Un-American activities

[Commentary] I’ve been struck by the similarity between recent calls for suppressing white supremacist speech and past calls for suppressing Communist speech. Of course, there are differences as well — there always are for any analogy — but I thought I’d note some likenesses. Communists, neo-Nazis, neo-Confederates — I can’t stand them. They are supporters of ideologies of slavery and murder. They are losers, who lost for very good reason. But their speech should be protected, I think; and the cases for stripping protection from such speech have always been very similar.

[Eugene Volokh teaches at UCLA School of Law]