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When You're Popular, You Don't Need Freedom of Speech
Submitted by Andrew Syrios via The Mises Institute,
Free speech is not something that people would normally see as a realm of economics, but in many ways, an economic understanding of the support and opposition to free speech can shed a lot of light on what’s happening now in the West.
The first thing that needs to be noted is that the left is winning the culture war. Even though more people identify as “conservative” than “liberal” in the United States, more people now identify as “liberal” than in the past by a substantial margin. Attitudes toward gay marriage shifted extremely quickly toward the left while support for legal abortion stayed mostly steady. And obviously the media, academia, and Hollywood are far to the left as a study by the non-partisan political analytics firm Crowdpac found (and as anyone who watches anything other than Fox News can tell after about five minutes).
Now, some of this is certainly good, such as the shifting views on marijuana legalization. Some is troubling, such as the growing popularity of socialism.
Regardless though, the left, having ascended to cultural dominance, is no longer in need of free speech. After all, no one ever got in trouble for agreeing with the conventional wisdom. As Noam Chomsky said, “Even Goebbels was in favor of free speech he liked.”
On the other hand, the right is behind the eight ball in the culture wars and thereby supports the concept of free speech because they need it lest their very opinions be outlawed. In an economic sense, this could be called the “diminishing marginal utility of free speech.”
The law of diminishing marginal utility states that while keeping consumption of other products constant, there is decline in marginal utility that a person derives from consuming an additional unit of that product. In this case, the product is free speech. New leftists may have proposed unfettered free speech back in the early 1960s, but that was just because the right was the one in power culturally at the time. Free speech had a high utility to the left at the time and low utility to the right.
Now the situation has reversed. The right is at the disadvantage so it appeals to free speech. The left is ahead and no longer needs free speech, so it has discarded it.
If that statement sounds hyperbolic, just think of all of the campus speech codes and the ever expanding list of mostly trivial microagressions that can be taken for “hate speech.” Here is just a small sampling of examples to illustrate how absurd this has become:
- Brendan Eich was forced to resign as CEO of Mozilla after a massive backlash for having opposed gay marriage.
- A candidate in the European elections was arrested in Britain for quoting a passage from Winston Churchill about Islam.
- Gert Wilders, a politician in the Netherlands, was tried on five counts including “criminally insulting Muslims because of their religion.”
- Conservative radio host Michael Savage was banned from the airwaves in Britain.
- Both Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant were dragged in front of the Canadian Human Rights Commission on charges of being “Islamophobic.”
- A man was fired because someone eaves dropped on his joke about dongles and caused a fuss about it on social media.
- A group called Color of Change applied enough pressure to get Patrick Buchanan fired from MSNBC for expressing politically incorrect opinions in his book Suicide of a Superpower.
- The “Pickup Artist” Julien Blanc was barred from entering Britain for making sexist comments.
- A student at Purdue University was found guilty of “racial harassment” for reading (yes, reading) a book called Notre Dame Vs the Klan in which — it should be noted — the Klan is the bad guy.
Indeed, the list goes on endlessly, and is perhaps best summed up by the almost unconscionable lack of self-awareness required by University of Manchester feminists who recently censored the anti-feminist columnist Milo Yiannopoulos from participating in a debate on — you guessed it — censorship.
Of course much of this is just social pressure or the decisions of private institutions, which is permissible (albeit not condoned) under a libertarian framework. But much of it does involve outright government force, or the longing to use it. For example, Adam Weinstein wants to literally “Arrest Climate-Change Deniers.”
Indeed, while many believe that the youth of today are the most politically tolerant in history, they are actually the least. As April Kelly-Woessner notes, “political tolerance is generally defined as the willingness to extend civil liberties and basic democratic rights to members of unpopular groups.” Which groups are unpopular, is not the question being asked.
So, for example, someone who believes that a man should be able to marry his pet goat is not necessarily politically tolerant. What would make him tolerant in this sense is whether he is willing to recognize the rights (particularly regarding speech) of those who disagree with him and his marital proclivities.
In this respect, political tolerance has declined substantially. For the first time since it was measured, the political tolerance of young people has fallen below that of their parents and as Kelly-Woessner again notes, “… is correlated with a ‘social justice’ orientation,” at least for those under forty.
Indeed, the inability to tolerate political views that run counter to one’s own, particularly on the left, has become so ridiculous to be comical. Just take, for example, Judith Shulevtiz’s description of the “safe space” set up at Brown University because of a debate between the feminist Jessica Valentia and Wendy McElroy where McElroy was likely to criticize the term “rape culture.”
The safe space … was intended to give people who might find comments “troubling” or “triggering,” a place to recuperate. The room was equipped with cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies, as well as students and staff members trained to deal with trauma.
Well, at least they actually let the debate happen.
But the left has not always had a monopoly on anti-free speech thought and legislation. Nor does the right seem to be opposed to it when it can push such things through today. Helen Thomas was fired from the White House Press Corps for saying “The Jews should get the Hell out of Palestine.” Shirley Sherrod was fired for allegedly anti-white statements, a Kansas woman was fired for a fifty-word Facebook post that was considered anti-American-soldier, and the right went into a fervor over Jeremy Wright’s “chickens coming home to roost” comment.
Whereas liberals want to ban words such as “slut” and, at least in Sheryl Sandberg’s case, “bossy” too, conservatives used to all but ban those “seven words you couldn’t say.”
When the right had more cultural authority, alleged communists were being dragged in front of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Civil Rights activists were harassed, and the Motion Picture Production Code banned Hollywood directors from showing things such as miscegenation.
But that was then and this is now. As the pendulum of cultural prominence swung from one side to the other, the left and right swapped their support for free speech.
Nevertheless, I don’t want to draw a false equivalence here and say the right would be just as bad as the left if they were winning the culture wars. Much of the ideology on the left, at least the far left, is derived from the likes of Herbert Marcuse and other cultural Marxists who explicitly wanted to limit the free speech of “oppressor classes.”
Discerning what exactly free speech is can sometimes be challenging, as in cases of libel, slander, and direct threats. But these are really not the issues at heart here. The vast majority of speech being “regulated” today is simply that of an unpopular opinion. Yes, many ideas are bad. And they should be refuted. Moreover, resorting to the use of political force to silence adversaries is a sign of the weakness of one’s own position. But, in using force to silence others, anti-speech crusaders are making another argument. They’re arguing that political force can and should be used to silence people we don’t like. What idea could be worse than that?
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Right on schedule on the timetable of the demise of Western civilization. Nothing to see here, Bitchez.....
The article does make a good point(although it's disappointing to here some mises quote Noam Chomsky. Those on the left like to self praise about how tolerant they are, sure, you can self identify as whatever you want, blah blah blah, but they sure lose that tolerance the minute you say that a 14 year old boy who thinks he is a girl shouldn't be allowed to shower in the girls locker room at school and other similar things. They are tolerant of all sorts of strange behaviors, but violently intolerant of anyone who disagrees with them
or says he thinks he is a girl.
don't miss the start of the movie "carrie" with sissy spacek.
“In an economic sense, this could be called the “diminishing marginal utility of free speech.””
You might also approach the entire predicament from the position of “the diminishing marginal utility of morality and natural law”.
In a real sense it means you're not worthy silly goy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXQkXXBqj_U
"The safe space … was intended to give people who might find comments “troubling” or “triggering,” a place to recuperate. The room was equipped with cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies, as well as students and staff members trained to deal with trauma."
What a bunch of God damned pussies Americans have become. Fucking disgraceful and pathetic.
I prefer to approach the entire predicament from the position of "part of the ongoing conflict between good and evil".
Currently, evil seems to be getting the upper hand, although In the long run the good guys win. How long the "long run" will be is the question.
They hold their Ideology up as the standard by which everything else must be measured, and since they control the media they are reprogramming society more rapidly than ever before......
As pointed out by the author, there were a lot of thought police long before the "liberals" took over. It is important to keep in mind that TPTB have many stripes. Carlin on the seven words you can't say on TV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyBH5oNQOS0
"They" are spritualy dead
Israel did 9/11 and has our Country by the balls.
9/11 The Hard Facts
10 Hard Facts About The "Holocaust"
Well, I happen to think the H did, *basically* happen but fervently support free speech there, but as for 9/11 - there is absolutely nothing more obvious.
But of course Cheney and the Joint Chiefs sure did it too.
When you tell people you are a "revisionist" they seem to think you believe nobody died. Of course people died in the camps... Millions were dying all over German territory. Supply lines were bombed out and prisoners were dying of disease and starvation. No gas chambers, no "final solution". Just bullshit war propaganda and a multibillion dollar shoahoax industry propagated by a zio media and hollywood.
Did you watch my video? It's only 6 minutes. (pun intended)
Yes. Add to that that Nuremberg was a show trial in which the Germans were tortured or blackmailed into giving false confessions. Most of them had their nuts destroyed during torture sessions or the allies - English, Americans, Russians and Jews - threatened their families if they didn't lie.
Hell yes. The germans spent their time picking daisys and writing poetry.
They make flavored lithium these days. Give it a try.
Probably tastes a lot better than the horseshit you willingly swallow.
Yes, Israel could not have pulled it off without inside help.
Wackoism.
My last pay check was $9500 working 12 hours a week online. My sisters friend has been averaging 15k for months now and she works about 20 hours a week. I can't believe how easy it was once I tried it out. This is what I do... www.wallstreet34.com
Being popular is way over rated. It actually sucks balls.
I only ever hear about this concept of 'being popular' in the US.
I've lived in the USSA for about 10 years and only ever met one or 2 poeple who actually had fun in high school. Most of them were bullied - no matter how good looking, fat, tall, short or foreign etc...My former roommate (he was an Armani billboard boy and a Malboro man briefly) was bullied because he was half-French. Another one (an accomplished architect and quite fit and storng) was bullied because he was too tall. Another one was bullied because of her name (Claire) etc. I have a feeling that this traumatic experience often stunts people so they forever remain in some kind of irationally-competitive high-school mentality (perpetuated by media).
This is in a sharp contrast to some other places like Yugoslavia where I grew up - if you mention high school to peopel who grew up there they will cheer up ad remember happy memories. We never made fun of each other and I have never seen bullying until I moved to the UK. Any idiot can make fun of a fat kid. We made fun of teachers (if such an oportuity presented itself) and basically tried to have as much fun together as possible . I think I probably had the best time of my life in high school and am still in touch with most of my friends I met there. Even though we live in different countries.
Am actually visiting one of them at the moment in Australia (I've just taught her son how to cook an interesting Serbian dish). Last time I saw her was about 25 years ago and yet it feels as if we never separated
i am cheered that the right is set to defend free speech.
i didn't care for those "free speech zones" of george w. bush.
obama's not a damn bit better.
I experienced my first Free Speech Zone outside the Democratic National Convention in NYC in 1992.
Try crashing a Fortune 100 stockholders meeting.
buy some stocks, and crash it.
There's a german professor, whose name I forgot, who is or was trolling all the globalist scumfucks in the DAX30. It is easy to do, costs you a little, and gives a great audience and effect.
Of course the msm assholes rarely talk about him.
this good book exlains how they play good cop-bad cop with us:
http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Incorporated-Managed-Inverted-Totalitari...
You only get free speech if you're black. Everyone else will get fired or sued.
Just because we are in the majority in no way implies we have any right to free speech. We accepted the notion of freedom long ago and it and its related tolerance have been turned against us. When we equate freedom with lies, with intimidation, with force, we have voluntarily surrendered our freedoms. We have accepted democracy in place of a constituonal republic, a republic who's constituon protected people from the tyranny of the majority while simultaneously allowing life time judges to usurp the intent of the Constitution to advance social populism. We have stood idley by while our rights and our property have been leveraged and ultimately relieved. Now it is beyond platitudes, it is becoming very real that WE are becoming the oppressed.
World War is a certainty at this point. Civil war is certain. It's just a matter of time.
and that 'rule' will be probably happily eforced by the white people themselves probably in context of some kind of irational competition
So long as we are fucked, I can handled fired or sued.
nigiger
Double speak: intolerance re-defined as tolerance.
...& I thought 'they' hate 'us' for 'our freedoms'...???
It seems more a matter of 'you' hate 'me' for 'my opinions' and 'they' hate 'us' for 'some other undisclosed or contrived reason'...
Indeed. It doesn't get much worse than this. How can we even have intelligent discourse when the very words we use are completely bastardized, distorted and twisted.
That's the point. When words have no meaning conversation dies and then thinking dies as well. But they've upped the game with transgenderism. The elites have taken the most basic elements of human experience and made them unrecognizable. They want people's minds to be so impaired that they can't think or feel anything other than what the elites command.
I maintain that the tertiary stage of cultural destruction was initiated with institution of William Jefferson Clinton's 'Tower Of Babylon manuover.
The phrase: "That depends on what the meaning of is is." was a precise assault on the very foundation of logical communications composition in the existing English Language: a culmination of elastic legal language assualts on the public discourse via mass media, carefully crafted and planned perversions of rational thought processes violence implemented in the education and political ideological theaters of the culture wars, and blatantly Orwellian concept inversions.
IF one can confuse what IS then almost everything can be confused via extenuation.
Male/female/gender, good/bad/morality, security/peril/neurosis, subjective/objective/political correct, valid/invalid/arbitrary, sanctioned/forbidden/tolerated, productive/wasteful/licensed, tax/subsidy/exemption, equality/inequality/redistributionism, etc., etc.. Remove IS from the discussions and there is no definitive cogent rationale.
Destruction of logical debate, assertion of fact, definitions, etc.: ruined.
Cognative dissassociation.
By destroying the base foundation of constructive communication and dialog the language was rendered inoperable and the liberty of speech impaired generally.
Confounding the ability to conceive ideas in the neural pathways where cognitive processes are built via speech-thought.
One cannot form cogent thought once the language construction process is rendered inoperable.
In the Tower Of Babylon myth the culture failed after the speech of it's inhabitants was confounded as the people could not communicate.
Clovard-Piven division and divestment strategy writ Biblical perversion/destruction large by a perjuring corrupt filandering lying lawyer...
FWIW: I believe that Edgar Allen Poe and G.K. Chesterton and Antonin Artaud each tacitly or overtly warned against, or lampooned or experimented under the guise of poetry with exactly this sort of very purposeful impairment of defined thought exposition via linguistic confoundment -and indeed wholly independently of one another...
-There are certainly others that inferred similar and who also pre-dated the official pronouncements and identifier so famously invented by Orwell...
That Tower of Babel? Yea thats one construct that needs to go.
If that thing fell it prolly land on a sea of lawyers/economists. Hopefully killing them.
The story of the Tower of Babel is a good reminder that it's best to give up ziggurats before it's too late.
"I don't know if I'm up or down,
Whether black is white, or blue is brown.
The colors in my life are different somehow.
Little boy blue's a big girl now!"
- Black Sabbath - Killing Yourself to Live
Of course, they were talking about the effects of drugs, but what we're dealing with is a mind-altering by media/advertisement/PCness/etc. worse than any drug. At least the effects of a drug wear off after a few hours...
Then you have the anti-smoking propaganda, and it seems to be a worldwide thing at this point. Someday soon it will be a crime to support the idea of smoking.
It has become impossible, apparently, to even suggest engaging in an intelligent discussion.Someone is bound to be offended by the mere suggestion that their position is not the only true one.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/the-new-intolerance-...
Fuck the censoring, asshole loving, dick licking, gay liberating, illegal immigrating, neo nazi, Jewish neocon, anti-gun toting, anti-free speech, cocksucking, lying, theiving, Wall Street, fraudulent Fed, sanctimonious SOB Libtard mutherfuckers...I mean fuckem all!
Calm down Donald, save your energy for the campaign trail.......
I'm sure I left someone out...don't hesitate to add to the list. :-)
That was a great throw back to the ZH of old, when people came here to debate the difficult issues. Things often got hot, hurtful things were said, I personally learnt a good deal. I don't understand why that changed.
healthcare destroying, pension stealing, small business destroying, unlawfully spying... actually this list can get very long.
I am adding this speech to my Campaign trail stump work.
----THE DONALD
I noticed you separated dicklickers and cocksuckers. Would it be alright to add buttfuckers even though you have asshole lovers?
Oh, it just gets worse. The housing crisis destroyed prices, ruined credit and sent long time home owners into foreclosure. Beside this, strategic moving campaign funded by the Master Thieves and Manipulators to engage in small community political structure (vote) may also be underway. This happened during the Opium Wars as well. Becoming the "majority" voice has led to small town politics being run by the "globalists" who are stealing the fruits of 3 generations. This has been going on for decades.
Remember, the 1950 famine in China following the Great Leap Foward was a secret. The people were arrested if they spoke of their starvation. They were forbidden to leave their region. Spies were sent throughout the landscape to observe who was breaking this law. Bad management was just part of the issue. China sold grain to Russia in exchange for military equipment. When one looks closely at this event, it looks like a genocide of a different kind. This is what they are preparing for - Duct tapping the masses to prevent hysteria and creation of mobs as people come together and compare/share stories.
i'll bet youre that bitch with about 20 sockpuppet accounts here and on GLP constantly experiencing PMS over "Libtards" arnt you? Just take a Midol...lol
https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/11/10/were-still-going-to-be-here/
We could think a lot clearer if we avoided 'left' and 'right'. Why is it 'left' ro support human rights and to include all human behavior within that?
Why is it 'right' to support religion and religious morality and economic freedom? Jefferson and the boys' didn't know they were Left, Right or Center, their ideas had none of that, they wrote the Constitution and more or less invented Human Rights.
Von Mises people are usually smarter than that.
In every battle we find we must take sides. Democrats of the 1800s supported slavery and continued on this path well after the civil war with Jim Crow and come pretty vicious racism. Republicans were against this and while not equating to the modern liberal were pretty damned "progressive" for their time. By the early sixties democrats saw the writing on the walls and started to adopt civil rights as a cause and while it was pretty obvious hypocrisy, blacks accepted it as the demorats effectively brought them back to the plantation with welfare, while removing the negative association of dependency with one of victimhood entitlement. Republicans lost an issue that they should have oqwned simply because they refused to throw money and white guilt at blacks, and as a result became the guilty. The cheap, money mongering haters who refused to "help" black folk. They have never been able to regain high ground again. Sadly they keep trying by weak emulations of gifting liberals but only look like exactly that. Now we have institutionally ensconced republic cans who see their only role as the loyal opposition to all we see going down but stand on no real principles other than holding their office and crony power.
i dunno it seems from reading the news that a much higher number of 'Conservative' 'Family Values' types are caught in public restroom stings, being caught with children/men or hookers in their beds.
Conservatives post better Q scores in news items, thus are highlighted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_Score
Only the cool kids get to say what they want, didn't you people learn anything in high school?
It is a sad day when we have reached the point of attacking individuals for expressing an opinion. This conspicuously encouraged behaviour negates one of homosapiens greatest assets. Our ability to discuss and reason through challenging situations should be utilized at every level of society. Right, left classification be damned, let the ideas flow and allow each individual decide for themselves.
Anything less is tyranny in the making.
An idea which can not be defended, has been upended.
The truth is not all that popular these days.
Even tho its the ultimate form of respect that you could possibly show another soul. I have lost count of how many friends I lost over the years that way. Lost another one yesterday.
I have a few very, very close friends. I let them come to conclusions on their own. We don't always agree 100%, but we all do agree that things are fucked up, and if there is going to be another political party, it should be the "Leave Me The Fuck Alone Party." And that things are fucked up.
Many are just not ever going to let go of their pet dogma. Im ok with that part. Its the insistance that I need to believe in it too. Its like STOP RIGHT THERE! Take that BS somewhere else. Come back when Im worthy of the truth.
Heard that. Recently, while being harangued at a party by Sanders supporters (a doctor and a lawyer) I simply said "I stand on the side of liberty and smaller government'.
End of conversation right then, as if I'd said "all doctors and lawyers need to be shot starting right now". I didn't say that and I don't think that. But that's what it felt like.
I gave up evangelizing this shit after several broken relationships. I just say "I stand for liberty and smaller governmetn' and that automatically disqualifies me from voting D or R. And they know it when I say it.
Interesting that these political dipshits (otherwise smart people) know that but cannot admit that their parties stand for larger government and less liberty.
Not worth the trouble honestly. I think one day I will be able to use them in the potato field (well the lawyer anyway). If I feel charitable when they show up empty handed.
I won't be empty handed.
You want the truth? You can't handle the truth.
-The Ruling Class
A lot of this is promoted by the corporate media because the prospect of criminalizing dissent from the global warming cult is too profitable to ignore. There are trillions to be made from whipping up hysteria over the weather.
Once the gov't can't borrow, print and spend the way they are now this make-believe PC world that some live in is going to implode. Student Loans will dry up and colleges will once again be attended by people who can pay for it up front.
The PC morons will be left trying to survive in the urban areas and they will finf out quickly how little their calls for Safe Spaces will be treated in this harsh new world.
People won't have time for these childish exercises anymore
One passing reference to Helen Thomas seems like short shrift to give efforts by Jewish and israel Uber Alles groups *internationally* and on college campuses to ban, even criminalize criticism of Israel, never mind of Judaism itself.
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/06/10/israel-seeks-to-criminalize-critic...
http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/05/07/criminalizing-criticism-of-israel/
Frankly, it is more insidious, as it is not limited to far leftists on college campuses but regards foreign policy and an inability to criticize powerful, wealthy, ethnocentric and organized Jewish/Zionist groups such as the ADL or, at least for politicians, AIPAC and JINSA.
To not discuss Arthur Topham, now on trial in Canada, or the recent and absurd decision by the French High Court (remember how vital free speech was when it concerned mocking Islam?)
https://theintercept.com/2015/10/27/criminalization-of-anti-israel-activ...
Seems remiss - because these events are also taking place on US campuses. And in the broader media.
The bare notion that BDS 'is antisemitism' is one absurdity on top of another. In the first, Israel's ubiquitous and dissembling apologists seek to exempt Israel from the criticism it lavishes on other nations, to include the US. Second, it demands we not object to Israel's reprehensible treatment of its Palestinian hostages, thus demands that Jews be above moral law while those resisting Zionist conquest be excluded from the bare compassion due any person.
Indeed, for all the ink spilled in our media, very little is devoted to Israeli war crimes, the occupation, the constant home demolitions and executions under color of law - or terrorism by Jewish Supremacist thugs - meanwhile when Palestinians engage in violence against their colonial oppressor, that is often front page news.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/how-israel-protects-it...
http://antiwar.com/blog/2014/02/06/the-truth-about-cease-fire-violations...
So free speech?
How is it that the topic about which we are least free to speak essentially escapes mention in an essay purporting to lament recent instances of assaults on free speech?
I am wholly unfamiliar with this author, but my guess would be he either does not feel free to discuss Jewish/Zionist efforts to ban or criminalize criticism of Israel or Jewish/Zionist power - or because despite all his rhetoric, he really doesnt support freedom to discuss the very things we are least free to discuss - in Canada, in France, and in the Land of the Free.
lawyers
We must look like monkeys chasing balls to them.
Let them continue to think of us that way.
The image of "monkeys chasing balls" offends my sensibilities and I demand ZH remove this comment to make this a safe space
So why did Putin killed all these people that spoke against him openly? And exposed Criminality of Putin regime?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Nemtsov
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Politkovskaya
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Litvinenko
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalya_Estemirova
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Magnitsky
And took over all major TV channels in Russia.
BTW - just now - Putin took away torrent site from Russians.
Moscow Court Orders Torrents Site Rutracker.org Blocked for GoodAnd
Everything You Need to Know About Russia's Internet CrackdownOnce a threadjacker always a threadjacker, eh, you silly Latvian goose?
If only there were a Putin-related article up, right?
I cant speak to the alleged murders, I'm certain wikipedia is as devoted to accuracy re Putin as it is re Israel, but honestly the internet stuff, while bad, is not particularly worse than the UK. And the US appears to be rapidly catching up.
Hey did you know that the US president gave himself the power to kill people without trial anywhere in the world? Yeah, its nice and legal-like, see?
And can we be honest here? obama has killed more people, by a vast margin, than Putin has ever.
The point is that in general, anything you can say negative about Russia or Putin (apart from the weather and food and economy - still recovering from the economic rape of a handful of oligarchs) has a worse and more indidious parallel in the west.
The difference is, Russia is still emerging from the Bolshevist mind-fuck. We are *supposed* to be the land of liberty - but these past 20 years, Americans have lost liberty and opportunity while in Russia they've, for the most part, gained it.
http://www.politifake.org/facebookview.php?id=56767
Wiki is a questionable source for everything
you idiot-you are describing Clinton and Obama. stop smoking crack, finish high school and move out of your mommies basement
Those were all CIA agents paid handsomely to spread alarm and despondency and libel Russia. The FSB did their job and took them out of circulation.
The British were only too happy to see Lord Haw Haw hanged. Sauce for the goose. This is what is done in normal societies. You aid and abet your people'so enemies, you die, and you deserve to.
Big difference between free speech and libel---or treason for that matter.
Some people need to grow a spine
Defending Gert Wilders? uh, you're threading dangerous ground there... What's next, defending Golden Dawn?...
He/We are defending free speech, even if it's utter bullshit by a braindead moron. You're welcome to dislike it, but you're not welcome 4 supressing it.
This comment is awaiting moderators approval
From Article: "The vast majority of speech being “regulated” today is simply that of an unpopular opinion."
I dont even comment on MarketWatch any more you say one bad thing about Hillary and Whamo! Kung Pao! Your comment is deleted as not appropriate? I SAY FUCK YOU MARKETWATCH! I was in shock and awe at first now I just think its sick. If the only way you can become president is by having the media deleting your opposing comments its a pretty sad state of fucking affairs. I have been able to say anything on ZH and thats why Im here. ZH allows Free Speech! Its actually rare. I totally agree that it is happening and I think the Media are P.O.S. for doing it. Today’s mainstream media is USELESS and UN-AMERICAN. I would rather chop my hands off than vote for Hillary the free speech oppressor. It makes her true SCUM in my opinion. FUCK OFF MARKETWATCH and your bullshit Propoganda!
Much of the toxic discourse would dissapear with the demise of 'social' media.
Flash mobs too.
Kudos to the Hedge for mostly interesting reading and its free form comments section.
Too many people forget that we also have the right to remain silent.
And that we do not have a right not to be offended.
The issue of free speech or any freedom (my right to swing my fist ends at your nose) gets convoluted outside individual resposibilty common sense and moral intelligence
Social disruption is the easiest way to conquer. Why waste bullets when you can have people ask you to take over?
I call it internet lynching. Basically leftists pile on someone reported to the SJWs as having said something they don't like and then they conspire together to ruin that persons life, get them fired and blacklisted etc.
First of all let me say that if I ever hear anyone seriously say to "check your white privilege" I am knocking them out cold. It doesn't even need to be directed to me. Second, let some SJW show up at my door to "shame" me. It won't go how they think it will. And ultimately that is what needs to happen to counter this leftist SJW internet lynching shit - violence against the perpetrators. It's all fun and games ruining white men's lives until they start putting you in the ground as "reward" for your successful internet lynching.
"The attempt to silence a man is the greatest honor you can bestow on him.
It means that you recognize his superiority to yourself."
Joseph Sobran