leap from the natural revulsion we experience at certain alternative worldviews to actively silencing them is to surrender to the authoritarian tendency.

Contrary to the accepted premise—that radical dissent demonstrates a personality disorder—the opposite could be true: in the face of severe injustice, a refusal to dissent is the sign of a character flaw or moral failure.

It manifests in a rigid and shallow understanding of freedom of speech (generally understood to be the final frontier in the fight to be as openly bigoted as possible without repercussions).

Nikolai Bukharin [1888–1938], a Communist author who lived in a Communist country, wrote a pamphlet in 19175, in which he said, we asked for freedom of the press, thought, and civil liberties in the past because we were in the opposition and needed these liberties to conquer. Now that we have conquered, there is no longer any need for such civil li