Article by Cal Nogov on Mar. 11, 2016
This was posted at an alleged anarchist facebook page.
I say alleged because it must be run by government. They don’t understand freedom. They don’t understand free speech. They don’t understand economics. They don’t understand anarchism. It’s getting to the point where I wonder if they understand how shoe laces work.
I’m not going to explain why hate speech is free speech. This should be self evident to most people with half a brain. If free speech doesn’t protect unpopular speech, it’s not free speech at all. What these kind of PC people are doing is trying to redefine what free speech is. They don’t want to come right out and say we don’t want free speech. Most people still recognize free speech as a good thing. An important thing. Even a vital thing. (I wrote about this the other day in ‘why the first amendment first‘. Please check that out.) The PC crowd knows this. They know they can’t say, “we think free speech should be banned”. This would cause most people to reject them outright. So they are trying to come in the back door.
It started with, “you can’t just yell fire in a crowded theater. Free speech has limits”. This is an incorrect argument I wrote about here. Then it was, “you can’t say racist or sexist things”. I agree 100% that saying things that are racist or sexist is mean and nasty and hurtful. What I disagree with 100% is that you can’t say it. All speech should be allowed for the following reasons.
It prevents abuse. Because reasonable people see racist and sexist speech detestable they never fought to protect the right to say it. It is now fully being abused. The racist and sexist speech still exists, it is just now completely one sided. The minority can say it. The majority can’t. The supposed weaker can say it. The supposed stronger can’t.
It prevents stagnation and the status quo. New ideas is what allows humanity to flourish and grow. Often those in power try to protect the status quo. New ideas are squashed in favor of protecting the interests of the prevailing systems, theories, what have you. A prominent example was when Galileo recognized and promoted that the earth revolved around the sun instead of the sun revolving around the earth. He was subsequently tried for heresy and imprisoned for the rest of his life.
It allows truth to prevail.
When you can’t win an argument on merit, you try to shut the other side down. Which brings us to today. The PC crowd is now in its next phase of shutting down free speech. Anything that is hurtful, or mean, or nasty is now deemed hate speech. This is why you get the college campuses with ‘safe zones’ and ‘free speech zones’. And why everyone is offended by everything.
The PC crowd is mostly lefties. Their ideas are horrible. The only way they can get their ideas passed is by shutting down the opposition’s arguments. They must shut down free speech to win. Most people are spineless and just allow the PC crowd to keep pushing and pushing. I am not one of them.
Free speech matters. Anarchists should recognize this.
A word to would be anarchists. You may be swayed by the argument that anarchists have always been collectivists. That anarchists reject private property in favor of collective property.
The rejection of private property throughout history of the anarchist movements is the reason for its failures.
It took the 20th century to really understand this. The century where nearly the entire planet reached a certain level of collectivism. The more collectivist a society, the worse it was. The more impoverish. The more abusive to citizens. Millions died to democide. The empirical evidence is in: Collectivism s-s-sucks for individuals and for humanity as a whole.
The 20th century is also when philosophical anarchism began evolving. Evolving to recognize and include private property for individuals.
Anarchists who cling to the ‘rejection of private property’ tenet are clinging to the failed tenets of the philosophy. This is like having a Ferrari and strapping on 200 year old wooden wagon wheels to it. Recognize the evolution of philosophical anarchy. Slap the Pirelli’s on that Ferrari.
