Back in the dreadful days of the patriarchy and plantation slavery, Dr. Johnson famously said that patriotism was the last refuge of a scoundrel.

But what do you say about Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) arguing that the ruling class should use its First Amendment rights to shut down extremists? She says:

Here is the issue worth discussing today: how can we protect this constitutional right [of the First Amendment] while also making sure that our colleges and universities are places where everyone can feel safe, learn, and respectfully debate ideas. And -- as a part of that conversation, we need to discuss how elected leaders, community members, and college and university administrators, can best exercise their First Amendment right to do everything in their power to push back against those driving an agenda of extremism, racism, bigotry, xenophobia, and misogyny. And -- we also must speak out against groups and organizations that are looking to use their right to free speech to divide us, to attack the most vulnerable among us, and to feed on people’s fear in the service of hate.

I’d say that “scoundrel” is too mild a world for Sen. Patty.

Murray is making three points here, and every one of them is wrong. First, she seems to think that protecting the First Amendment somehow conflicts with feeling safe, learning, and respectful debate. No, Patty. We have the police to keep people safe. The problem with our schools is that you liberals won’t let the police police lefty thugs like Antifa and BLM.

Then Patty thinks that the First Amendment is needed for powerful leaders and administrators to lecture the deplorables. No, Patty. No ruling class ever needed a First Amendment. You will note, Senator, that in Europe where there is no First Amendment, the ruling class, bless its heart, has no problem getting the word out -- or in prosecuting deplorables for hate speech.

Then Patty writes that the ruling class should unite against people that want to divide “us.” No, Patty. Divide and conquer is your game, the ruling-class game that every military or political leader sucks in with her mother’s milk. Your problem is that regime opponents are uniting to break up your game and hive off people that have unreflectingly supported Deep State politicians like you without realizing that you don’t care about people like them; you only care about “elected leaders, community members, and college and university administrators” and other bribed apologists of the ruling-class. People like you, Patty.

Now let us check the text of the First Amendment.

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.

Now, Patty, on my view, your idea of the powerful pushing back against “extremism” is the reason we have the First Amendment in the first place: to make it difficult for the ruling class to silence dissenting voices. Every ruling class wants to silence their opponents. Some rulers call them deplorables and “extremists.” Others go straight to the point and call them “saboteurs and wreckers.” Every ruling class hates its critics.

And do you see that bit at the end, Patty, about “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances?” It says nothing about exceptions in case of “extremism, racism, bigotry, xenophobia, and misogyny.” In fact, I’d say that any anyone peaceably assembling, down the ages, has without exception had to face the scorn and the pejoratives of ruling-class place-men and place-women like you.

Let me repeat: words like “extremism, racism, bigotry, xenophobia, and misogyny” are notable today only as pejoratives that ruling-class pooh-bahs like you, Patty Murray -- and your violent Antifa and BLM stooges on the street -- use to bully and silence any dissent from ruling-class ideology. 

If you believe, as I do, that there is no such thing as justice, only injustice, then the First Amendment makes complete sense. On this view, the point of the First Amendment is to give people that are experiencing injustice -- no matter how deplorable and mistaken the ruling class judges them to be -- a chance to make their grievances heard in the public square. And since Government is Force, it stands to reason that every ruling class in history presides over a blazing Triangle Shirtwaist manufactory of injustice.

Let me say this again. The point of the First Amendment is precisely to let “white supremacists” like Richard Spencer into the public square. It doesn’t matter that he is a monstrous extremist. The point is that “we” -- whether the ruling class or worthier, nobler folks like AT readers -- need to hear from people that think they are suffering under injustice, whether they are “right” or not.

Christopher Chantrill @chrischantrill runs the go-to site on US government finances, usgovernmentspending.com. Also get his American Manifesto and his Road to the Middle Class.