A resurfaced clip of Christopher Hitchens warning about the weaponization of the term “Islamophobia” has gone viral again after being highlighted by Dave Rubin on his Direct Message segment, reminding a new generation that unpopular but necessary arguments can be shouted down with a catchy label. Conservatives should welcome the revival of this conversation, because the instinct to silence critics by branding them irrational is the same playbook the cultural left uses whenever inconvenient facts are raised.
In the footage and writings from around 2009 Hitchens warned that the new label could function like a blasphemy charge, telling Western audiences that they might be told they cannot complain because their complaint would be branded “phobic.” He argued that conflating legitimate critique with irrational hatred was dangerous to open debate and to the health of liberal society.
That was not alarmism then and it is not alarmism now; what Hitchens predicted has become a routine tactic in corporate newsrooms and on college campuses where calling something “Islamophobic” too often ends the discussion rather than advances understanding. Conservatives should not shrink from criticizing an ideology or practices when public safety, women’s rights, or human dignity are at stake, and we should not allow a rhetorical cudgel to become a de facto gag order.
The larger point is about power and speech: labels like this are convenient tools for elite institutions that prefer conformity to scrutiny. When the media, universities, and corporations decide which criticisms are forbidden, the result is not harmony but intellectual decay and a loss of public confidence in institutions that are supposed to protect free inquiry. Vigilance matters now more than ever if free thought is to survive.
Hitchens himself was no friend to organized religion in general, and his critique came from the left-of-center atheist tradition that prized secularism and frank debate over sacred-cow protection. That makes his warning especially potent for those who would dismiss conservative concerns as mere bigotry: the defense of free speech cuts across old left-right splits when the issue is whether any idea is beyond critique.
Dave Rubin bringing this clip back into the spotlight is a salutary reminder that free-speech defenders must build alliances across prior divides and keep holding the line against linguistic censorship. If conservatives are serious about defending liberty, we should keep amplifying voices that refuse to let convenient labels close down honest discussion — even if those voices come from unexpected corners.
The takeaway is straightforward: don’t hand cultural monopolies the power to decide which facts may be spoken. Labels can be weaponized; institutions can be cowed; and slow creep of silencing tactics can hollow out democratic debate. Now is the time to heed Hitchens’ warning, to insist on robust argument rather than rhetorical shutdowns, and to keep the marketplace of ideas open for all who value truth over tribal reflexes.
