Original:
It’s Un-American To Be Anti-Free Speech
This is a great article and I entirely agree with the well intended spirit in which it was written. Only one thing stands in the way of my complete endorsement: logic.
Reduced to it's essentials, by labeling more accurately, it violates one of the most fundamental principles of logic - that you cannot assert something and it's opposite simultaneously. An assertion cannot be true and untrue at the same time; not for most people, most the time (tell your partner you're 'having an affair, but not having an affair' and see if that works for them).
I won't elaborate on the historical antagonisms between the State and free speech, with which we're all familiar.
and continue to this day in it's multifarious modern forms:
The original article does a good job of reminding us of just how long the fundamental principles of the U.S. Constitution were actually subscribed to (22 years, at best, given the Alien and Sedition Act was enacted in 1798).
'Free speech' is a marketing slogan for the State. When it's new and young it needs it's 'citizens' support to feed it into existence. Once they are more dependent on the State than it is on them 'free speech' can be eroded back out of existence as 'free speech', which underpins 'freedom' of any kind, is anathema to a State.
All this is obvious. Where's the contradiction?
What is meant by 'American'? The assumption is that 'American' is somehow different to the Statist axiom of 'anti-free speech'. But 'America' is, and always has been, a State itself. All the people who supported the American Revolutionary War, the Declaration of Independence, voted for Representatives etc. believed in 'America' and 'America' functioned, at it's core, through violence to ensure it's survival as 'America'. Anyone who understood this and attempted to resist it was quickly put down. Not just by the 'elites' that setup their new State, but by their fellow 'citizens'.
In other words people had fled the oppression of their European homelands to a new life of 'freedom' but not been able to rid themselves of the Statist within. That part of their thinking that told them that violently forcing your opinions on others through vehicles like taxation is 'responsible' and 'good'. They hadn't realized where the 'oppression' they had escaped in Europe really came from (their own ideas and beliefs). The subsequent history of America has unfolded logically from there, as the article nicely summarizes.
Not understanding this principle is why we are lurching headlong into a Huxlean/Orwellian dystopia whilst all the time declaring our undying support for 'free speech'. No-one who debates anything can logically claim to be opposed to free speech since the moment even the idea of being opposed to free speech is communicated the principle has been exercised. The anti-free speech advocate, however it's presented, is an instant hypocrite.
Ideas, opinions, values, beliefs etc. are one thing. Physically initiating violence against others is something else. Defending against the physical violence of others is something else again. Which applies is down to your judgement. It only matters if you have the ability to defend yourself. You don't need a piece of paper used as a marketing strategy by a bunch of 'Elites' to work that out. You do need a great deal of patience and tolerance to do it wisely in your life ....... or you can leave it up to this guy (and all the others like him) ...
