"Fuck the Draft." On April 26, 1968, Paul Cohen was arrested in a Los Angeles courthouse for wearing a jacket bearing those three words. The government charged Cohen with disturbing the peace and later prosecuted him.
Cohen's arrest culminated in the Supreme Court decision California v. Cohen, in which the court opined that the First Amendment protected Cohen's right to express his opposition to the Vietnam War - regardless of the words through which he chose to convey it.
The court held that the value of allowing speech such as Cohen's outweighed whatever offense it created. A rough paraphrase of the court's opinion: Toughen up, Americans; if you don't like the words, avert your eyes.
That message retains vitality and relevance. Americans can still use a little toughing-up and greater tolerance for different ideas. Consider two examples.
The UA has had its own agitator recently. Bible-thumper Jed Smock has gotten substantial Wildcat press lately for his controversial stump-speeches criticizing gays, women and non-whites.
Similarly, Ward Churchill, an outspoken professor at the University of Colorado, has made headlines for comparing Americans to Nazis in the wake of Sept. 11. Churchill's controversial remarks include statements that Americans essentially deserved the Sept. 11 attacks by supporting government policies that have alienated people worldwide and caused deep hatred toward the United States, especially by those individuals who bombed the twin towers.
Both men have engendered a firestorm of criticism for their words. At the UA, students have attacked Smock with pies, milkshakes and verbal insults. In Colorado, the governor and university administrators have angrily demanded Churchill's resignation.
But the two men have one other thing in common: Our country needs people like them to foster debate. The marketplace of ideas is premised upon dissidents like Smock and Churchill who provoke discussion, challenge norms and instigate a reaction.
The Founding Fathers knew that, as humans, we don't like to acknowledge our own limitations. Often we lack the humility to consider that we might be wrong. That's precisely why they placed such value upon free speech - enshrining it in the mantle of First Amendment protection.
The proper remedy for those who disagree with the Smocks, Churchills and other provocateurs is counter-speech. If that doesn't work, try earplugs or walking shoes.
Sure, Smock and Churchill might be wrong, foolish or just attention-hungry. Regardless, we should at least hear them out. Granted, much of Smock's message is mere invective. But some of Churchill's points warrant consideration.
Churchill claims that the United States has an ongoing history of exploitation and imperialism. He also claims that the United States warrants retaliation from Iraq and other nations that it has attacked - he compares Sept. 11 victims to those foreign civilians killed in U.S. bombings abroad.
Admittedly, these guys are extremists. Nevertheless, even extremists sometimes raise important points.
For one thing, Churchill is right in stating that the Iraqi death toll, or "collateral damage," has been estimated to exceed 100,000 - as reported by the British medical journal The Lancet. Notably, however, like many other facts that might be seen as tarnishing America's standing, that statistic has gotten little attention from our "liberal" media since it was first announced last fall. Today still, whenever we hear about the cost of the Iraqi war in terms of lives lost, it is almost invariably calculated solely in terms of American lives.
This tendency to quickly vilify, censor and ostracize those like Churchill is a product of our current social temperament: We Americans want to be right, and we're not willing to hear otherwise. That mindset, in turn, leads the media to report selectively, rather than reporting unpopular, unsavory news such as the Iraqi civilian death toll.
But if we are unwilling to listen, it is doubtful that the media will test us. Like other businesses, media outlets have a bottom line - selling news. Consider the relative uniformity of America's "contrasting" news sources - Fox News and CNN - which, on the global political spectrum, are centimeters apart. Conversely, examine the news from Al-Jazeera, the BBC or other foreign sources; their reporting of world events is distinctly different.
Problematically, muckraking is precisely the watchdog function that the Founding Fathers envisioned. They contemplated a robust and vigilant media, disseminating diverse viewpoints, including unpopular positions such as Churchill's. Ultimately, then, ordinary Americans would make the final decision about which arguments to accept or reject.
A healthy marketplace depends upon our willingness to sometimes bear discomfort and to rid ourselves of our own intolerance. We must demand it from the media and, most importantly, we must demand it from ourselves.
Dillon Fishman is a third-year law student. He can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.