Nonpartisan Principle

[DISCLAIMER]

One of the more challenging aspects of practicing Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) in a professional capacity involves my work with clients who are socio-politically motivated, because such individuals tend to use morals and ethics in place of thinking that is rational.

Before we begin to explore this topic, let us first define terms. For context, a principle is a comprehensive and fundamental law, doctrine, or assumption. A moral is of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior.

Ethics are sets of moral principles concerning conduct that governs an individual or a group. That which is rational is based on or in accordance with both logic and reason. Here, logic is a particular mode of reasoning viewed as valid or faulty.

As well, reason is merely a statement offered in explanation or justification. Finally, the word partisan relates to a firm adherent to a party, faction, cause, or person. Having defined our terms, it may be useful to now provide an example of a partisan principle that challenges irrationality.

Although misattributed to French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire, it was actually writer Evelyn Beatrice Hall – commenting on the perceived internal dialogue of Voltaire – who proposed, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

This quote is often associated with protection of the First Amendment of the United States (U.S.) Constitution which states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Regarding this matter, I stated in a blogpost entitled A Principled Stance on Free Speech:

Noteworthy, free speech is a negative right. This means it obliges inaction. In other words, in a state of nature, one is born with an inalienable right to free speech. Therefore, no one should, must, or ought to take this right from you.

In the example of the First Amendment, the principle of free speech is considered morally right. Thus, one who maintains this position may have an ethical code not to infringe the negative right. To understand the logic of this principle, I offer the following syllogism:

Form (modus ponens) –

If p, then q; p; therefore, q.

Example –

If it’s wrong to stifle free speech, then I won’t support anti-First Amendment actions. It’s wrong to stifle free speech. Therefore, I won’t support anti-First Amendment actions.

Analyzing the reasoning of this logical position, one many simply cite the associated amendment of the U.S. Constitution. However, a partisan actor who subscribes to moral, ethical, legal, or other sociopolitical doctrines which are antithetical to the Constitution may disagree.

For instance, person X from country Y—that doesn’t recognize the propositional right of free speech—may value so-called protection from “harmful” communication while opting to suppress free speech. This matter challenges the notion of objective morality.

For now, let’s keep our focus on the U.S. More specifically, let’s briefly explore perspectives of the Republican Party and Democratic Party of the U.S. According to one source:

[R]epublicanism requires an active but limited government. Republicanism intends for the state to play a role in advancing the common good, but the state isn’t authorized to do anything and everything.

The state can be limited via enumerated powers, individual liberties, and rights to procedures like due process. Republicanism does not emphasize expansive negative rights, but the state cannot rule arbitrarily and cannot dominate individuals or society.

In general, Republicans have historically supported negative rights and maintained that the government cannot infringe upon the right to free speech. Although the Democratic Party may argue that free speech is a core principle of its platform, I concur with what one source states:

Censorship and blacklisting create an insatiable appetite. While Democrats fostered such efforts to silence conservatives and dissenters on vaccines, climate change, abortion, transgenderism and other issues, they now find themselves pursued by the very mobs that they once led.

Just two years ago, Biden was celebrated for denouncing social media executives as “killers” for allowing free speech. Now he, Raskin, and others are accused of killing others with “Zionist disinformation.”

At this point, I expect Democrats to infringe free speech. After all, I’ve observed such actions from partisan actors since President Donald Trump took office in 2017. For years thereafter, I heard Republicans bitching, whining, moaning, complaining, and whinging about free speech.

As a matter of full disclosure, I agree with the argument in favor of the First Amendment, even though I don’t self-disturb when Democrats have chiseled away at this negative right. Thus, I was pleased when Trump again took office and issued an executive order (1/20/2025) stating:

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution, an amendment essential to the success of our Republic, enshrines the right of the American people to speak freely in the public square without Government interference.

Over the last 4 years, the previous administration trampled free speech rights by censoring Americans’ speech on online platforms, often by exerting substantial coercive pressure on third parties, such as social media companies, to moderate, deplatform, or otherwise suppress speech that the Federal Government did not approve.

Under the guise of combatting “misinformation,” “disinformation,” and “malinformation,” the Federal Government infringed on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens across the United States in a manner that advanced the Government’s preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate.  Government censorship of speech is intolerable in a free society.

Hear, hear!! I was further gratified when Vice President JD Vance subsequently delivered an oral address to European leaders (2/14/2025) when stating in part:

I come here today not just with an observation but with an offer. And just as the Biden administration seemed desperate to silence people for speaking their minds, so the Trump administration will do precisely the opposite, and I hope that we can work together on that.

I’ve been hopeful by what Trump and Vance have stated about free speech, even though I’m not a partisan actor who fully subscribes to the tenets of their political party. Unfortunately, the Trump administration recently (3/13/2025) infringed this negative right as one source reports:

The Trump administration on Thursday demanded that Columbia University make dramatic changes in student discipline and admissions before it would discuss lifting the cancellation of $400 million in government grants and contracts.

It said the ultimatum was necessary because of what it described as Columbia’s failure to protect Jewish students from harassment.

The government called for the university to formalize its definition of antisemitism, to ban the wearing of masks “intended to conceal identity or intimidate” and to place the school’s Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department under “academic receivership.”

First, I’m onboard with defunding the academy by way of federal monetary contributions. Per one source, “The Federal Reserve found that for every dollar in student aid, tuition increases 65 cents. Ultimately, costs at public universities rose 213 percent between 1980 and 2018.”

Second, I oppose the Trump administration’s 180-degree pivot from protection of free speech. Specifically, I maintain that not only for U.S. citizens, the negative right of free speech exists for everyone within U.S. borders. Mine is a principled stance. Allow me to explain.

Imagine that tourists from Japan visit a theme park within the U.S. While here, they livestream the experience and speak critically about the perceived mishandling of cleanliness standards from local, state, and federal government levels. In this example, presume they visit California.

I posit that while on U.S. soil such speech is constitutionally protected. Perhaps we can agree on this matter, though you maintain that verbal chastisement of California’s standards of sanitation isn’t equivalent to criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza (and elsewhere).

Arguably, as one source opines, “Israel has been transformed into an American protectorate.” Therefore, criticism of Israel is akin to chastisement of the U.S. Moreover, Israel is arguably an ethno-religious state. Thus, critique of this nation could trespass group X’s morals and ethics.

In fact, anti-Semitism (also “antisemitism”) is colloquially defined as “hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group.” This vague description could infringe upon the U.S. principle of free speech, as the U.S. State Department expands thusly:

Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.

As though a colloquial definition weren’t vague enough, the government maintains that rhetorical “manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals,” which seems like an all-encompassing definition for virtually any population.

Apparently, not everything is as it seems. Attempting to clarify the bewildering definition of antisemitism, Wikipedia offers the following information:

Due to the root word Semite, the term is prone to being invoked as a misnomer by those who incorrectly assert (in an etymological fallacy) that it refers to racist hatred directed at “Semitic people” in spite of the fact that this grouping is an obsolete historical race concept.

Likewise, such usage is erroneous; the compound word antisemitismus was first used in print in Germany in 1879 as a “scientific-sounding term” for Judenhass (lit. ‘Jew-hatred’), and it has since been used to refer to anti-Jewish sentiment alone.

Giving charitable consideration of the colloquial, State Department, and Wikipedia definitions of antisemitism, one may surmise that expressed hatred of Jewish people – not merely Israel as a state or Israeli authorities as an entity – is what the Trump administration now opposes.

Therefore, you may argue that the Japanese livestreamers who criticize California aren’t as morally and ethically wrong as college and university protesters who chastise Jewish people, Israel, and so on. This is because you stand in opposition to “expressed hatred of Jewish people.”

In support of my second matter of contention, I reject this framing on constitutional grounds. Hatred of a particular group of people, although arguably irrational, isn’t an infringing factor to the First Amendment. Also, this factual conclusion doesn’t suggest antisemitism on my part.

Perhaps you disagree. Using an ad hominem attack along with an irrational appeal to emotion, you may argue that I’m an anti-Semite who supposedly wants Jewish students to suffer the effects of so-called hate speech. To this, I offer what one source states about this matter:

Hate speech may be offensive and hurtful; however, it is generally protected by the First Amendment. One common definition of hate speech is “any form of expression through which speakers intend to vilify, humiliate or incite hatred against a group or a class of persons on the basis of race, religion, skin color, sexual identity, gender identity, ethnicity, disability or national origin.”

Courts have ruled that restrictions on hate speech would conflict with the First Amendment’s protection of the freedom of expression. Since public universities are bound by the First Amendment, public universities must adhere to these rulings.

This is one of the main challenges of working with socio-politically motivated clients who use moral and ethical perspectives which aren’t logical and reasonable. I cite legal standards when disputing their irrational beliefs, and they desperately cling to their partisan principles.

Helpfully, I’m able to employ a technique known as the elegant solution with clients. Presuming that one’s morally and ethically-based beliefs are valid, how do these principles serve one’s own interests and goals when coming into conflict with the real-world versus an ideal-world?

Unlike my clients who usually exercise the ability to then form well-reasoned beliefs in conjunction with their unhelpful assumptions, the Trump administration has set into motion a partisan edict (i.e., antisemitism rules) regarding a nonpartisan principle (i.e., free speech).

One may hope that a system of checks and balances will stabilize illogical and unreasonable principles based in moral and ethical dogma that conflicts with constitutional protections. In closing, we can consider what one source offers when contemplating the current topic:

[M]any attempts to violate the right to free speech are cloaked in the language of a positive right to free speech, meaning not only the negative right not to be interfered with but the positive right to be heard and to have a substantial voice in public discourse.

If you have a positive right to a certain prominence in the conversation, then the negative rights of others to be free from interference can be violated.

Do Jewish students within the U.S. enjoy the so-called positive right not to hear the outcome of a constitutionally protected negative right to free speech which is villainized as “hate speech” or “harassment”? Pardoning a pun, which right will ultimately trump the other?

To be exceedingly clear, I side with the negative right to free speech. Herein, I’ve provided my rationale. While you may disagree with me, and I may not like what you have to say, I’ll defend to the death your right to say it. Will you do the same for me and others, valuing a nonpartisan principle?

If you’re looking for a provider who tries to work to help understand how thinking impacts physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral elements of your life—helping you to sharpen your critical thinking skills, I invite you to reach out today by using the contact widget on my website.

As a psychotherapist, I’m pleased to try to help people with an assortment of issues ranging from anger (hostility, rage, and aggression) to relational issues, adjustment matters, trauma experience, justice involvement, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and depression, and other mood or personality-related matters.

At Hollings Therapy, LLC, serving all of Texas, I aim to treat clients with dignity and respect while offering a multi-lensed approach to the practice of psychotherapy and life coaching. My mission includes: Prioritizing the cognitive and emotive needs of clients, an overall reduction in client suffering, and supporting sustainable growth for the clients I serve. Rather than simply trying to help you to feel better, I want to try to help you get better!

Deric Hollings, LPC, LCSW

Photo credit (edited), fair use

References:

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