Do you remember when the radical Left first came up with the category of “hate crimes”? It was unnecessary and superfluous because any valid “hate crime” was already a crime. For example, assault and murder were already crimes, but the new category said that they were worse if committed with hateful “intent”. This implied that we could read minds. The entire concept is invalid.
This bogus concept is now expanding into speech. “Hate speech” is politically incorrect, and the radical Left is now pushing hard to make it illegal. Anything you say that is offensive or “hateful” is considered hate speech. First question: Offensive to whom? The answer is to any group favored by political correctness. Second question: What happened to equality under the law? Again, equality applies only to members of groups (not to individuals) favored by political correctness, not to everyone. That means that YOU are not equal. Freedom of speech is indispensable to a free and civilized society, yet your right to it is being denied. After all of the battles fought for women’s suffrage and racial equality (remember the Civil War and the equal rights movement of the 1960’s?), we are morphing again into a society of political inequality. And, the radical Left is trying to make their version of politically correct inequality legal!
What is hate speech? If you say that you’re proud of being white, that is hate speech. If you say that you’re proud of being black, it is not hate speech because blacks are a group currently (but not permanently) favored by political correctness. If you say that you believe in American exceptionalism like I do, that is hate speech. But, I can explain why American exceptionalism is valid because it is based on freedom. The radical Left cannot give you a rational explanation why it is hate speech. This fact points out that their entire agenda is based on emotion, not on reason.
Say to them, “I heard what you said, but I do not understand what you mean. Please explain.” But, be careful because they will contend that your question is hate speech! If you question them at all, it is hate speech! Our current culture is based on emotionalism, not on rationality. The radical Left has been indoctrinating students with emotionalism in government (public) schools for many decades. That is why most young people today do not know how to think; they do not know how to reason. They cannot assert that there is no such thing as a right to not be offended. The way to handle an irrational statement is to be able to point out that it is irrational, and why. Part of the right to free speech is the right to judge a person by what he says. He has a right to make stupid statements, but he cannot escape the consequences of your judgment. The bottom line is that reason gives you a method by which to discover and correct your errors. Emotion does not.
Freedom of speech and thought are necessarily connected. All human progress has resulted from human thinking. To suppress speech is to suppress thinking. We must be able to follow reason where ever it leads. Your conclusion may offend some people, but you cannot avoid this if you are interested in the truth. And, neither can they if they are interested in the truth. The solution to disagreement is to debate. This is what free inquiry is all about. It is about persuasion, your ability to think and reason, not about physical force. Force destroys reason. Forcing someone to be silent does not change his mind. The proper function of government is to protect your rights which includes freedom of speech. The concept of rights says that you can act in any way you want provided that you do not violate the rights of others. But, this requires that you know what rights are, and are not. Americans are losing their rights precisely because they do not know what rights are.
The NSA is collecting your emails and recording your phone conversations. They have a new multi-billion dollar data storage facility in Utah. A simple computer search will pull up all of the data on you. The squeaky wheel gets the grease! Saying the wrong thing could put you in jail. In this context will you protest and fight for your individual rights, or will you remain safely silent (for a while) until you become fully enslaved in a socialist dictatorship? Orwell’s 1984 is here! Big brother is watching you!
I am reading Defending Free Speech which is available at Amazon.com ($6.95 paperback). https://www.amazon.com/Defending-Free-Speech-Steve-Simpson/dp/0979466180/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1472587827&sr=1-1&keywords=defending+free+speech+simpson
It is a collection of Objectivist essays about the attack on free speech, and it is excellent! Objectivists truly know how to take an issue apart and get to the bottom of it. They can point to the ideas on which it is based and clearly explain how it evolved into its current form. You will see how fundamental (philosophical) ideas shape a culture and thus determine the course of a nation. The destructive ideas attacking free speech are destroying Western civilization. Revealing and profound! If you and your children do not wish to live as slaves in socialist dictatorship, you need to investigate now. We are fast approaching the point of no return.
AT THE HEART OF THE ATTACKS ON FREE SPEECH, AN ATTACK ON REASON
If you do not understand how philosophy underlies ALL of your ideas and your perspective of human life and of existence, you can read the essay linked below which is the text of the commencement address Ayn Rand gave to the Graduating Class Of The United States Military Academy at West Point, New York – March 6, 1974.
http://www.tracyfineart.com/usmc/philosophy_who_needs_it.htm
The Death Of The First Amendment for Ordinary Americans
http://www.conservativehq.com/article/23965-death-first-amendment-ordinary-americans
This article examines the issue of free speech. The Liberal/Leftists/Progressive/Statists have been committing an egregious error in their zeal to transform America into a Socialist state. They ignore the difference between free speech and committing a crime. They’re saying that hate speech is the legal equivalent of murder. Why? People need to understand the difference to keep their own values straight. They need it to be able to verbally clarify and defend their personal “moral compass”.
Equivocation is to ignore or blur the distinction between two superficially similar things and to treat them as if they were the same. A current example is their nonsense about “inequality”. The radical Left is blurring the distinction between equality under the law (political equality) and equal results. Only the former is valid. All people should be treated equally by the legal system. But, this has nothing to do with the amount of your paycheck, for example. The Left is saying that people are not equal in America because the amount of their paychecks is not equal. What they are saying is that the janitor in a doctor’s office should get paid the same amount as the doctor. Listen carefully to what they are saying, and you will see that this is true. And it is nonsense.
IN THE SAN BERNARDINO ATTACKS, A STARK EXAMPLE OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SPEECH AND CRIME
The Federal Government Goes After Free Speech
Can a simple mistake throw you in jail? Political correctness trumps free speech
NYC to Enact Legal Consequences for Using Wrong Pronoun with Transgenders
http://freedomoutpost.com/2015/12/nyc-to-enact-legal-consequences-for-using-wrong-pronoun-with-transgenders/
Mayor Who Called Hussein Obama a Muslim Asked to Resign
http://freedomoutpost.com/2015/12/mayor-who-called-hussein-obama-a-muslim-asked-to-resign/
NYC Goes Full Nazi: Fines Citizens Up To $250,000 for Accurately Referring to Drag Queens
http://freedomoutpost.com/2015/12/nyc-goes-full-nazi-fines-citizens-up-to-250000-for-accurately-referring-to-drag-queens/
San Diego Muslim Student Association Demands Islamophobic Speech Be Punished
“Get out of this country.”
Political Correctness: The Art of Killing Free Speech
http://freedomoutpost.com/2016/01/political-correctness-the-art-of-killing-free-speech/
Time To Push Back At Political Correctness
http://www.survivopedia.com/time-to-push-back-at-political-correctness/?source=newsletter
A Liberal rips political correctness and cry baby college students. I love it!
Dershowitz Rips Safe Spaces, Microaggression, Political Correctness on College Campuses