Michael Hiltzik: Justice Gorsuch calls for 'civility,' always a device for shutting down free speech
Calls for "civility" in public discourse always should come with a warning label.
That's because they're never what they seem. They seem to be appeals for, well, civilized behavior in debate. What they are, in reality, are appeals for submission and tacit acquiescence, directed by established authority to the subjugated.
That's the context in which one should consider the latest voice arguing for "civility." It comes from Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, a card-carrying member of the court's conservative majority. Gorsuch has been on a publicity tour for his new book, "A Republic, If You Can Keep It."
As reviewers and interviewers have pointed out, in the book - actually a collection of essays and articles - Gorsuch flogs the "civility" theme hard.
"I worry that, just as we face a civics crisis in this country today, we face a civility crisis too," he writes. "Without civility, the bonds of friendship in our communities dissolve, tolerance dissipates, and the pressure to impose order and uniformity through public and private coercion mounts. ... Self-governance turns on our treating each other as
