There is nothing more clarifying than listening to a speaker who says what they really mean.
That is true when you agree with somebody and is equally true when you don’t. That is true when a saint professes love for their enemies and is true when a vicious person declares his hatred for others.
Silencing people isn’t just an offense against an abstract set of rights; it not only undermines liberty; it also robs us of the opportunity to learn, get to know people, change our minds, or gain moral clarity. If somebody is more right than you, you learn from the experience; if they are wrong, you at least have the opportunity to correct them. And if they are determined to silence you, you know they are the bad guys.
‘Hate speech’: YouTube censors video of Marco Rubio branding Hamas as ‘savages’ https://t.co/zX119f4Ua0
— Bo Snerdley (@BoSnerdley) October 13, 2023
I have been railing against the evil of Hamas and its supporters throughout the world all week, but I am also disturbed by the moves being made in Western countries to make illegal gatherings to support Hamas or to silence the terrorist supporters.
Were I in France or Great Britain–both countries cracking down on pro-Hamas speech and demonstrations–it would bother me that my leaders don’t want me to know that evil is in our midst. Shutting up the bigots doesn’t get rid of the bigotry; it drives it underground and likely radicalizes its supporters.
It also deprives people of an important fact: diversity is not our strength. Mass immigration from lands hostile to civilized behavior was a horrible, terrible mistake.
Millions of liberals are, I hope, waking up to the fact that people with whom they have allied are, indeed, the bad guys. By this, I don’t mean just radical Islamists, but more importantly all the DEI, “decolonize,” and other Leftist/Marxist activists who adhere to critical theory ideology. CRT, DEI, “decolonize,” and alphabet radicals are united in one thing, despite their differences: they hate the West. They hate you and me.
And that “us” includes you, old-style liberals.
Censorship is nothing more than a mechanism designed to maintain an illusion that pleases the powerful. One of those illusions is that Westerners, especially White Westerners, are oppressors. Everybody got to see that this week as college campuses and the streets of major cities were filled with terrorist-sympathizers. Suppressing those demonstrations would simply hide the fact that these people exist and are in a dominant position in our societies.
Liberals put them there. And liberals need to see what they have been supporting. Censoring the vicious would only serve to hide that fact.
Western govts have been clamping down on pro-Palestinian protests—moving to criminalize their flag, pro-Arab chants, & demonstrations.
Most people, regardless of their perspective on Israel-Gaza, should be able to grasp the profound danger of this govt incursion on free speech. pic.twitter.com/5zQbk8CQB2
— System Update (@SystemUpdate_) October 12, 2023
Germany has draconian hate speech laws, as does the UK; such laws don’t suppress hate, but rather suppress its existence being revealed. The EU is on a censorship spree, trying to create an illusion of a happy one-world net-zero utopia where everybody lives in harmony with each other and nature.
That is an illusion, and a dangerous one at that. In order to live good lives and protect our civilization we need to confront reality, not spread a fantasy. That means facing hard truths, and confronting the untruths that are out there.
Our elites, who want to shape our illusions do their best to suppress what they call “misinformation.” In their view, anything true or false that challenges their vision and their power is misinformation.
Fear of COVID was used to implement their censorship regime, and they will use fear of Islamic terrorism to further that goal. We shouldn’t let them. I want to see who stands with barbarians, and who stands with civilization. I want to hear the justifications of terror, and more importantly I want the Michelle Goldbergs of the world to do so to.
It is clarifying. It keeps us in touch with reality. And only through confronting reality can we make it better.
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