Joe Rogan is not infrequently right. And on Tuesday, he scored one more for accuracy.
On his eponymous podcast, the subject of social media censorship arose.
The host posed a problematic truth: If you push for some citizens to be muted, you’re requesting to sooner or later have your own mouth muzzled.
“[O]nce they start censoring…what they believe is…objectionable…it’s going to keep going further and further,” he pointed out. “[T]hey are going to keep moving the goal post.”
And as the post repositions, so do you in relation. At some point, you’ll find yourself farther.
No one’s safe:
“[E]ventually, it’s going to come to you. … [Y]ou’re not going to be Left enough.”
“What’s happening on social media,” he said, “is crazy” — people “only want [their] side to be represented.”
He won’t sound right to reams of twenty-somethings. An entire generation has been raised on a corrosive concept: “hate speech.”
That notion has damaged the national understanding of free speech’s unparalleled beauty.
Hate is an emotion; it’s a feeling within. It rarely makes sense to assign such to others’ remarks. But to whatever degree it may fit an individual’s expression, it can’t and shouldn’t be legally defined. Speech must be an open arena in which ideas compete, be they virtuous or revolting. And each individual may choose not only what they say, but what seems right to them among all they hear. Free speech is a capitalist market.
Some Americans, it appears, stump for syllabic socialism — many prefer that institutions own our words and their production. A growing number want government or technological titans to control what we say.
That idea is antithetical to what America was meant to be.
And that idea is increasingly ubiquitous.
Consider a 2019 incident at the University of Michigan. A student trashed a “free speech” table belonging to Turning Point USA.
A TPA member informed him he was breaking the law.
His response:
“You know what’s also against the law? Hate speech.”
See the video here.
Also see:
Free Speech, 2022: University Paper Will Reject Op-Eds by Those With ‘Institutional Power’
University Schools Students on the Importance of Free Speech — and Reporting People Who Use It
Student Paper Will Promote Diversity by Preventing It as Free Speech Is Swapped for ‘Safety’
In a 2020 interview, Adam Carolla filleted freedom fakers:
“It’s a very slippery slope to say, ‘I am for free speech, but I’m against hate speech.’ And then, ‘I will decide what is hate speech.’ So that’s pretty disingenuous, or it’s at least convenient. … It’s funny — nobody just flat-out admits what really is happening, which is, ‘I’m not for free speech.’ You go, ‘Are you for free speech?’ And they go, ‘Of course, of course, I’m for free speech. I just think it’s dangerous–‘ You know, when they pause, and go, ‘But,’ and they explain they can’t have people coming to campus with dangerous ideas that might influence people, it’s over. You’re not for free speech.”
Back to Joe Rogan, he pointed out, “We have to be able to express ourselves, because it’s the only way we sort out what’s right and what’s wrong.”
Joe hit at tech overlords who say, “This is my private company, and I’m not going to allow you to discuss certain political ideologies or social ideas.”
It’s their right to set rules as they wish; but they’re propagandists:
“[A]s soon as you start saying, ‘I want to only hear thoughts that I agree with,’ well, that’s not discourse. That’s propaganda.”
And the man talked of trains:
“[Y]ou are on the censorship train. And there’s only so many stops before it gets to your…house.”
Where free speech is concerned, will America continue its trajectory off the rails?
Lo and behold, hope may be on the horizon:
This is bighttps://t.co/KLyEJ5o0gz
— The Real Duke: Get Used to Different (@irishduke2) April 4, 2022
NEW: Twitter appoints Elon Musk to its board of directors pic.twitter.com/cNorD6o2ZJ
— Blockworks (@Blockworks_) April 5, 2022
Really interesting piece and I’m fascinated to know how history will judge him. Elon Musk Could Save Society From Those Looking to Control It https://t.co/bRqmplCtZU
— Bob McClure (@DrBobMcClure) April 5, 2022
-ALEX
See more content from me:
For Lent, a Chicago Church is ‘Fasting From Whiteness’
California Town Sinks $200K in Taxes to Develop an LGBT Universal Basic Income Program
Find all my RedState work here.
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