“But drawing a moral equivalency between those espousing hate and those fighting it because they both resort to violence emboldens hate, legitimizes hateful belief and elevates what should be stamped out.”

—CNN’s news anchor turned pundit Chris Cuomo, in the middle of a long justification of the use of violence to suppress speech and political opinion.

CNN cannot be taken seriously as a news organization as long as it continues to employ Chris Cuomo. I have concluded that Cuomo was only admitted to law school because his father was a popular governor of New York. No other explanation makes sense. Even after allegedly completing his three years, he doesn’t comprehend basic law or the Constitution.  He has, for example, advanced public ignorance by stating that “hate speech” is not protested under the First Amendment. On another occasion, he said that it would be illegal for citizens to read leaked classified material available on the web, but that journalists could read it and then tell the public about it.

The man is an idiot. He constantly utters legal and logical nonsense, and with the certitude that only a true idiot can muster. As a journalist he is biased and sloppy; as a pundit he is pompous and unqualified. His latest foray into irresponsible use of the First Amendment was two days ago, when he said, in discussing the often violent counter-protesters to the virtually non-existent white supremacy demonstration in D.C. over the weekend, this, the entire speech from which the Unethical Quote of the Month was extracted:

But I argue to you tonight, all punches are not equal morally. In the eyes of the law, yes. But in the eyes of good and evil, here’s the argument: if you’re a punk that comes to start trouble in a mask and hurt people, you’re not about any virtuous cause. You’re just somebody who’s going to be held to the standard of doing something wrong. But when someone comes to call out bigots and it gets hot, even physical, are they equally wrong as the bigot they are fighting? I argue, no. Fighting against hate matters…Now, how you fight matters too. There’s no question about that. But drawing a moral equivalency between those espousing hate and those fighting it because they both resort to violence emboldens hate, legitimizes hateful belief and elevates what should be stamped out….But fighting hate is right. And in a clash between hate and those who oppose it, those who oppose it are on the side of right. Think about: civil rights activist, were they the same morally as the bigots, as the racist with whom they exchanged blows? Are people who go to war against an evil regime on the same moral ground as those they seek to stop from oppressing the weak?…When you punch me in the nose for being Italian and you say I’m somehow less than, am I in the same moral place when I punch you back for saying that? It’s not about being right in the eyes of the law, but you also have to know what’s right and wrong and immoral, in a good and evil sense.

Civil rights activists fought back when they were attacked while engaging in a peaceful protest. That’s called self-defense, and is neither the legal nor the moral nor the ethical equivalent of the violence that provoked it, not because of the views involved, but because of the nature of the violence.  “Think about it,” says Cuomo. Right there, we see the quality of his thought, and it is infantile and embarrassing. If a white supremacy demonstration was proceeding peacefully and legally, antifa thus attacking the participants would be exacly as “moral” as those who attacked the Sixties civil rights protestors. Exactly. Cuomo not only doesn’t comprehend this, he is smug about his ignorance.And CNN allows him to spread it!

Similarly, his next analogy is the product of a weak mind and a bad lawyer. That is also self-defense. Cuomo, dim bulb that he is, said that the return punch was for the insult: really, Chris? I’d assume that it was retaliation for the punch in the nose. And no, there is nothing “morally right” for you to punch the guy if he only insulted you and didn’t punch first.

Cuomo was advocating violence as a means of suppressing speech and intimidating those who have unpopular views. There is no other way to interpret his words., or him. What other sentiments justify “moral” violence, Chris, other than a preference for white supremacy and a dislike of Italians? You’ll have to let us know, since you and your simpatico ideologues are apparently the arbiters. No affirmative action? Against gay marriage? Make America Great Again? Freedom of speech? Go Yankees?

In a column excoriating Cuomo, Alex Griswold of the Free Beacon wrote,

“Fighting hate is right,” is a sweeping statement that misses that there are about a million ways of fighting hate, and some are clearly moral and some are not. This is the crux of the issue, and it’s getting to the point where I can’t tell if Cuomo is intentionally dishonest or merely very obtuse.”

Trust me on this, Alex: he’s obtuse…obtuse, and like a growing number of doctrinaire anti-speech advocates on the Left, too fond of  totalitarian tactics to brush off as just a harmless fool.