I’m old enough to remember when the left supported an absolutist interpretation of the First Amendment, and I agreed with them. From Wikipedia:

The Free Speech Movement (FSM) was a massive, long-lasting student protest which took place during the 1964–65 academic year on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. The Movement was informally under the central leadership of Berkeley graduate student Mario Savio. Other student leaders include Jack Weinberg, Michael Rossman, George Barton, Brian Turner, Bettina Aptheker, Steve Weissman, Michael Teal, Art Goldberg, Jackie Goldberg, and others.

With the participation of thousands of students, the Free Speech Movement was the first mass act of civil disobedience on an American college campus in the 1960s. Students insisted that the university administration lift the ban of on-campus political activities and acknowledge the students’ right to free speech and academic freedom. The Free Speech Movement was influenced by the New Left, and was also related to the Civil Rights Movement and the Anti-Vietnam War Movement. To this day, the Movement’s legacy continues to shape American political dialogue both on college campuses and in broader society, impacting on the political views and values of college students and the general public.

In 1971, The New York Times and The Washington Post received parts of what eventually were called the Pentagon Papers from Daniel Ellsberg, who was partially an author of them. President Nixon’s decision to seek an injunction against the newspapers to prevent their further publication of them was overturned by the Supreme Court in New York Times Company v United States, by a 6-3 margin. Associate Justice Hugo Black wrote:

I adhere to the view that the Government’s case against the Washington Post should have been dismissed and that the injunction against the New York Times should have been vacated without oral argument when the cases were first presented to this Court. I believe that every moment’s continuance of the injunctions against these newspapers amounts to a flagrant, indefensible, and continuing violation of the First Amendment. Furthermore, after oral argument, I agree completely that we must affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for the reasons stated by my Brothers Douglas and Brennan. In my view it is unfortunate that some of my Brethren are apparently willing to hold that the publication of news may sometimes be enjoined. Such a holding would make a shambles of the First Amendment.

Our Government was launched in 1789 with the adoption of the Constitution. The Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment, followed in 1791. Now, for the first time in the 182 years since the founding of the Republic, the federal courts are asked to hold that the First Amendment does not mean what it says, but rather means that the Government can halt the publication of current news of vital importance to the people of this country.

Freedom of Speech and of the Press continued to expand, and what appears to have been the last vestige of government censorship, that of censoring pornography, has finally faded away due to the ubiquity of pornography on the internet; technology has rendered porn uncontrollable.

But now, the #woke^[1]From Wikipedia: “Woke is a political term originating in the United States referring to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It derives from the … Continue reading and the Special Snowflakes™, creatures of today’s left, have become utterly appalled that people who have different opinions than their are allowed to speak, allowed to publish:

Penguin Random House staffers broke down in tears over release of Jordan Peterson book: report

Employees cried to management at a town hall addressing the book’s release in March

By Joseph A. Wulfsohn | Fox News | November 24, 2020

A new report shows inner turmoil that is apparently taking place at Penguin Random House Canada over the publisher’s release of a book written by Canadian clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson.

Peterson, a psychology professor from the University of Toronto and a popular podcast host who has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, announced on Monday that he is releasing a new book titled “Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life,” which is set to be released in March of next year.

However, Vice reported on Tuesday that Peterson’s book has sparked an emotional outcry within the Canadian publishing giant with an effort by employees to pressure the company into canceling the book’s release.

According to the report, “several” employees confronted management of Penguin Random House Canada (PRHC), a subsidiary of Penguin Random House, at an internal town hall on Monday and “dozens more have filed anonymous complaints” about PRHC’s plans to release the latest work from the politically and culturally outspoken professor.

“He is an icon of hate speech and transphobia and the fact that he’s an icon of white supremacy, regardless of the content of his book, I’m not proud to work for a company that publishes him,” one town hall attendee, who is also a member of the LGBTQ community, told Vice.

So, quit! If this unnamed “member of the LGBTQ community” is not proud to work for PRHC, there is no law — other than the laws of economics, I suppose — forcing him to stay there.

Another employee alleged that “people were crying in the meeting about how Jordan Peterson has affected their lives” with one explaining that Peterson had “radicalized their father” and another insisting the publishing of Peterson’s book will “negatively affect their non-binary friend.”

Well, wahhh! Dr Peterson’s arguments have persuaded some people, and the #woke don’t like it, so they want to clamp down on his speech so that others won’t hear it.^[2]Full disclosure: if I have ever read anything by Dr Peterson, I do not recall doing so, or that he was the author of something I did read.

PRHC is, of course, a private company, and therefore their decision to, or refusal to, publish anything, by anyone, is not an act of government censorship. But Penguin Random House is in the business of publishing, so yeah, they are going to publish things that the company believe will make money.

PRHC told Vice in a statement, “We announced yesterday that we will publish Jordan Peterson’s new book ‘Beyond Order’ this coming March. Immediately following the announcement, we held a forum and provided a space for our employees to express their views and offer feedback. Our employees have started an anonymous feedback channel, which we fully support. We are open to hearing our employees’ feedback and answering all of their questions. We remain committed to publishing a range of voices and viewpoints.”

We have previously noted how the #woke are really, really, really opposed to Freedom of the Press, at least as far as printing things with which they disagree. But, at bottom, much of it is fear that healthy debate undermines their own positions, because their positions are, well, kind of stupid. How would you like to have to defend the position that girls can be boys and boys can be girls?

Children have their own ‘logic,’ and I suppose that it sounds good to them. But, being children, there’s always the great fear that the grown ups will show up, and to the #woke at Penguin Random House, Jordan Peterson is one of those awful grown ups.
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Cross-posted on RedState.