...the scary part is the Government role. When Government gets to say what you can or can not talk about, we have LOST the most important freedom of all.
Anyone that’s read my articles for any length of time, probably knows that my opinion is that most people don’t really have a clue about how things truly work. Now I’m not saying that to try and seem “better” than anyone else, it’s more like a lifestyle choice. You either look for the truths in things, or you simply accept what you’re told and go on doing “your thing.”
I don’t play video games. When the first “Mario brothers” came out so many years ago, I got the toy and played the game for a few months. But it never urged me to go on and play any of the multitudes of games available now. Yet there are many people, an enormous amount actually, that are 100% addicted to their games. They’ll wait in lines in the rain for the next release of a game.
If someone told me that some particular monster in a game, was really the hero, I’d simply say “okay” and that’s that. I would have NO clue if what I was told was really true, because I don’t play the games. I’m not immersed in video chats and blogs about games. I don’t even care if the monster is really a hero or a villain.
Conversely, people consumed with their particular hobby or passion, are often too wrapped up in it, to really “fact check” something their told. If it sounds “okay” and especially if people in their social circles are good with it, then they’re down with it.
I’m never “okay with it.” If someone tells me something that doesn’t quite fit my idea of logic, I look into it. I want to find out if I’m being snookered or not. Most people however, seem to just accept it and go on with their life.
The people at the top, the real influencers of human behavior know this well. Companies that specialize in advertising know this well. Hit the right buzz words, pluck the right emotional strings, and you can sell them lies all day long. Hell, frame it right and they’ll help you support the lie. Why? Because they’re wrapped up in their lives, their games, their Netflix movies, their TV shows. Who’s going to give up their last viewing of Game of Thrones, to check out if over in France, 500 illegals from Sub-Sahara really took over an airport? (they did by the way.
Also By the way, why wasn’t that broadcast all across US media? Because it doesn’t fit their agenda.
Anyway, I do have a point behind all this. We here in the US like to espouse the idea of “freedom” and how wonderful we are because of it. I won’t devolve into a discussion here today about how many “freedom’s” we’ve lost in the last 100 years, that’s for another article. Today I’m interested in the concept of freedom of speech. We’re losing it folks, and it’s going to get ugly. But I think the WHY we’re losing it, is because people have been brain washed into believing lies.
The first waves of controlling what we think, say or do, was with the political correctness wave. In the 60’s and into the 70’s, we had the ability to laugh at ourselves. People had thicker skins, and we didn’t get “outraged” by every single make believe sleight. People weren’t so offended by something as simple as speech they didn’t agree with. They might not have liked it, they might have argued against it, but they didn’t play the “I’m offended” game.
TV shows from the 70’s would be banned in a heartbeat today. Movies like Blazing saddles, would see the producers tar and feathered. Archie Bunker in All in the Family, put racism and bigotry in your face as something pathetic, and we all collectively laughed at it. We knew right from wrong and it was good to bring stereotypes to the screen, and expose them. Not so we could get offended, but so we could look at it and know how we’re not supposed to act.
But political correctness spread like a California wildfire. Soon enough it wasn’t just about talking without offending someone. We had to learn the right adjectives and descriptions. People started to literally stop conversing at social gatherings, because they never knew if the next thing out of their mouth was going to offend someone.
Now of course we’re beyond simple PC. We’re into a whole new galaxy of PC. Today you need to know 75 different genders. God forbid you introduce someone with the wrong gender pronoun. In NY, you can be fined for up to 250K if you intentionally refuse to identify with an employee as ZE/HIR if they have asked you to. A simple he or she, a simple word can land you in court.
From there the next logical step was “Hate speech”. This is the one that’s going to bring down what’s left of free speech folks. Why? Well obviously the first question is, “who decides what is hate speech?” and secondly, it sounds logical to so many people.
Question to average JoeJane in the Street “Should hate speech be banned?”
Joe/Jane answer “Yes, there’s no room for hate speech in this day and age”
Question to Joe/Jane “What’s so bad about hate speech?”
Joe/Jane answer: “it’s hurtful, it leads to violence, and should be illegal”
On the surface this sounds pretty good right? Who needs hate speech? If some group gets offended by someone’s speech, just ban it, right? Uhm, yeah sounds good to me, what time is Game of Thrones on!? The problem is, they’re not thinking it through to its ultimate outcome. So I’ll ask, should hate speech be banned?
NO. Wait I’ll say it again, NO. When you ban speech that “offends” some people, you have done nothing but give the ultimate protection to those people. They become untouchable, no matter what they do. They can go do stupid and unlawful things, and if you complain “It’s hate speech! They hate us because we’re gay/African/Queer/short/fat/yellow/Muslim/etc!” Uhm, no snowflake.
Maybe it’s not hate, but simply a point of view, an opinion that you don’t like. If you’re a snowflake and don’t like conservative viewpoints at your college, then don’t attend the speech. Don’t try and get it banned, because you don’t realize, you’re feeding the beast. The Beast of global control wants ALL speech moderated. You’re so wrapped up in your little world, you don’t understand that the globalist beast is USING YOU AS A TOOL FOR THEIR AGENDA! And you won’t understand that until the beast comes looking for you, the things YOU say, the things YOU do.
Just like it was Brilliant to have Archie Bunker on TV exposing bigotry/racism, etc, you learn right from wrong by being exposed to it. But it’s bigger than that too. Do you realize that Although the government may impose greater punishments on crimes motivated by hate, the law is clear that the expression of hate is protected by the First Amendment. The government cannot punish speech even if it is deeply offensive.
In fact, the First Amendment unquestionably protects hateful speech. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the village of Skokie — a Chicago suburb with a significant population of Holocaust survivors — did everything it could to keep the Nazi party from marching. But every court, including the U.S. Supreme Court, ruled that the Nazis had the constitutional right to demonstrate and express their hateful message.
“Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express ‘the thought that we hate,’” the Supreme Court declared in June 2017.
History shows that punishing hate speech risks creating martyrs and rallying support. There is no evidence that banning hate speech does anything to lessen the presence in society of racist ideas or even racist crimes. The law is clear that hate-motivated crimes can be subject to enhanced punishments; it is just the speech that is protected by the First Amendment.
I imagine you’re wondering why I went off on this tangent today? Facebook.
The single biggest social media platform that so many billions rely on, wants to control what you can see and hear on their platform. Consider:
By Alan Katz and Bloomberg, Fortune, May 10, 2019
Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said his company would work with governments to determine what content is acceptable on social-media networks.
Zuckerberg made the comments in an interview on France2 television after meeting with President Emmanuel Macron on Friday and following the release of a French government report that said new regulation should be applied to large social-media companies.
“Democracy works, and that’s why we want to work with the Macron government,” Zuckerberg said in a French translation of the interview. “We’re responsible for making sure that hate speech isn’t on our products and services, but what seems important is that there needs to be a public process to determine what is unacceptable, what mustn’t be on these networks, and we’re going to work with governments to do it.”
Facebook and other social media companies are confronting a crescendo of criticism in Europe and the U.S. over how they handle personal data, hate speech, and their vulnerability to manipulation. The rising outrage prompted Zuckerberg in March to call for government regulation of four broad areas — harmful content, election integrity, privacy, and data portability.
The French government report, which will serve as a basis for redefining how France deals with hate speech, said new rules should make social networks accountable “for protecting the integrity their members, protecting users from abuse by other members and third-party attempts to manipulate the platform.”
Zuckerberg filed another post after his meeting with Macron. “We both believe governments should take a more active role around important issues like balancing expression and safety, privacy and data portability, and preventing election interference,” he wrote. “There are nuanced decisions to make here, such as how we should handle content that isn’t illegal but might cause harm.”
There it is folks. Facebook wants to work WITH GOVERNMENTS to regulate what is or is not acceptable. And, you can bet that the people charged with determining what is and is not acceptable, are going to have vastly different ideas than you might. But of course, the scary part is the Government role. When Government gets to say what you can or can not talk about, we have LOST the most important freedom of all.
Want hate speech? I hate what they’re going to do.