There's no doubt that the "white civil rights rally" in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 12-13 will attract many losers. But assuming D.C. police do a good job, this successor to last year's protest in Charlottesville, Va., will exemplify American exceptionalism.

It will prove that the U.S. continues to value freedom more than it fears being offended.

Rightly, Americans will be deeply offended by a group of men walking around the nation's capital with torches telling others that they are less valuable humans. To many minority Americans and Americans per se, this gathering will be a celebration of everything they detest: xenophobia, racial hatred, and misogyny.

Yet that is exactly why this protest is ultimately so good for America: It proves to all our citizens young and old that the right to express one's viewpoints cannot be constrained by the offense that speech may cause others. It is that emancipation of speech which allows our social and political discourses to range free in a competition of ideas.

Sadly this trait is rare in the otherwise free and democratic nations around the world. Across western Europe, governments are banning speech they regard as hateful. They do so proudly, as if their cause is moral and the right not to be offended a natural one.

But they are wrong, and America is right.

On the balancing scale of speech and offense, absent grotesque obscenity, speech intended and likely to cause imminent violence, or the perpetuation of terrible criminality, Americans have rightly decided that speech must always come first. We've rightly decided that artistic creativity in cyberspace and on the stage, historical contemplation, deterrence against violent fascism, and religious freedom matter more than being offended.

Yes, the "white civil rights rally" activists are pathetic heirs to an evil and pathetic ideology. But confident in our proven ability to constrain that ideology where necessary, we should be proud to hold true to that which most makes us exceptional: Our abiding deference to freedom.