The Silencing
Authors: Kirsten Powers
Tags: #Best 2015 Nonfiction, #Censorship, #History, #Nonfiction, #Political Science, #Retail
PRAISE FOR
THE SILENCING
“A searing and courageous indictment of the growing intolerance of the American left—written with passion and eloquence by one of the nation’s most principled and fair-minded liberals. An important book on a subject many are simply too afraid to touch.”
—Charles Krauthammer, Pulitzer Prize–winning syndicated columnist and author of the #1
New York Times
bestseller
Things That Matter
“A damning critique of the scandal of America’s deepening liberal illiberalism.
The Silencing
reminds me of the courage of Edward R. Murrow’s stand against the smearing and bullying of McCarthyism. All true lovers of American freedom, whether conservative or liberal, will welcome this exposé and its clear call for a return to genuine liberalism.”
—Os Guinness, author of
The Global Public Square
“Kirsten Powers convincingly calls out her fellow liberals for being astonishingly illiberal. A great read.”
—Brit Hume, Fox News senior political analyst
“Kirsten Powers explodes and skewers ‘The Silencing’—the demonizing and repression of different views, especially conservative views. Here is a liberal calling out other supposedly liberal people who claim to believe in free speech but tell all who disagree with them to shut up. Hallelujah—you are lucky to have this book in your hands!”
—Juan Williams, Fox News political analyst and
New York Times
bestselling author of
Muzzled
“I salute my friend Kirsten Powers for boldly and eloquently breaking the spiral of silence on silencing. That someone who identifies as a liberal is courageously drawing attention to the ugly new intolerance among us will give Americans of every political stripe hope and joy for our common future.”
—Eric Metaxas,
New York Times
bestselling author of
Miracles
and
Bonhoeffer
“Tolerance and free expression are founding values of our republic and yet they’re under attack from the extreme wings of the American political spectrum. Shining a harsh light on the ‘illiberal left,’ Kirsten Powers exposes a grim campaign to silence speech. This is an important book.”
—Ron Fournier, senior political columnist and editorial director of
National Journal
“In this examination of the multiplying attacks on freedom of speech, Kirsten Powers casts a cool eye on the damages done to politics, academia, and civic discourse by the aggressive assertion of a perverse new entitlement. It is the postulated right to pass through life without being disturbed, annoyed, offended, or discomposed by the expression of anyone else’s thoughts.”
—George F. Will, Pulitzer Prize–winning syndicated columnist and author of the
New York Times
bestseller
A Nice Little Place on the North Side
THE SILENCING
Copyright © 2015 by Kirsten Powers
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, website, or broadcast.
Regnery® is a registered trademark of Salem Communications Holding Corporation
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Powers, Kirsten.
The silencing : how the left is killing free speech / Kirsten Powers.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-62157-391-3
1.
Liberalism--United States. 2.
Right and left (Political science)--United States. 3.
Freedom of speech--United States.
I. Title.
JC574.2.U6P68 2015
323.44’30973--dc23
2015011565
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To my father
CONTENTS
THREE
Illiberal Intolerance and Intimidation
FOUR
Intolerance 101: Shutting Down Debate
FIVE
Intolerance 201: Free Speech for Me but Not for Thee
EIGHT
Illiberal Feminist Thought Police
NINE
Feminists against Facts, Fairness, and the Rule of Law
I
grew up during the 1970s with a feminist mother who was trailblazing her way across Alaska as one of the country’s few female archaeologists. She and my father, also an archaeologist, had set out for the “Last Frontier” on an adventure after earning their Ph.D.s at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Although they divorced a few years later, my parents continued as colleagues at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks for three decades.
The campus was a haven to the few liberals in Fairbanks, an otherwise overwhelmingly conservative town located in the center of the state. It was at my hippy day care center Enep’ut (the Yup’ik Eskimo word for “our house”) that I sat in front of a fuzzy black and white television to cheer with dozens of toddlers as Richard Nixon resigned. That triumph of right over wrong was my first taste of politics—and I was hooked. Mine was one of a few little hands that went up in favor of Jimmy Carter in 1976 when my teacher asked which nominee we supported for president—a trend that
continued through every presidential campaign until I graduated from high school. It’s unlikely many of my friends’ mothers were sobbing the night Carter lost to Ronald Reagan, as was mine.
My political education occurred at the dinner table. Whether at my mother or father’s house, the topic invariably would be politics. It was there I was also taught how to defend my views. We viewed this as a necessary survival skill, as our family was surrounded by people who believed liberalism was the root of all evil. At my tiny Jesuit high school, I would debate my conservative classmates on issue after issue, whether it was feminism or caring for the poor. My friends’ parents were uniformly small-government conservatives, and their children followed suit. Ronald Reagan, their patron saint, was president. He could do no wrong.
At my house, however, there was a very different storyline on the president. The Democratic roots in our family ran deep, as both my parents hailed from Irish Democratic stock. My father’s tribe was a mix of working class Catholics and Protestants. On my mother’s side was an army of Massachusetts-born Irish Catholic Democrats who idolized John F. Kennedy. The allegiance to the Democratic Party had been cemented generations before, when family members reached the shores of America. I was constantly reminded that the Democratic Party stood up for working people, for families like ours, and those that came later, and not just from Ireland.
Despite this background, I can’t remember anyone ever suggesting that conservative views were illegitimate and unworthy of debate. I first encountered that attitude when I moved to New York City much later, where bumping into a conservative was less likely than spotting a unicorn. That unfamiliarity ultimately bred contempt.
It was easy to stereotype conservatives because I no longer knew any beyond my childhood friends, whom I rarely saw. I had already been happily ideologically cocooned for much of my twenties as I worked as a political appointee in the Clinton administration. This isolation grew when I moved to New York in my early thirties and became enmeshed in
Democratic politics there, including working on Andrew Cuomo’s first race for governor and consulting for the New York State Democratic Committee, among other things. Even the few Republicans I knew were basically liberal.
Two experiences unexpectedly put me in a regular relationship with conservatives: working as a contributor at Fox News and a later in life conversion to Christianity. The more I got to know actual conservative and religious people, the harder it was to justify the stereotypes I had so carelessly embraced. In my early days at Fox, I can remember trying to convince a conservative there that George Bush’s nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court didn’t really count as a female appointment because she was conservative and an evangelical Christian. He was horrified. I was confused as to why he would be horrified.
I’m now embarrassed that I ever thought such a thing, let alone said it aloud. Such a prejudiced view was only able to take root because of the lack of ideological, political, and religious diversity in my world.
But I wasn’t alone in my prejudice.
A 2007 study of faculty on college campuses found that 53 percent of university professors had “cool” or negative feelings toward evangelicals.
1
This raises serious questions about how Christian students can expect to be treated on secular campuses. Sadly, at the time this study was performed, I would have likely been among that 53 percent—even though I didn’t know a single evangelical.
Another study, released in 2012, found that 82 percent of liberal social psychologists surveyed said they would be at least a little prejudiced against a conservative applicant for a job in their department.
2
Here’s the problem: disagreement is fine; discrimination is not. Liberals are supposed to believe in diversity, which should include diversity of thought and belief. Instead, an alarming level of intolerance emanates from the left side of the political spectrum toward people who express views that don’t hew to the “settled” liberal worldview. The passion for silencing isn’t reserved for conservatives or orthodox Christians. Moderate Democrats,
independent minded liberals, and the ideologically agnostic become targets if they deviate on liberal sacred cow issues.
This intolerance is not a passive matter of opinion. It’s an aggressive, illiberal impulse to silence people. This conduct has become an existential threat to those who hold orthodox religious beliefs. But increasingly I hear from people across the political spectrum who are fearful not only of expressing their views, but also as to where all of this is heading. I’ve followed this trend closely as a columnist with growing concern. It’s become clear that the attempts—too often successful—to silence dissent from the liberal worldview aren’t isolated outbursts. They are part of a bigger story. This book is that story.