Obama’s refreshing defense of free speech

[Commentary] When anti-American demonstrations spread around the world this month, the Obama administration focused much of its public response on denouncing the anti-Muslim video that had provoked outrage and provided a pretext for extremists. President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton rightly distanced the U.S. government from the video and stressed the American system of religious tolerance; more disturbingly, the White House asked Google to consider removing the offending video from its YouTube Web site. So it was heartening to hear President Obama, in his address to the U.N. General Assembly, deliver a vigorous defense of freedom of speech, including the right of individuals to “blasphemy against our most sacred beliefs.”

“Americans have fought and died around the globe to protect the right of all people to express their views — even views that we disagree with,” the President said. Without such freedom, he said, individuals might be stopped from practicing their own faith; “efforts to restrict speech can become a tool to silence critics or oppress minorities.” He concluded: “Given the power of faith in our lives and the passion that religious differences can inflame, the strongest weapon against hateful speech is not repression, it is more speech.” President Obama went on to denounce violence as a response to speech, and to insist that other leaders speak out against extremism — including “those who — even when not resorting to violence — use hatred of America, or the West, or Israel as a central principle of politics.”