Every so often the leftist dogma machine will spit out a mantra so innately nonsensical that it’s hard not to scream. The ludicrous idea that “rape has nothing to do with sex” has been drilled so diligently into the rubes’ empty, medicated heads, they’re able to look away from all those problematic penises and vaginas.
If you keep lecturing them that “race is a social construct” but that “racism” is everywhere, not only will they blindly swallow such self-contradictory idiocy, they’ll call you stupid for not dutifully playing along.
Such self-replicating slogans are not eternal truths, because the truth is required to be logically consistent. They are more like Zen koans—self-contradictory and designed to free you from logic’s oppressive shackles. They are the theoretical version of one hand clapping.
And so it goes with another meme that has become disturbingly prevalent of late—this warped, crippled idea that there’s some innate schism between “free speech” and “hate speech” and that the terms are mutually exclusive.
“Hate Speech” is Not the Same as “Free Speech” blares the idiotic headline from Daily Kos, blithely trouncing upon the very meaning of the word “free.”
We have alleged First Amendment specialists falsely claiming that “hate speech” is “unprotected by the Constitution,” even though the words “hate” and “hatred” are nowhere to be found in that document. “It is absolutely no coincidence that the first proponents of curbing ‘hate speech’ came from totalitarian communist regimes in the wake of WWII.”
We have logic-immune nitwits insisting that the only way to protect “freedom of expression” is to “strengthen hate speech laws.”
We have ideological totalitarians claiming that free speech is designed only to “protect ideas worth discussing,” and that “white supremacy” is a dangerous lie that must never be told again.
We have a Canadian judge named Marshall Rothstein trying to argue with a straight face that since “hate speech…shuts down dialogue,” it must of course be shut down.
We have the editorial board of The New York Times flouting all known journalistic rules and claiming that an anti-jihadist activist is “motivated purely by hatred for Muslims,” as if they were wizards rather than journalists and have the magical power to peel beyond someone’s words to discern their evil intent.
We have one college newspaper after another specifying that free speech does not include “hate speech.”
We have 51% of Democrats and 37% of Republicans encouraging the government to criminalize “hate speech.”
And we have a robust 40% of millennials being perfectly fine with the idea that the government should prevent all speech that is “offensive to minorities.”
Statistically speaking, I’d estimate that when you’d confront any of these addled twerps and demand that they quantify intangibles such as “hate speech” and “offensiveness,” roughly 100% of them would start stuttering and scratching their heads.
It is no coincidence that those who want to ban “hate speech” also reserve the right to define exactly what this innately meaningless and entirely subjective term means.
It is no coincidence that such types dishonestly depict all dissenting political opinions as “hate.”
It is no coincidence that such types invariably worship the almighty state.
And thus it is absolutely no coincidence that the first proponents of curbing “hate speech” came from totalitarian communist regimes in the wake of WWII.
“The states where criticism of totalitarian ideology was prohibited were the ones that internationalized hate-speech laws,” writes Jacob Mchangama in a fascinating overview called “The Sordid Origin of Hate-Speech Laws”:
The [UN] voting record reveals the startling fact that the internationalization of hate-speech prohibitions in human rights law owes its existence to a number of states where both criticisms of the prevalent totalitarian ideology as well as advocacy for democracy were strictly prohibited.
The essay tracks the Soviet Union’s repeated attempts to attach hate-speech exceptions to the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights and how the historical push has expanded slowly from banning speech that directly incites violence…to speech that somehow only incites “hatred”…to speech that authorities merely tag as hateful. And the Soviet Union’s definition of “hate speech” was so broad that it deemed any speech that spoke favorably of capitalism as “fascist” and therefore ban-worthy.
The Soviets’ proposal included this clause:
Any advocacy of national, racial, or religious hostility or of national exclusiveness or hatred and contempt, as well as any action establishing a privilege or a discrimination based on distinctions of race, nationality, or religion constitute a crime and shall be punishable under the law of the state.
In other words, while the Soviets were working thought criminals to death in labor camps and pulverizing the minds of political dissenters in psychiatric hospitals, at least they were protecting their citizens from “hatred and contempt.”
Modern hate-speech laws tend to be focused on preventing any honest criticism of globalist initiatives to erase national borders and shove all of the Earth’s inhabitants in one big pigpen under the same inescapable jurisdiction. And although they pay tremendous lip service to “democracy,” you have absolutely no say in that matter. And if you try to speak up about it, you will be jailed.
The EU’s Framework Decision on racism and xenophobia provides for prison sentences of up to three years for “publicly inciting hatred”—whatever that means—against “a group of persons (or a member of such a group) defined by reference to race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin.”
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights—which is a legally binding document ratified by 168 parties—likewise attempts to legislate “hatred”:
Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.
I noticed that they didn’t bother to quantify what constitutes “advocacy,” “hatred,” or “incitement,” but it’s probably wise not to inquire lest I be charged with a hate crime.
And if you really want to get burned, try questioning the Holocaust in 14 European countries. Free speech was clearly never intended to protect such hateful questions.
Our social betters scold us that even though our wonderful government gives us the right of free speech, we do not have the right to yell “FIRE!” in a crowded theater.
But what if the government purposely crowded the theater with people who didn’t pay for an admission ticket, and those people are deliberately setting the theater on fire?
Nope. Still no right to yell “FIRE!,” because there’s a difference between free speech and hate speech. That’s why if you live in The Netherlands and criticize your country’s immigration policy, you may have Dutch cops knocking on your door. If you cast aspersions upon Merkel’s immigration policy on Facebook, Twitter, or Google in Germany, your comments will be officially disappeared within 24 hours.
In theory these “hate speech” policies are intended to protect poor, oppressed minorities, but in practice they are designed to protect the government from criticism. It’s no coincidence that the slimy creeps at the Southern Poverty Law Center include the “antigovernment movement” among the “hate groups” whose words and thoughts they’ve appointed themselves to police and punish.
Such hateful turds want a diversity of skin tones, but not of ideas—especially any ideas that question the reigning global power structure. The gut-stabbing irony is that hate-speech laws are not designed to protect the powerless, but rather extremely powerful people who hate you deeply. That is why they deserve every last drop of your hatred. And it’s also why they’re trying to shut you up.
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