At The Economist web log, Will Wilkinson has a good piece on Rawlsian egalitarian arguments against free speech. The firing of Juan Williams makes perfect sense in that framework, as does the left’s outrage over the Citizens United decision.
Wilkinson rightly notes the principled outcome of that framework: “it seems to me that this conception of liberal democracy has much broader, and more unsettling, implications.” Definitely. Read the whole piece.
My essay on the complementary postmodern arguments against free speech is available from a variety of sources:
“Free Speech and Postmodernism: Why Group Warfare Has Replaced Academic Debate” (Navigator, 2002).
Also available at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education site [pdf].
Also available in Korean [pdf] and German translations [pdf].
And in a 26-page monograph edition at Amazon.