In a piece on free speech in National Review, Charles Cooke makes the point that in the U.S. even Leftists on our courts have so far protected free speech and have not accepted the idea of “hate speech” and other speech limits now so common in other Western countries.
Cooke explains however that “culture eventually becomes politics, and the private eventually becomes the public. A certain portion of Americans believe to their core that “free speech” is a euphemism for “intolerance”; that one must filter all individual-liberty claims through the latest iteration of the hierarchy of grievances; and even that the First Amendment represents some sort of clever plot to keep marginalized people down.”
He points out that “that this gets the history of speech entirely backward — ask the rebel colonists, the abolitionists, and the NAACP whether they benefited or suffered from free speech — is beside the point. What matters is that it has become fashionable as an idea, that it is spreading, and that it is being enforced voluntarily within the towering heights of American culture by people who believe that they are the rebels and that the free-speech crowd is the Man.”
Our would-be censors may look like authoritarians — and, indeed, their solutions may be authoritarian in nature — but what is ultimately driving them is a total lack of faith in themselves and in other people.
“Eventually, these views will have consequences. Like the rest of us, judges die, and besides, the courts are ultimately accountable to Congress and to the presidency. If we fail to correct course, the attitudes we associate with Berkeley will soon seep into Washington, and, after a while, they will become the law,” Cooke rightly points out.
And later he comes to a conclusion about anti-free expression trends that agrees with a point I have made relating to the wimp-ism of those on the Left. Cooke writes: “It may not always look like it, but it seems to me that the root problem with which we are dealing here is insecurity. Our would-be censors may look like authoritarians — and, indeed, their solutions may be authoritarian in nature — but what is ultimately driving them is a total lack of faith in themselves and in other people.”
Is the anti-free speech movement born of wimp-ism?
Cooke explains however that “culture eventually becomes politics, and the private eventually becomes the public. A certain portion of Americans believe to their core that “free speech” is a euphemism for “intolerance”; that one must filter all individual-liberty claims through the latest iteration of the hierarchy of grievances; and even that the First Amendment represents some sort of clever plot to keep marginalized people down.”
He points out that “that this gets the history of speech entirely backward — ask the rebel colonists, the abolitionists, and the NAACP whether they benefited or suffered from free speech — is beside the point. What matters is that it has become fashionable as an idea, that it is spreading, and that it is being enforced voluntarily within the towering heights of American culture by people who believe that they are the rebels and that the free-speech crowd is the Man.”
Our would-be censors may look like authoritarians — and, indeed, their solutions may be authoritarian in nature — but what is ultimately driving them is a total lack of faith in themselves and in other people.
“Eventually, these views will have consequences. Like the rest of us, judges die, and besides, the courts are ultimately accountable to Congress and to the presidency. If we fail to correct course, the attitudes we associate with Berkeley will soon seep into Washington, and, after a while, they will become the law,” Cooke rightly points out.
And later he comes to a conclusion about anti-free expression trends that agrees with a point I have made relating to the wimp-ism of those on the Left. Cooke writes: “It may not always look like it, but it seems to me that the root problem with which we are dealing here is insecurity. Our would-be censors may look like authoritarians — and, indeed, their solutions may be authoritarian in nature — but what is ultimately driving them is a total lack of faith in themselves and in other people.”
Bingo. Wimp-ism on parade.