His latest diatribe covers the constant erosion of the freedom of speech, where a small minority can control the content of speech by declaring anything they disagree with, anything they don’t like, or anything that makes them feel uncomfortable as “hate speech”. Such oversight stifles the free exchange of differing ideas, something every healthy society needs. In turn, censoring differing speech also stifles the society, something that is never good.
While Pat believes the US First Amendment will protect the free speech of those of us in the US, he is wrong. There are those among us who have been working hard to make the First Amendment moot. They have been trying to get their fellow travelers to push the idea that “hate speech” is not constitutionally protected. One example: they have tried to use the “Yelling ‘Fire!’ in a theater is not protected by the First Amendment” argument as if it is somehow germane to the discussion. I have responded “But there is a fire in the theater...and you set it,” to more than one woke snowflake who would like to control every aspect of our speech to prevent any ‘uncomfortable’ speech. Eliminating any speech they don’t like is their goal and the First Amendment be damned.
Think it won’t happen here?
It already is, with heavy censorship of posting to places like Twitter and Facebook, and the actions taken by those same media platforms, backed up by Amazon/AWS, Google, and Apple deplatforming and demonetizing websites, apps, and YouTube channels of those they disagree with. Their terms of service have been changed to the point that any speech used that their anonymous and ignorant censors deem offensive can be removed.
An example of this I came across personally: Someone writing a comment to a post about cats and the discussion was comparing the size and characteristics of Savannah and Maine Coon cats. The comment was removed “due to the use of offensive language”. The ‘nanny algorithm’ the censors used apparently didn’t like the name of the Maine cat breed, seeing part of the breed name as being racist in nature. Even an appeal to the human censors elicited a “continued use of the offensive term could result in termination of offending account” response.
How. Effin’. Stupid.
Now apply that to everyday speech. Think it won’t happen? It has already started. On YouTube you find that some YouTubers can’t mention terms like ‘feminism’, ‘sex’, ‘sexism’, and ‘MGTOW’ just to name a few, without YouTube algorithms/human censors tagging/removing their videos. Not all YouTubers, just some. It has also led to YouTube demonitizing their channels, while leaving others employing same language and terms untouched. The difference as best I can tell? Those allowed to keep using the questionable language appear to be the ‘correct’ kind of YouTuber.
Another place we see this, and it is nowhere near as subtle, is the halls of academia. Faculty, students, and guest speakers are silenced on campuses because many of the aforementioned woke snowflakes are so offended (or so triggered) they can’t allow those with differing viewpoints to speak. They label those differing opinions as “hate speech” and will do anything they can to stifle it. It has gone as far as physical attacks to prevent those they see as ‘whateverists’ from speaking.
It is as Pat described in his video – the claims that the speech they disagree with is “hate speech” is a lie, a pernicious lie. It’s only purpose is to silence those with differing opinions, period. Silencing free speech doesn’t make things better. It makes things worse. It always makes things worse.