Defending Scoundrels Beats Brain Surgery With a Club

"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of ones time defending scoundrels"  That's a favourite quote of mine from HL Mencken.  Another slightly less pithy quote comes from the movie The People Versus Larry Flint.  Whether Flint ever actually said the words the movie put into his mouth I don't know but they are worth repeating, "I'm a smut peddler.  I'm the lowest of the low.  If the law protects me, it will protect you."

Of course defending scoundrels can be fun if only to see the horrified looks on the faces of your friends and relatives.  Unfortunately it also tends to get disapproval manifested in every form from polite muttering to death threats from those people who think that scoundrels should be forced to shut up.  I firmly believe that scoundrels should shut up.  I equally firmly believe they shouldn't be forced to shut up.  For starters, in the opinion of some I would be a scoundrel and so would everyone else.

It would be easier, perhaps, if we had rights but we don't despite the bleating of various people to the contrary.  You may think you have freedom of speech but I invite you to test that by shouting the word "gun" when President Obama comes to visit.  What most people describe as rights could be better defined as "concepts" or "hopes" sometimes enshrined in law or tradition, sometimes not.  Whatever they are they are not immutable, they can be taken away with the stroke of a legislators pen or a simple change of mind.  There is nothing solid about our "rights".  In a way this is good.  If something is solid it is definable and if it is definable it has borders and if it has borders those borders can be moved.  Just ask Poland.

One of the major problems with our rights is that they rarely have disinterested defenders.  Most people claiming to fight for the rights of others are actually fighting for a highly specific set of rights for a highly specific set of others.  This is not to say the fight is unjustified but don't try exercising any rights of your own that might get in their way.  And those who are genuinely disinterested defenders of peoples rights tend to wind up defending scoundrels as I mentioned at the top of this entry.  This is unlikely to help their credibility when they go up against people advocating the interests of the less obviously obnoxious.

Most people look to the law to protect their rights but laws are actually a rather poor tool to use.  Since they usually have to apply to everyone in all circumstances using the law to protect an individuals rights is rather like performing brain surgery with a club.  If you go at it long enough you will get the affected area and you may even do some good but the collateral damage is likely to be severe.  Probably the wisest thing we can do is keep the law out of it as much as possible and rely on the basic good will and commonsense of the people.  After all, we're the ones who came up with the concept of rights in the first place.

This would work brilliantly if it wasn't for all the scoundrels out there.  I wish there was some way we could force them to shut up.