While fighting speech with speech can never be legally wrong, it may of course be discourteous or even highly immoral. As we approach the millenium, the quality of public discourse in this country is at a fifty-year low, with forms of hatred resurgent which had laid low so long one thought they no longer existed. In fact, this very meanness and intolerance is one way to distinguish whether any given debate is really a battle of ideas or of interests. Idea warriors fight by Marquess of Queensbury rules, while interest warriors believe in winning by any means necessary. If at the end of the day, you are holding the votes, the land or the dollars, it does not matter how you got them.
History is written by the winning ideas, say the idea warriors.
The interest warriors reply that history is written by the victors. Politicians are interest warriors. Last month, I analyzed Newt Gingrich's slashing attack on environmentalists. Another way to tell an idea debate from an interest debate is to see who is building a house, and who is knocking one down. Like a house, every meme begins with a cornerstone, and piles other bricks on top of it in an orderly way.