Freedom to Criticize:

The Left's Selective Standard for Tyranny

by Michael J Badagliacco, “MJB”

A Curious Double Standard

It is worth pausing on an odd pattern in American political life. Commentators who call Donald Trump a “dictator” and warn of authoritarian collapse often extend sympathy, or outright support, to actual authoritarian states. Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela under the former Maduro-era crackdowns receive soft treatment, along with reflexive defenses tied to the Palestinian cause. The irony is that none of these governments would tolerate the very speech, protest, or lifestyle choices these commentators exercise freely at home. A CNN panel recently complained that Trump wanted to shrink government, and they could not stop him. In Tehran or Havana, the problem would not be stopping him. It would be surviving the attempt to criticize him at all.

What the Constitution Actually Guarantees

The First Amendment protects speech, press, assembly, and petition without requiring approval of the message. The Supreme Court has repeatedly reinforced this principle. In NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449 (1958), the Court protected the right to associate and dissent from state pressure, holding that forced disclosure of membership lists violated freedom of association. In Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989), the Court upheld the right to burn the American flag as protected political expression, precisely the kind of act a government intolerant of dissent would never permit. In Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969), the Court set an extremely high bar before speech can be punished, requiring both intent to incite imminent lawless action and a likelihood that such action will occur. These are not close calls. American law bends toward protecting the critic, not silencing him. The Constitution does not grant government the power to decide which viewpoints are safe or respectable. It leaves that judgment to the people themselves.

Regimes Without That Guarantee

Compare that to the governments some American activists idealize. Iran’s press and religious speech are constrained by law and enforced by a morality apparatus with no First Amendment analog. Dissent is treated as a threat to the Islamic Republic rather than a protected right. Cuba remains, by its own constitution, a one-party socialist state where expression is expected to serve the goals of that state, not challenge it. Independent journalism and open political opposition are not tolerated. Venezuela under Maduro jailed opposition figures, shuttered independent media, and used security forces to suppress protests. None of these systems would allow the open mockery, protest marches, or lifestyle freedom their American defenders take for granted every day. The same voices that label modest efforts to reduce federal bureaucracy as tyranny remain largely silent about regimes that crush dissent without apology.

The “Classical Liberal” Roots of the American Experiment

The founders were, in the philosophical sense, “classical liberals”, not to be confused with today’s left-wing liberals. The Declaration of Independence grounds government legitimacy in securing individual rights, not in directing how citizens must live. Government exists to protect life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, not to engineer social outcomes or enforce ideological conformity. James Madison’s Federalist No. 10 warns against factions seizing state power to impose their preferences on everyone else. Madison understood that majority or minority passions, left unchecked, would use government as a weapon. The American design was meant to let people pursue their own version of a good life, with government kept small enough that it could not become the instrument of any single faction’s vision. Limited government was not a flaw. It was the feature that made ordered liberty possible.

Government by Consent, Not by Command

That founding premise is what today’s loudest critics seem to have lost. Shrinking government is treated as an attack rather than a restoration of the original design. Disagreement is labeled fascism, often by people who cannot define the term, while actual authoritarian systems abroad draw their sympathy instead. The Constitution was built to leave people alone. It was not built to let one faction dictate belief, and it was certainly never built to be judged less free than the regimes many of its critics quietly admire. When critics demand more government power to silence opponents while praising systems that silence everyone, they reveal a selective standard. Freedom of speech is not a partisan convenience. It is the mechanism that allows self-government to function. A republic that protects the critic, even the harsh or unpopular one, remains freer than any regime that demands loyalty first and permits speech only later, if at all.