Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman -- Louis Brandeis And, Brandeis continued, “Selfishness, injustice, cruelty, tricks and jobs of all sorts shun the light; to expose them is to defeat them. No serious evils, no rankling sore in the body politic, can remain long concealed, and when disclosed, it is half destroyed.” Brandeis’ notion has long since become the anthem of modern journalism, properly practiced. Political trickery flourishes in the dark. The magician must shroud his trick in half light and distraction to pull the rabbit out of his hat. Journalism, properly practiced, is the sworn enemy of secret cabals.

“Neutrality is at times a graver sin than belligerence” – Louis Brandeis Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s appearance at Yale in New Haven was preceded by the usual fuss. But she did appear, and that in itself was a minor triumph.  An earlier appearance at Brandeis at which Hirsi Ali was to receive an honorary degree was shut down by protesters who argued that the speaker was anti-Islamic, and Brandeis, a university named after Louis Brandeis, the first Jewish appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court, covered itself in dishonor by acceding to the protesters. Louis Brandeis, whose path to the Supreme Court was littered with anti-Semitism, knew that those opposed to free speech usually succeed in their aims by stirring up fear: “Fear of serious injury alone cannot justify oppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burned women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.”