Censorship Is More Dangerous Than Hate Speech
Someone needs to tell Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, YouTube and the
European Union that the only way to stop a bad guy's speech is to
counter it with a good guy's speech, not censor it.
Recently,
the internet giants took on the role of internet speech police when they
agreed to monitor and combat so-called "hate speech" for the EU. No
word on how they define hate speech.
I suspect the whole EU
hate speech argument is less about preventing terrorist attacks, as they
propose, and more about culling criticism of their immigration and
refugee policies.
Oh, the hypocrisy of those who brag about
their "open-mindedness" in one breath and cry about censorship in
the next. The only acceptable speech is that which is pleasing to their
ears or palatable to their particular ideology, while supporting the
prosecution of people for their personal opinions or religious beliefs,
especially if those opinions and beliefs do not fall in line with
theirs.
It
takes you back to a quote from George Orwell's novel "Nineteen
Eighty-Four." There was of course no way of knowing whether you were
being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the
Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was
even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.
But
any rate, they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had
to live -- did live, from habit that became instinct -- in the
assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in
darkness, every movement scrutinized.
Here in the U.S., the First Amendment covers all speech. Yes,
folks, even hate speech. Speakers shouldn't be banned from universities
unless a university's intention is to ban free thought. The same goes
for talking about climate change, Californians. And what the Bible says
about marriage, liberals.
It's pretty telling that you rarely
find conservatives, known for their deep respect for free speech,
charging liberals with "Constitutionphobia" or "Christianphobia" or
"babyphobia" or whatever phobia might be applied to those with whom they
disagree.
The way I see it, the dangers of censorship far
outweigh the dangers of hate speech. Even still, we march closer to
it every time we bend a knee to political correctness. You don't have to
live in a totalitarian state to be controlled by totalitarianism. We're
not there yet, but we're sure headed in that direction.
If we
believe in the right to free speech, we also must believe in the right
to offend. That means that building a wall isn't xenophobia. Believing
in traditional marriage is not homophobia. And fundamentally disagreeing
with President Obama's policies is by no means racism.
By the
way, the Bible is pro-free speech too. But, it's also about
accountability. Jesus said in Matthew 12:36 that "every careless word"
we speak we will "give an accounting for it in the day of judgment." So
maybe we should occupy our time considering our own words rather than
censoring others.
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