I found this 105 year old article and it immediately made me think of conservative speakers like Ben Shapiro being shouted down and some even prevented from speaking on college campuses across the nation. We instinctively know that when a religious group practices milieu (information) control like this then that is an admission that their ideas cannot withstand scrutiny. I believe we can apply the same logic with Socialist Justice Warriors and violent Antifa groups.
From Common Cause 1912
TOLERANCE AS DEFINED BY SOCIALISTS
"If there is one principle for which all Socialists are willing to mount the barricades, it is that of "free speech" and "free assemblage." So devoted are they to this ideal that they have embodied it in their platform — so jealous are they of any seeming infringement of this Constitutional privilege that they are ready to resort to any possible means to defend this right of citizenship. If the Socialists were sincere in their espousal of the cause of free speech, we should commend them for the stand they take. The safety of a democratic nation depends upon the degree of freedom with which its citizens are permitted to discuss all problems of vital interest to the country.
Unfortunately, however, as current events prove, the Socialists have shown that they cannot be commended even upon this score, for it is impossible to read the daily papers without coming to the conclusion that "freedom," to the Socialist, means freedom to think and speak as they do.
Let anybody interfere ever so slightly with the Socialist's right to mount a soap-box and tear things into smitherines and the howl from the Socialist press will reverberate from one end of the United States to the other. So far so good, but how do the Socialists themselves act? What is the attitude that they assume toward anti-Socialist speakers, or even toward their own progenitor, the Socialist Labor Party, which still represents simon-pure Marxian Socialism in this country, and from whose hearthstone the present Socialist party eloped with "Our 'Gene" not so very long ago?
If it seemed necessary we could enumerate scores of instances that have occurred during the present campaign—instances in which the appearance of a Socialist Labor speaker on a street corner has been the signal for the precipitation of a small sized riot. Again and again members of the Socialist party have attempted to break up S. L. P. meetings, heckling the speakers with absurd questions and showering abuse upon them. We can understand why Socialist party men do net want Mr. Urban or Mr. Masterson to get the ears of the crowd. They know that the searchlight of truth and logic is fatal to their cause, and so are logical in opposing the work of the anti-Socialist soap-boxers, but why should they show the same intolerant spirit when it is the S. L. P. man—the most consistent of Marxist advocates—who is orating?
Another example of the narrow-mindedness of the average Socialist was shown on the occasion of the big mass meeting at Madison Square Garden. To take advantage of the crowd which they knew would be attracted by the appearance of the Socialist party's perpetual presidential candidate, a few members of the Mother Earth group of anarchists began to circulate advertising matter and dispose of literature in the street in front of the Garden. Did the Socialist's passion for free speech, free press and free literature assert itself in this contingency? Not to any noticeable degree! Instead, the Socialists called the police and had the anarchists forcibly suppressed.
It is such illustrative experiences as these that disclose what the Socialist party really means when it talks about tolerance. To Socialist's freedom of speech and press means free license for themselves and the despotic suppression and persecution of every person who disagrees with them. We can imagine what kind of "freedom" we should enjoy were the Socialists in power."
From Common Cause 1912
TOLERANCE AS DEFINED BY SOCIALISTS
"If there is one principle for which all Socialists are willing to mount the barricades, it is that of "free speech" and "free assemblage." So devoted are they to this ideal that they have embodied it in their platform — so jealous are they of any seeming infringement of this Constitutional privilege that they are ready to resort to any possible means to defend this right of citizenship. If the Socialists were sincere in their espousal of the cause of free speech, we should commend them for the stand they take. The safety of a democratic nation depends upon the degree of freedom with which its citizens are permitted to discuss all problems of vital interest to the country.
Unfortunately, however, as current events prove, the Socialists have shown that they cannot be commended even upon this score, for it is impossible to read the daily papers without coming to the conclusion that "freedom," to the Socialist, means freedom to think and speak as they do.
Let anybody interfere ever so slightly with the Socialist's right to mount a soap-box and tear things into smitherines and the howl from the Socialist press will reverberate from one end of the United States to the other. So far so good, but how do the Socialists themselves act? What is the attitude that they assume toward anti-Socialist speakers, or even toward their own progenitor, the Socialist Labor Party, which still represents simon-pure Marxian Socialism in this country, and from whose hearthstone the present Socialist party eloped with "Our 'Gene" not so very long ago?
If it seemed necessary we could enumerate scores of instances that have occurred during the present campaign—instances in which the appearance of a Socialist Labor speaker on a street corner has been the signal for the precipitation of a small sized riot. Again and again members of the Socialist party have attempted to break up S. L. P. meetings, heckling the speakers with absurd questions and showering abuse upon them. We can understand why Socialist party men do net want Mr. Urban or Mr. Masterson to get the ears of the crowd. They know that the searchlight of truth and logic is fatal to their cause, and so are logical in opposing the work of the anti-Socialist soap-boxers, but why should they show the same intolerant spirit when it is the S. L. P. man—the most consistent of Marxist advocates—who is orating?
Another example of the narrow-mindedness of the average Socialist was shown on the occasion of the big mass meeting at Madison Square Garden. To take advantage of the crowd which they knew would be attracted by the appearance of the Socialist party's perpetual presidential candidate, a few members of the Mother Earth group of anarchists began to circulate advertising matter and dispose of literature in the street in front of the Garden. Did the Socialist's passion for free speech, free press and free literature assert itself in this contingency? Not to any noticeable degree! Instead, the Socialists called the police and had the anarchists forcibly suppressed.
It is such illustrative experiences as these that disclose what the Socialist party really means when it talks about tolerance. To Socialist's freedom of speech and press means free license for themselves and the despotic suppression and persecution of every person who disagrees with them. We can imagine what kind of "freedom" we should enjoy were the Socialists in power."
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