The Case Against Free Speech: The First Amendment, Fascism, and the Future of Dissent

by P.E. Moskowitz

A hard-hitting expose that shines a light on the powerful conservative forces that have waged a multi-decade battle to hijack the meaning of free speech--and how we can reclaim it.


There's a critical debate taking place over one of our most treasured free speech. We argue about whether it's at risk, whether college students fear it, whether neo-Nazis deserve it, and whether the government is adequately upholding it.

But as P. E. Moskowitz provocatively shows in The Case Against Free Speech , the term has been defined and redefined to suit those in power, and in recent years, it has been captured by the Right to push their agenda. What's more, our investment in the First Amendment obscures an uncomfortable free speech is impossible in an unequal society where a few corporations and the ultra-wealthy bankroll political movements, millions of voters are disenfranchised, and our government routinely silences critics of racism and capitalism.

Weaving together history and reporting from Charlottesville, Skokie, Standing Rock, and the college campuses where student protests made national headlines, Moskowitz argues that these flash points reveal more about the state of our democracy than they do about who is allowed to say what.

Our current definition of free speech replicates power while dissuading dissent, but a new ideal is emerging. In this forcefully argued, necessary corrective, Moskowitz makes the case for speech as a tool--for exposing the truth, demanding equality, and fighting for all our civil liberties.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History, Philosophy, Political Science, Audiobook, Social Science

272 pages, Hardcover

First published August 13, 2019

About the author

Peter Moskowitz (they/them pronouns) is a former staff writer for Al Jazeera America. They have also written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New Republic, The Nation, VICE, WIRED, OUT Magazine, and others. They co-founded Study Hall, a media collaborative with over 1,500 members.

A graduate of Hampshire College and the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, Moskowitz lives in Philadelphia.

Reviews

[ocelia · Rating 4 out of 5]

everything moskowitz writes is like......cathartic to me lol. their twitter is also great. docked one star because i thought the book's organization jumbled the argument a little bit but honestly who cares. would recommend!

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

Free Speech is when a gang pre-aproved by Moskowitz controls what you can say or think. Anything not deemed Halal by him, is obviously "not free speech".

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m writing this review for 2 reasons:

1) This book is excellent.
2) Most of the negative reactions I’ve seen to it (here and elsewhere online) are from people who either didn’t read it or have extremely poor reading comprehension skills.

The author does not support using police to lock up people for expressing right-wing views (Moskowitz is an anarchist lol). Here’s a quote from the first page of the book that backs this up.

“THIS BOOK IS NOT ANTI-FREE-SPEECH. IT IS ANTI-THE-CONCEPT-OF-free-speech. It’s an important distinction. Everyone should have the right to say what they want. I will not argue otherwise. I am not an authoritarian.”

They want readers to think hard about free speech as a concept and as a tool for enacting social change. Much of what Americans have been led to believe about free speech and the first amendment is a lie. Throughout most of US history the government not intend for this country to be a place where anyone can freely express their opinions (Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 being a great example among many explored in the book).

Moskowitz does a great job of examining why there’s so much mainstream press coverage about the impending death of free speech when right wing speakers are protested on college campuses, but much less coverage when hundreds of J20 protestors were arrested after marching for just minutes against the inauguration of Donald Trump. The hand-wringing over the supposed threat the left poses against free speech is actually a product of a decades long campaign funded by a small group of very wealthy individuals who have an enormous amount of influence over media, the tech industry, academia, and the US government.

[Daniel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Moskowitz is a communist and anarchist. This book states that Free Speech is tool of the state. According to Moskowitz, free speech is meaningless if billionaires can buy advertisements and support professors to publish research congruent to their ideas, but normal people can only say it in a blog which most people will not read. Only ‘complete equality of material well-being’ will allow free speech to be of any use.

According to the author, it is the Conservatists who suppress free speech, and not the students who did not allow Conservatist intellectuals to speak on campuses.

Some of the writing makes sense, such as clearly racist remarks and death threats should be outlawed. However, what this book suggested was much more- anything that is not approved by the author should not be allowed to be said.

But of course, to extremist leftists, only a communist government with committees to decide what is allowed is the only way.

[Jake · Rating 3 out of 5]

First of all, the title is meant to be provocative, basically to get people to read the book. It worked for me. It's not so much against free speech as against the current conception of what free speech means. Speech has never been truly free in the USA. We all know the Supreme Court opinion that stated that you are not free to yell FIRE! in a crowded theatre. What isn't well known is that the case in which that statement was made legitimized the jailing of a man whose crime was handing out literature encouraging people to dodge the draft in WWI. It is an example of you being free to speak all you want provided you don't disturb those in power. So you are free to post dumb memes or even memes about how you are want to run over protesters (like the fat incel Nazi who did just that thing prior to killing a girl and wounding others in Virginia... and by the way, the author was right there and was almost killed by the guy) but if you are a Native American protester at Standing Rock, you are a terrorist. So, yeah, amen to all that. Great stuff. Now for the disagreement I had with the book. The author takes microaggressions and cultural appropriation and trigger warnings and shouting down speakers on campus down too seriously. In fact he even quotes (in a positive manner) someone who got so offended on campus that they said they would, and I quote... ahem, "literally die." Alright, aside from the melodrama, we all know that my pet peeve is people using "literally" to mean "metaphorically" or "proverbially" or such. Take a breath people. Keep protesting, but let's not get so offended that we all literally die because someone disagrees with us. Relax and try a different tactic, you counterproductive shits. Still worth a read, for the analysis of the seech the government has your back on, and the point that people freaking out is different that the government prohibiting speech (which they definitely do).

[Tyler Johnson · Rating 1 out of 5]

The usual left wing dribble. Don't waste your time. Just ask yourself what your average left wing communist would say about first amendment rights.

[Shawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely not my usual topic of interest but given our climate today felt that I needed to broaden my scope a bit. Wow is about all I can say. I mean I knew some of this stuff but the depths of how far those with unlimited monetary wealth will go is mind blowing.

[Avery · Rating 4 out of 5]

A superb, humanizing book for anyone who wants to understand college campuses in the Trump era. It's easy to be cynical about the situation on college campuses, and to question the intent of students, but this book instead fills readers in on where students are coming from and the challenges that they face. I was not as impressed by the political content, but there were some surprises there too.

The author is an antifa sympathizer, but more importantly, he's a well-trained journalist. He goes after the facts with a righteous anger, exposing how reporting about campuses becomes propaganda. Has anyone else noticed that most of the college campus visitors who cry “deplatforming” actually have all the platform they need, while more marginal individuals really are denied a mainstream platform when they need it? Moskowitz has noticed, and he has figured out how the game is played.

The most politically curious moment comes midway through the book, when the author discusses the role of the ACLU in defending the right of Nazis to parade through a neighborhood of Holocaust survivors, and the role of the ultra-right Jewish Defense League in preventing that parade. Moskowitz, who is himself a Jewish anti-Zionist, despises the JDL, but openly admits he understands and even admires what they did. This admission is very interesting and points to how counterprotests help people protect their interests.

The book offers two concluding chapters, the first of which, regarding the Internet, was familiar ground to me. “If you want to learn about the US military’s role in the creation of the Internet and you search [Google for] DARPA,” Moskowitz writes, “you’ll get many results that portray DARPA positively, and a few that only superficially cover the agency’s controversies, before you get to something truly critical, like Yasha Levine’s Surveillance Valley.” Having summarized most of Yasha’s book over the previous few pages, Moskowitz appends a thoughtful argument that the Internet has completely invalidated the social possibilities contained in free speech — but he has to ramble quite a bit to get there, including an unnecessary and clichéd invocation of Foucault.

A final, shorter conclusion summarizes the entire message of the book: free speech was once a means to transformative political action, and now it stands in the way of the same. I was only somewhat persuaded by this, but I am grateful for the way the case is made, especially in the first half of the book.

I received a review copy from NetGalley, but the choice to post this review was mine.

[Haidong · Rating 1 out of 5]

To paraphrase the last sentence: "I believe it is totally meaningless".
Things 'learned' from this book:
- A really really condensed version of internet's history: 'internet was invented by gov to fight communism, then privatized to benefit several giant telecoms, then took over by giant tech companies like google, facebook, amazon, and used to further suppression of free speech'
- Why success rate in silicon valley is so low (hint: we were not billionaires to begin with): "if I knew how to code and have access to a few billion dollars, in my opinion, I can create an equally useful search engine (like google)..."
- Popularity of the word "Inherently", couple of examples
- "internet inherently privileges some people's speech over others"
- "companies like google founded and run by white men, and set out to make huge profits, will inherently bias the way we find information" ==> Dear Comrade PE: welcome to DPRK, the land of the equal, we guarantee that there is no company founded / run by white men (if there is, let us know we will nationalize their companies pronto). Yours truly, Supreme Leader

[Jessica Yopp · Rating 5 out of 5]

An eye-opening dissection of what "free speech" really means in contemporary America. The book argues that the first amendment has been reduced to a conservative talking point, allowing those already in power to continue promoting their agenda and propaganda while hypocritically silencing the left. The author doesn't so much argue against free speech as they do point out that it doesn't truly exist in the first place. True free speech can't exist when power, influence, and money determine who actually gets their speech heard.

The section on Charlottesville made me very emotional. The violence that happened there was avoidable, but was permitted to happen thanks to the ACLU of Virginia defending neo-Nazis and the KKK. White men shouting for the extermination of others is not speech worth protecting or defending, ever. It's not a "differing viewpoint," it's just promoting violence, genocide and fascism.

Also discussed is the Black Lives Matter movement, Standing Rock pipeline protests, and immigrant rights protests. Seeing how the government responded to those movements, it's clear that the types of free speech they really want to protect isn't the kind that challenges power or the status quo.

I can't recommend this book more. It's a scathing look at how speech and dissent is truly treated in America.

I received a review copy of this book from NetGalley, but the choice to review was my own.

[Sheila · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eye opening book on how free speech is determined by those with money and power. Those who are morally and ethically correct have no free speech. They are silenced in their speech and protests. Being an idealist, this makes me sad and worried about the future of the U.S.

His documentation is well done. I liked that he showed the other side of the story not just the part that we hear or read in the media. I am appalled that the government, set up with such high ideals, allows so many voices to be silenced. I learned a lot. I remembered how the stories he cites were played in the media--Standing Rock, Black Lives Matter, college demonstrations, Charlottesville. It is sad that today repeats what has happened in the past to unionists, communists, the poor, etc. We need those voices to equalize the abuses of those in power.

This is a well researched book that made me think about what we are losing as society is flattening out for the many with only a few on top. Let the protesters open our eyes and minds to what is happening.

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

***I was granted an ARC of this via Netgalley from the publisher.***

The Case Against Free Speech by PE Moskoswitz provides a view of free speech that will challenge people of all political stances. He discusses the debates surrounding free speech from Charlottesville, to college campuses, to the protests at Standing Rock. He puts his arguments about what free speech is into perspective by showing the reader what is happening today in the United States and making a clear connection to events in the past that have led to what we see today. This a great examination of what we mean when we say free speech and whether or not we truly have free speech in the United States.

You can find my full review here:
https://openlettersreview.com/posts/t...

Rating: 4 stars. Would recommend to a friend.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very comprehensive consideration of the way that the *idea* of free speech has been bandied about, specifically as a rhetorical tool, both historically and recently in the USA. Moskievitz claims that we’ve never really had free speech, esp on the left, as the government has always supported a more conservative ideology that supports the status quo, as opposed to ideas such as union rights, socialism, suffrage, which it has often limited. Moskievitz then brings this claim into very specific contemporary cases on college campuses to support his argument. Troubling, enlightening, well researched, well written. Moskievitz acknowledges a personal liberal bias from the start, but the case to support that claim is pretty convincing.

[Shane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating and well written read. More about the lack of a consistent concept of free speech, primarily in access to speech or the ability of speech to affect change. The case studies are nuances and well discussed.

[Lucy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read to disagree

A short, absorbing read that is much more than its provocative title. One of those boy, I disagree, but this is enlightening books. Read it, or you will violate the author's free speech!!?1

[Joshua Glasgow · Rating 4 out of 5]

There was a tweet I once wrote, back when Twitter was still a thing, which I still think of frequently. It was a play on a lyric from ‘Hamilton’: “Raise a glass to freedom, that’s something they can never take away… because it’s a meaningless buzzword.” That same idea seems central to P.E. Moskowitz’s THE CASE AGAINST FREE SPEECH—the theory that “free speech” is an empty signifier, although I think they would argue that it’s not a right that can be taken away not simply because it is meaningless but because it was never granted in the first place. Speech is always circumscribed in a multitude of ways, most importantly by what we define as speech versus action and according to the political power of those who do the defining. Moskowitz’s ultimate thesis is that the only path to a truly egalitarian “free speech” model is through ending racism and inequality; however, in a world where structures are in place to maintain the status quo, and which use state power to punish those who push against systems of iniquity, “realizing a meaningful definition of free speech . . . will likely require massively overhauling our government through illegal actions, and perhaps violence.” Moskowitz doesn’t explicitly call for violence, but suggests it is inevitable—that there is not really a path to change without it.

Too often the “free speech” “debate” is presented in terms of protests against conservative (read as: racist) speakers. The media and even supposedly liberal politicians and celebrities lap up conservative framing of the occasional progressive pushback as a violation of their 1st Amendment rights (even though rarely is there any government action involved for which the 1st Amendment would be implicated); they smear protesters as unreasonably sensitive and simply unwilling to hear alternate viewpoints; and they universalize their goals to make them seem beneficial to everyone. Protests against a planned talk by Charles Murray, author of a book making bigoted and unsupported arguments about relative intelligence between races, are portrayed as an affront to free speech!, whereas the speech of those protesting is dismissed, vilified, and is being outlawed by many state legislatures (for example, Louisiana created a law punishing anyone who protests “critical infrastructure”, meaning oil pipelines, with five years in prison). The conservative plot to frame everything that encroaches on conservatism as a violation of free speech is a propaganda tool. And, again, the “liberal left”, more often than not, is doing conservatives’ dirty work for them.

It's appropriate that I read this so soon after reading Ed Burmila’s CHAOTIC NEUTRAL: HOW DEMOCRATS LOST THEIR SOUL IN THE CENTER because the same ideas are at play here. Bill Clinton, Moskowitz notes, called Charles Murray’s theory that social welfare breeds lower intelligence “essentially right” and it likely influenced his policies. Obama made speeches pleading with his audience to always listen respectfully to those they “disagree” with. The ACLU, which Moskowitz explains began as a far-left organization bent on changing the world in favor of the labor class, has become whittled down to a shadow of its former self and now puts all of its emphasis on defending some abstract concept of “free speech” without purpose. The ACLU—the fucking ACLU—supported the ‘Citizens United’ SCOTUS ruling which gave billionaires essentially free reign to influence and corrupt federal elections because they have been drained of all political will and have been bamboozled into doing the devil’s work—and I do mean the literal devil, because to the extent that there is a literal devil it’s name is “conservatism”, with that euphemism itself being heinous propaganda. But I’m getting off-track here, aren’t I?

The point I’m trying to make, and which Moskowitz makes here, is that it is necessary to look past the rhetoric to get at who benefits from appeals to “free speech”. Take the famous planned neo-Nazi march in Skokie, Illinois (guess whose side the ACLU was on in this scuffle). It was presented as a question of whether neo-Nazis should be able to freely march in a town made up predominantly of Holocaust survivors chanting “Jews will not replace us” and that Black people don’t belong in the country, but that question ignores everything leading up to that point. Why does the neo-Nazi hate Jewish and Black people? Why are the courts and police willing to protect him? It is the whole history of this country, a history of hundreds of years of “racism and right-wing political terrorism” which has determined what is acceptable or unacceptable in this country. By and large if liberals protest something, they do it in an orderly fashion—picket signs, sit-ins, and at worst property damage may occur. Incidentally, that’s one thing the author points out has been given greater protection than speech: despite pearl-clutching claims that free speech is sacred, it always, always comes second to private property rights. That itself is a policy choice. Meanwhile, if right-wingers protest something, they do it by driving into a crowd of people in Charlottesville, Virginia; they do it by sending death and rape threats; by beating, lynching, burning down churches; by scouring their targets’ professional and personal histories to find anything that can ruin their lives; by making their victims forever fearful of what repercussions they might experience for exercising their supposed right to speak. And, by and large, this right-wing attack on anything to the left of the status quo has been authorized or led by Congress and the courts.

Moskowitz provides a survey of the politics of free speech largely beginning at the turn of the 20th century. Historically restrictions on speech were common, and almost always restricting progressive thought. There were laws against distributing abolitionist literature during the period of open slavery in the U.S., and Virginia outlawed literature “calculated to incite” rebellion among slaves with a maximum sentence of death. Eugene Debs, founder of the Industrial Workers of the World union, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for speeches critical of U.S. involvement in World War II. Benjamin Gitlow was sentenced to 5 years in prison for publishing leftist literature; SCOTUS upheld Gitlow’s conviction, 7-2. What we now think of as “McCarthyism”, in an attempt to relieve our collective guilt by pinning it on one man, was in fact a widespread campaign of anti-Communism throughout the nation (it will probably not surprise you to know that even then, so-called conservatives glommed onto the term “Communism” as a catch-all way to demonize anything that went against their goals). SCOTUS’ ‘Schenck v. U.S.’ case is the origin of the phrase “fire in a crowded theater”, which most remember as an example of the broadness of free speech—that you can say anything short of creating a panic—but what is not remembered is that the Court upheld Schenck’s conviction for distributing a pamphlet advocating peaceful resistance to the draft, framing it as similar to crying “fire in a crowded theater” and unanimously deeming it a “clear and present danger” to the United States. The FBI targeted the Black Panthers with lies and sabotage, and there is good reason to believe they may have had a hand in both the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. Leftist and antiracist ideas have always been equated with danger in the U.S.

News articles and pundits engaging in the current round of fearmongering about “political correctness” never confront what college students and others are truly doing—"not simply shutting down speech but advocating for antiracist and profeminist education”. Take Murray, who I referenced earlier: this was not about a scientist with controversial findings, but a racist who had deeply influenced American policy. While the media portrayed students as “rabble-rousers, unthinking kids unable or unwilling to engage with Murray’s ideas”, the students were asking where is the line? Middlebury College would not invite a climate change denier to speak before students, for instance, because climate change is settled science. Choosing to invite a person to speak who claims Black people are less intelligent than whites “says something about the college’s willingness to tolerate these claims, that they find this unsettled.” Despite being portrayed as unthinking, Middlebury students wrestled with the implications of their actions mightily and actually wrote a treatise on their reason for protesting, which states in part: “By framing all ideas as worth of debate, the college risked . . . elevating biased opinion with no solid, factual foundation into the realm of ‘knowledge’ and affirming the unconscious biases many hold.” That is to say, there is a difference between debating controversial ideas and legitimizing those which fundamentally challenge the humanity of disfavored groups. That is the line Middlebury students and many liberals draw, and it is what is obfuscated by the misleading framing of the issue as being about free speech. It is not about free speech, but about whether to listen to people of color.

I could go on, but all of this is to say that I found THE CASE AGAINST FREE SPEECH to be a very informative look at the true contours of the “free speech” issue in this country. It’s absolutely maddening, the way a campaign of conservative terrorism kneecapped turn of the 20th century progressive dabblings in socialism, transforming the “liberal” party which previously fought for structural change in favor of the labor class into something which parrots right-wing talking points and thinks of free speech only as a milquetoast way to “respectfully disagree with the world as it rapidly heads toward authoritarianism and climate catastrophe”. But as the author writes, if free speech cannot change anything, then what’s the point of defending it at all? It’s a good question, and one that we would do well to apply to every aspect of our political lives: What is it we’re trying to accomplish, exactly, and are the tools we’ve created for ourselves fit for that purpose? (Because, reminder, our system of government was not handed down from on high but is a compact made by humans.) I appreciate this book for centering those questions in my mind.

[Sharanya Perez · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good start towards educating myself. The book itself isn't that great, but it has some worthwhile nuggets of information for someone new to the movement (like me). I would recommend going straight to better books though.

[Patrick Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

In recent years have removed myself from the free speech debate because I felt it was spinning in circles, few people understood it, and it was being exploited by the right. This book confirmed many of those feelings. I was particularly interested in the rights highjacking of the issue. Like many issues, the right has strategically taken hold, manipulated it, and did it over the course of decades.

The book can be disjointed and tries to try in subjects together and connect them to free speech in ways that are unclear.

I would have liked great discussion on Citizens United and specific SCOTUS cases. It was validating and I enjoyed the book. I am still torn on the topic of free speech, is it acceptable to limit the speech of those that we disagree with, even if that speech invites violence. I need to learn about free speech laws in other countries

[R. · Rating 2 out of 5]

This wasn't a great book by any means in my opinion, but it was interesting and had moments when it rang true. I probably land center left on the political spectrum and so sometimes I felt like the writer was coming at things from the far left and taking points a little bit too far.

That said, the general synopsis is valid and something that people should consider, that the best thing the government can do is to stay out of the way and not take sides around some of the First Amendment issues today. Why would the government want to take sides between actual real life Nazis and people out to stop them or limit their message? I think it's great when the Supreme Court exercises restraint and chooses not to hear a case for example. That's the government choosing to not throw their weight behind one side or the other in an argument among private citizens in some cases. There's nothing to say that local governments can't do the same thing, and some do. But others lend credence to evil organizations by treating their viewpoints as valid as any other less violent, immoral, or other ones.

Not worth throwing on top of your reading list, but maybe if you're researching the First Amendment or something in particular.

[Georgia · Rating 5 out of 5]

phenomenal read that's well written and well structured. as you may be able to guess, this is not actually an anti-free speech book, moskowitz is more interested in lifting the veil on it. "free speech is not an ideal, but a thick layer of paint obfuscating many truths--about racism, our country's predilection for fascism, our increasingly unequal economy, and the fact that a few people and corporations control nearly every fiber of our lives. the more you peel the paint back, the more you reveal the reality, the deep rot of a country in unending crisis". at times this book is devastating, and they refuse to end it on an optimistic note--but i'm grateful for this read!

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think Moskowitz does a good job of connecting fascists cries for free speech to their history (German and British fascists in the 1920s & 30s both regularly claimed their right to free speech was being restricted). But they do the best job in making the case that unrestricted free speech has never existed in America and that we already accept numerous restrictions on what we say and how we can say it.

[Irina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found myself wishing the book would make the argument promised in the title, or otherwise offer some possible solutions. That aside, it does a meticulous and persuasive job of describing the problem: speech is free to those who are able to pay for it. If nothing else, read the historical analysis of the ACLU's turn from radical to establishmentarian.

[Nathaniel Dakin · Rating 3 out of 5]

When one looks at the title of a book one hopes that the title will provide a clue as to the subject of said book. Judging by the title, this book should be a treatise by a lefty, pinko commie who wants to remove free speech rights from Americans. In reality, the title doesn't describe what the book is about. Its not so much a case against free speech rather it makes the case that we don't actually have free speech, we only think we do.

Over all, I was generally fairly pleased with the book. The author delves a bit into the history of free speech in the US and how we really don't have a very good history of being tolerant of conflicting opinion and how the government has a long history of suppressing ideas it doesn't like. The history is obviously rather condesced but Moskowitz cites plenty of books in the endnotes that should help anyone interested in reading more.

The writting was also pretty good. It lacked some retorical flare that can liven things up a bit but thankfully Moskowitz avoided overwritting. Knowing that the author is to my left politically and given the title of the book, I was expecting a lot of annoying jargon and a general air of obnoxousness that seems to be common among those who favor restrictions on speech. The book was refreshingly free of both except for perhaps a comment in passing made by an interviewee. Also to be fair to Moskowitz, he doesn't advocate for restrictions on speech. He quite clearly says early in the book that any restrictions, even on the speech of nazis is frought with danger and the ever present threat that the government will simpley use those laws to crackdown on those whose opinions the government deems problematic.

I think if I have anything particualarly negitive to say about the book is that I wish it had been about what the title implies. I picked up the book hoping for an explination as to why a small number of my fellow progressives think that banning speech is a good idea and how they would plan to keep the laws from being turned on them, which would happen. Through interviewees, Moskowitz does sometimes offer some hints at an answer to my question and while I still disagree with people who favor restrictions, I feel I at least came away with a slightly more nuanced understanding of why some people want some restrictions on speech.

If you are looking for a book that agrues that free speech should be abolished, this is not that book. However, if you want to good overview of how we really aren't nearly as free to say what we want as we think we are, this is a good book to pick up.

[Anokh Palakurthi · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a long time, I considered myself as close as you could reasonably be for being a "free speech" advocate. In "The Case Against Free Speech," P.E. Moskowitz puts forward a well-researched, thoughtful, and concise breakdown of the history of free speech within the United States. I have to admit - I was not thrilled with its introduction, which acknowledged the incendiary title and walked it back in the first sentence. But the rest of "The Case Against Free Speech" is difficult to poke holes in.

In the first half, Moskowitz covers two different famous "campus hysteria" cases of the 2010s and draws a powerful contrast with the 2017 Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville. It's an entertaining read, and a large part of it is because Moskowitz is an exceptional writer, weaving between strong research and compelling personal anecdotes. However, where they really shine is the second half; where a high point is their summary of the history of the internet, specifically its surveillance state origins and its cultural repackaging to the public.

I do wish that Moskowitz spent a little more time engaging with the left's defenses of "free speech" rather than debunking right wing talking points. For example, Noam Chomsky is only mentioned here and there, but Moskowitz's responses aren't nearly as vigorous. For this reason, the conclusion feels less powerful than it should, because most of the book is centered around exposing right wing hypocrisy and explaining how free speech can't truly be attained in a capitalist state. But what about how the socialists viewed free speech? This doesn’t receive as much coverage, though Moskowitz briefly acknowledges the ACLU’s connections with early 20th-century labor and communist roots.

As someone who leans left of liberal, I have reservations with how the book is framed as a moral argument, rather than a strategic one of how the left should think about free speech. However, if you take it for the latter, it's a unique and extremely fascinating contribution to a topic that most people are insufferably close-minded on. I'd happily recommend it to anyone interested in an alternative take on free speech.

[pugs · Rating 5 out of 5]

negative "reviews" of this book seem based on reaction to the title (explained within the first couple pages, which said reviewers didn't read), peppered with the word "communist" and a stray, out of context quote; coincidentally (or predictably) all rather proving moskowitz's point about the obtuse billionaire justice warrior crowd, how successful the rich are at propagandizing and making sure their voices remain most prevalent. hangers-on, however, used to baffle me more until reading this book, seemingly acting as free mouthpieces for the elites who create bogus think tanks and broad, 'merican sounding associations to funnel money into academia, in turn pandering, "market place of free idea" empty phrasing and classist economics to fill up space in the classroom, graduating once hangers-on into climbers of the corporate world, writing law accordingly; all the while, elites are hedging their funding into the social angle, propping up right wing provocateurs financially, grabbing media attention, distracting under the guise of caring about free speech. it's sinister, and one hundred years ago, unions, leftist organizations, socialists, and communists would call such actions out, resulting in the state punishing them legally and lethally (still happening today), hence the formation of the ACLU, once rather radical and siding with the working class, prior to becoming toothless and defending nazis; this, combined with mccarthyism, nationalism, and neoliberalism of the past century has created an atmosphere of speech dubbed free, yet a slim percentage of corporatists have the most control of what is heard, making the reader ask themselves: was speech really ever free? this isn't a feel good read, but will certainly influence how you think of free speech as a concept.

[Darren Chaker · Rating 4 out of 5]

By Darren Chaker:

Having several of my own First Amendment wins, see below, this book touched on several aspects of First Amendment law that I truly appreciated. Be sure to read this great book!

McMillan v. Chaker, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 139020 (McMillan v. Chaker (S.D.Cal. Aug. 28, 2017, No. 16cv2186-WQH-MDD) 2017 U.S.Dist.LEXIS 1390200 [San Diego attorney Scott McMillan sued for defamation under RICO, case dismissed]

US v. Chaker (9th Cir. 2016) 654 F.App'x 891, 892, the ACLU, Electronic Frontier Foundation, First Amendment Coalition, Cato Institute, and the University of Florida reversed a conviction premised on First Amendment rights where blog postings were at issue.

Chaker v. Crogan, 428 F.3d 1215 C.A.9 (Cal.),2005, Cert. denied, 547 U.S. 1128, 126 S.Ct. 2023, is a case Darren Chaker personally handled and laid the ground work to allow appellate counsel to strike down a statute based on First Amendment rights.

In Nathan Enterprises Corp. v. Chaker, 2010 Cal. App. Unpub. LEXIS 7604, Darren Chaker was represented by Los Angeles counsel, Timothy Coates who has prevailed multiple times before the US Supreme Court and prevailed for Darren Chaker winning on an anti-SLAPP issue before the court.
Darren Chaker also prevailed on a First Amendment issue before the Texas Attorney issued Opinion 2012-06088 where he established the right to obtain the names of peace officers regardless of undercover status or purported threat to safety.

[J C · Rating 5 out of 5]

That "free speech" is a nebulous and incoherent concept that doesnt exist much like square triangles, unicorns or married bachelors is only obvious to those who have thought about it a great deal. It is not obvious to those who believe an ahistorical contemporary ACLU understanding of the term and operate under an American exceptionalist framework. Moskowitz explores how private property, the amorphous distinction between "speech" & "action, and how speech is limited by material factors such as wealth and mass surveillance and how the US has never truly valued the ideal of "free speech." For a concept that has really only existed since 1969 based on oft misquoted court case, the existence of "free speech" in the US is a powerful illusion. I appreciated learning how older leftists saw "free speech" as a means towards the end of social justice and racial, economic, gender liberation, and not an end in itself. I recommend this to anyone who wants to read a smart, insightful and iconoclastic book

[Siobhan · Rating 5 out of 5]

People are tossing around the word "necessary" too much with books these days, but this one really is. Moskowitz is not in fact against free speech, but about the conservative co-opting of the idea of the First Amendment for authoritarian purposes. Like Jane Mayer, Moskowitz follows the money, all the way back to the Kochtopus, to explain how and why universities--far from the popular-media image of liberal hotbeds--too often suppress student dissent and allow hate speech (especially imported from outside) to fester. In Moskowitz's view, "free speech" is an empty concept as long as it is granted unequally to those who enjoy power already and denied to people who do not have power. A fast, compelling read.

[KC]

Found from this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kry4X...

May check this out for the hell of it.
From this conversation, I gather this appears to have more of an examination of people who use the phrase, "Free speech," to hide behind, "Bigoted," rhetoric. Rather then a case against, "Free speech."
At the same time, this would lead into the concept of what could be considered, "bigoted," outside the obvious things.

I'll give this ago, chances are I'm going to disagree with the author quite a bit, depending. But need to strengthen my arguments anyhow.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

The argument against speech protections appears to flow as follows. Conservatives say a lot of things that others do not like and assert that what they have to say is protected speech. Ergo, there should be no protected speech.

Hmmmmmm......notwithstanding that this argument is inane, I am certainly glad that there are speech protections, and moreover that this fellow saw fit to write this book so that all and sundry could see for themselves the quality (or not) of his thought processes.