We’ve laid down voluminous amounts of text on free and compelled speech. We defend the former; the left demands the latter. And more recently, they demanded it at random, in public, under threat of harm. If you think that stops should they win, you’d be mistaken.
Related: Canadian Speech Police Threaten Arrest If Dad Refers to his Daughter as a Girl
It gets validation.
And it is not just for mobs swarming sidewalk cafe’s or invading upscale eateries. David Ross, writing in the Washington Examiner, reminds us of the length and depth of a journey that leads us to today.
“Increasingly, people who are minding their own business are being pressured to make politically correct proclamations while in public, at work, and, incredibly, even at school. This includes colleges and universities, where free speech and free thought are supposed to be cherished. These are very dangerous developments for any free society because they are inconsistent with freedom.” …
Our society is now running in reverse, demanding conformity from adults that was once demanded only of children. Small wonder, then, why increasing political correctness has increasingly infantilized adults. What’s the point in thinking for yourself if it can only get you into trouble?
The quest to involve themselves and government in everything gives them, in their mind, agency to regulate not just what it is and who can do it but how we talk or think about it.
This is a deliberate feature of postmodernism and critical theory. Language is everything, and they decide what the words are and what they mean. This is why you can’t possibly be anything but what they claim (racist, sexist, homophobe, bigot, white supremacist) because your systemic (cultural) paradigms have corrupted your understanding of these words and their meanings.
Note that this accusation can never be allowed to them and by playing along, you are allowing the left the validation to reprogram the language and our thinking.
Now, you might ask, what’s so wrong about that? Maybe we could learn to be kinder about our differences. That’s a beautiful picture, but unless you have been living under a huge rock, you’ll have noticed that they are not painting happy little trees.
This is about force, violence, intimidation, and mob justice.
The pot of gold at the end of this rainbow is unassailable political power and the one-party state. An arrangement where communication is monitored and limited in much the way Twitter and Facebook do it now. Mandatory diversity and sensitivity training (re-education). The end of free speech. No due process. No appeals.
And that’s all bad. But on top of all of that, you will not even be permitted to keep to yourself. To have your own mind. You will lose the right to remain silent. You will be required to declare your loyalty to their worldview when called upon, and refusing will have consequences.
This is not a theory; the left is doing it now. Silence is not neutral. Silence is violence.
If they earn the political will or power to back that up, it will only get worse, and you’ll find you can’t get what you lost back.
This election may be the best opportunity you have to push back. I suggest you use it.
