hate speech is free

Five or six years ago, less or longer, I subscribed to Jonathan Turley, then thought of unsubscribing because suddenly he was so filling my inbox I couldn't keep it read, and didn't even want to. But it's stupid to stop or block intelligence, so it still comes. Still don't read it all, but scanning I try to spot what's of concern to me.

https://jonathanturley.org/2019/11/10/no-the-u-s-does-not-need-european-style-hate-speech-laws/


Turley is currently on a major soapbox about free speech, freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Hate speech stirs violence in people of inferior being, should it be curtailed? Should all offensive speech be curtailed? How about antisemitic harangues? How about white supremacist demonstrations? What about my implied certainty that white supremacists are ignorant white trash who should be removed from society, should I be allowed to say so? My political views are 180 out, opposite to yours, including elements of violent hatred Turley makes the persuasive case against policing what we are allowed to say, including citing instances of government outrageousness where we ought least to expect it, including even in the UK. After the Third Reich, we understand the concern in Germany. In fact, it's understandable anywh it in France and the UK, which he also cites, where speech can be evil and stir hate into mob and individual violence. But with my conviction that all government is always all ways all bad, I detest authority, and there is enormous risk in allowing others, government, to decide what we cannot say, because government is humans, and humans are selfish beyond comprehension, and in every area of thinking we think we are right, and others are wrong and we must punish them. 

Majority rules but as the twentieth century proved, the majority can be stupid and evil, bullying and abusive: read up on Germany in the early thirties to middle forties of the twentieth century. The USSR. The British Empire. And read Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four and Koestler's Darkness At Noon.

It seems worse, worst among young "pseudo" intellectuals self-assuredly going out of their way to take offense, seeming especially so among college age who in obtuse immaturity can take up militancy against the damndest things. Someone once said "there is nothing so fearsome as a Christian rising from his knees and going forth to do the will of God", and we see the same principal of self-certitude at work nationwide among political extremists on all sides of the "aisle". 

College professors being hounded off campus and even fired for saying what they think that is out of vogue with current political correctness on campus. Freedom of speech?

The stupidest of the stupid is demanding space to be safe from free speech so that you can be insulated from hearing what you don't agree with, HJJC, this is America, grow up, look around, get used to it, there are offensive and obnoxious people everywhere, learn about them, you may even be one of them yourself; or in twenty years you will realize that you were so. 

No even stupider beyond stupidest is the "cultural appropriation" movement, self-righteously and indignantly taking up such noble causes as banning sushi in the college cafeteria (what? real Americans don't eat sushi? get a life). Offense at costumes worn to costume parties. Offense at white people wearing oriental style clothing. This is, or has been, a free country where, above and beyond all other rights, people have the right to be stupid beyond comprehension, including those against sushi and free speech; but nobody has the right to take away the rights of others no matter how stupid oneself or others may be.

"Blackface"? Politicians hounded, even out of office, because of stupid things they did in college, when self-certainty is highest, judgment worst, and sophomore most sophomoric, but grow out of it. If you wear blackface these days and get the crap beat out of you, you damn well deserve it for being so stupid. If you wore blackface in college thirty years ago when it was supposedly funny, jiminy, how have you been since, how are you now, let whose past is without sin cast the first stone. Days at Cove School we had minstrels and our stars, always the most popular and boisterous boys in our class, always wore blackface and acted simple and everybody laughed. We were insensitive, ignorant and wrong. The teacher read "Parasols Is For Ladies" and we laughed. It never occurred to us that it was not right to have Cove School for us and Rosenwald for them. When JFK declared for president, the fact he was Roman Catholic was an issue lest the Pope be running America. 

It used to be in my Christian denomination that if you were divorced and remarried don't come up to the Altar rail for Holy Communion or you will be turned away. If you were female, don't expect to take part in parish leadership or liturgical leadership. If you were black, maybe there was a black Episcopal parish in Pensacola for you, don't even think to come sit in our pew, kneel at the rail next to us, and God forbid you should drink from our chalice. But, full circle, if/when the Episcopal Church comes out against free speech, I will become an enemy and vocal.

Society evolves, ours has and does and is. We get past things, and we need move on. Post-war Germany is an example with their near-extreme prohibitions (arrested for having a Horst Wessel Lied tone ring on your iPhone?). And post-war Japan with its constitution that allows no military except a small Self Defense Force. Self discipline.

If we did things that were harmful to others, we need to face up to and make amends. Yet, there's no way I can ever make amends for all the wicked things I've done, directly and indirectly, personally and/or been party to as part of my culture and my certitudes, known and unknown, eyes open and totally blind. I'm just trying to make it, muck along, muddle through doing the best I know how. I never wore blackface, but at my all-white state university, I joined a fraternity that proudly identified as Southern, always had a huge Confederate battle flag flying over the front entrance, sat as a group at every football game to stand, wave the Confederate flag and sing Dixie at every opportunity. Solemnly and certitudinously we voted, dropping white or black marbles in a box, to expel from our chapter in disgrace a sad but admitted gay brother (,at the time the word was queer). 

Inside a church I long served as priest, there is an upstairs back gallery where in its early years slaves could sit, and people who could not afford to buy a downstairs gated pew. My family and every family I ever knew growing up had Negro servants, maids and yardmen, and for whom mama kept a separate plate, glass, cup, knife, fork and spoon for their meals outside. I was born into and grew up in a racially segregated society that until I went away to university it never occurred to me was evil to the heart and soulless core. I do not know but why my great-grandfather, an Episcopal priest, owned slaves. For myself, I'm ashamed, am deeply sorry, and humbly repent, I'm serious, I mean it. Forgive me, father, for I have sinned, what are you going to do, shoot an old man? No, you just have to wait until we all die out and you are left with your own unconscious, unconscionable, inhuman evils that the generation beyond you will hold up to shame you.

Why write this, wander so? Because as Turley says, we have the right to say stupid and offensive things. Because I don't want Big Brother deciding what offends him. Not necessarily the right to DO them, but always the right to run our mouth. When we do so, we ought expect to be shunned by decent people, but without fear of the government coming for us, or a mob with pitchfork, torches and a length of rope. 

Bill of Rights: when Government starts chipping away at the First Amendment, there will, hopefully, be many folks with guts enough to stand up and remind Government why we have the Second Amendment. 

T