Ezra Klein dismisses the decision to cancel Idomeneo in Germany as no big deal. He writes:
First of all, free speech is fine. German’s politicians — including its prime minister — roundly criticized the decision. You can call the Deutsche Oper cowardly, or overcautious — but speech is no less free because an opera house decides not to run a performance. Happens all the time, in fact.
Me: This is just intellectually grotesque on Klein’s part. The opera house didn’t decide not to run the performance because it might elicit criticism, controversy or even boycotts — all of which are just fine by me and part of a free society. They cancelled the performance because officials couldn’t guarantee the performers or the opera house’s officials wouldn’t be murdered.
I look forward to the Klein standard being applied to the Ku Klux Klan the next time they burn a cross. And I can’t wait to hear him dismiss liberals who criticize violent fringe pro-life groups who threaten to fire bomb abortion clinics. After all, when an abortion clinic closes in response to such intimidation the right to an abortion will remain “fine.” Politicians will criticize the decision. But, hey, “Clinics close all the time, in fact.”
Klein is a guy who constantly — constantly! — argues that government power must be expanded to counter-act corporate power. He thinks people who don’t understand that corporations are a threat to liberty are stooges and buffoons. This conviction suffuses his discussions of everything, from the freedom of the press to where best to buy rubber shower shoes. Yet here he’s arguing that opera houses which cave to the bloody and violent power of terrorists haven’t sacrificed any real liberty — but when companies are forced to cave to Wal-Mart(!) something precious has been lost.