{"id":23854,"date":"2019-11-05T10:05:22","date_gmt":"2019-11-05T15:05:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/?p=23854"},"modified":"2019-11-05T10:05:22","modified_gmt":"2019-11-05T15:05:22","slug":"without-free-speech-all-speech-becomes-government-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2019\/11\/05\/without-free-speech-all-speech-becomes-government-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"Without Free Speech, All Speech Becomes Government Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script async type=text\/javascript src=https:\/\/static.dclick.io\/js\/ad.min.js><\/script><br \/>\n<a class=\"attachment wp-att-23855\" href=\"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/?attachment_id=23855\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-23855\" src=\"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/free-speech-1024x683-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"802\" height=\"535\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>When I viewed <a class=\"steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=5DkC6qowltU\" rel=\"nofollow\">this video<\/a>, I wondered if it was a hoax. I thought it must be a group of actors trying to make a point about how far restrictions on speech have gone. Unfortunately, the video captures reality in Scotland in 2019.<\/p>\n<p>The video picks up <a class=\"steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/mearns-academy-aberdeen-gender-politics-1447334\" rel=\"nofollow\">an exchange<\/a> between a Scottish high school teacher and a student. The class was asked to sign up for a website, and according to the student, the teacher commented on how old fashioned the website was for listing only two sexes. The student, <a class=\"steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/www.standard.co.uk\/news\/uk\/teenager-who-went-viral-after-arguing-with-his-teacher-that-there-are-only-two-genders-told-its-not-a4180816.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">Murray, remarked<\/a>, \u201cBut sir there\u2019s only two genders,\u201d and the teacher insisted they continue the discussion outside the classroom.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"link-0\">National School Authority Policy<\/h2>\n<p>Murray recorded the encounter on his phone. Here are some of the lowlights of the recorded dialogue:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 20px;\">Murray: \u201cWhy did you kick me out of class? It\u2019s not very inclusive of you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 20px;\">Teacher: \u201cI\u2019m sorry, but what you were saying is not very inclusive, and this is an inclusive school.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 20px;\">Murray: (referring to the teacher\u2019s viewpoint that there are more than two genders): \u201cThat\u2019s your opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 20px;\">Teacher: \u201cThat is my opinion, and that is an opinion which is acceptable in this school.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 20px;\">Teacher: \u201cWill you please keep that opinion [referring to Murray\u2019s view that there are two genders] to your own house, not in this room?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 20px;\">Murray: \u201cSo you got to put your opinion out in class, but my opinion has to stay inside my house?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 20px;\">Teacher: \u201cI am not putting my opinion out. I am stating what is national school authority policy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 20px;\">Teacher: \u201cI know what you think, and I know what the authority thinks.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Following the UK \u201cnational school authority policy\u201d on the number of genders, children are taught there are <a class=\"steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/news\/9886252\/bbc-schools-children-100-genders\/\" rel=\"nofollow\">100 \u201cgender identities.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Murray wasn\u2019t sent to a reeducation camp, but the school suspended him for several weeks.<\/p>\n<p>As for the teacher, he\u2019s trying to be a proper government functionary. Perhaps he\u2019s dreaming of retirement or at least the day when students like Murray will no longer dare to challenge him.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re sure this sort of incident couldn\u2019t happen in America, think again.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"link-1\">Support for Free Speech Is Dropping<\/h2>\n<p>A new survey conducted in the United States by the <a class=\"steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-7613617\/Americans-want-Amendment-changed-reflect-cultural-norms-today.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">Campaign for Free Speech<\/a> found 51 percent of Americans agreed with this statement: \u201cThe First Amendment goes too far in allowing hate speech in modern America and should be updated to reflect the cultural norms of today.\u201d 48 percent thought, and a majority of millennials agreed, \u201chate speech\u201d should be outlawed. An astonishing 54 percent of millennials thought jail time should be the consequence penalty for hate speech. Hate speech was not defined in the survey.<\/p>\n<p>57 percent of Americans are ready to have government \u201ctake action against newspapers and TV stations that publish content that is biased, inflammatory, or false.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>These findings are not out-of-line with earlier surveys such as a <a class=\"steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cato.org\/survey-reports\/state-free-speech-tolerance-america\" rel=\"nofollow\">Cato Institute 2017 Free Speech and Tolerance\u00a0Survey<\/a>, which found that 40 percent of Americans\u00a0think\u00a0the government should prevent hate speech.<\/p>\n<p>Recently, Richard Stengel, a former editor of <em>Time<\/em>, called for limits on the 1st Amendment. In a <a class=\"steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/2019\/10\/29\/why-america-needs-hate-speech-law\/\"><em>Washington Post<\/em> op-ed<\/a>, Stengel wrote \u201cthe intellectual underpinning of the First Amendment was engineered for a simpler era,\u201d and without defining hate, he called for laws prohibiting \u201cspeech that incites hate.\u201d For Stengel it\u2019s a bad thing, not a strength of America, that our \u201cFirst Amendment standard is an outlier.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If you thought anti-free speech sentiment is limited to college campuses, you would be wrong.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"link-2\">Government Doesn\u2019t Give Us the Right to Free Speech<\/h2>\n<p>Perhaps there are flaws in the survey design by the <a class=\"steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/www.campaignforfreespeech.org\/new-poll-free-speech-under-attack-majority-of-millennials-agree-jail-time-is-appropriate-for-certain-speech\/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Campaign for Free Speech<\/a>, yet the findings warn of waning support for our constitutional rights.<\/p>\n<p>There is fundamental confusion on the source of our right to free speech. The right to free speech codified in the 1st Amendment is not a grant of the right of free speech; it is a prohibition against government interfering with an inherent right of Americans:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>When the first amendments to the Constitution\u2014the Bill of Rights\u2014were being debated, Madison and other Founders initially feared enumerating rights would later be interpreted to mean only rights named in the Constitution would be protected.<\/p>\n<p>Madison addressed those fears with the 9th Amendment to the Constitution:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a class=\"steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/2017\/09\/james-madison-free-speech-rights-must-be-absolute-nearly\/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Madison was adamant<\/a> on the absolute nature of the 1st amendment even when the results displease some or many:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Our First Amendment freedoms give us the right to think what we like and say what we please. And if we the people are to govern ourselves, we must have these rights, even if they are misused by a minority.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Just as you can\u2019t be half-pregnant, there is no such thing as government regulated free speech. If government is the arbiter of what is acceptable speech, you are on the road to a dystopian nightmare. The Founders were clear: fallible individuals, limited in knowledge, were not be trusted with power to infringe on our rights.<\/p>\n<p>Nor, Madison believed, would a democratic vote offer any protection for free speech. <a class=\"steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"http:\/\/avalon.law.yale.edu\/18th_century\/fed10.asp\" rel=\"nofollow\">In Federalist Paper No. 10<\/a><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">,<\/span> Madison explains that democracy offers no protection against the passion of a faction opposed to liberty:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government\u2026enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion\u2026both the public good and the rights of other citizens.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h2 id=\"link-3\">North Korea, Where All Speech Must Glorify the Government<\/h2>\n<p>Masaji Ishikawa was born in 1947 in Japan to a Korean father and a Japanese mother. His father was a violent alcoholic. In 1960, Ishikawa\u2019s family, mired in poverty, moved to North Korea as part of a mass repatriation movement that included almost 100,000 Koreans, lured by promises of a \u201cparadise on earth,\u201d a \u201cland of milk and honey.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In his book <em><a class=\"steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/34qXpoq\">A River in Darkness: One Man&#8217;s Escape from North Korea<\/a><\/em>, Ishikawa learned that as a fish doesn\u2019t understand water, he didn\u2019t understand the freedoms he had in Japan:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>When I lived in Japan, I never really pondered my life\u2026 I became obsessed with all the things I had taken for granted before, and all the hardships that marked my life now. But that didn\u2019t last long. I soon learned that thought was not free in North Korea. A free thought could get you killed if it slipped out. If you were lucky, you might get sent to some remote mountainous region to do hard labor. Or you might get sent to a concentration camp for political prisoners because you were deemed a \u201cliberal\u201d or a \u201ccapitalist\u201d with \u201cbad habits.\u201d And bad habits needed to be stamped out. By means of a jackboot to the genitals. Or then again, you might simply be executed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Ishikawa\u2019s family was a potential source of ideas dangerous to the North Korean police state:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>We were constantly monitored by the goons of the State Security of North Korea and the secret police. I guess we posed a double threat. We\u2019d brought some dangerous items with us from Japan when we moved\u2014things like bicycles and electrical appliances and half-decent clothes. What if the local villagers came to realize that their standard of living was pitiful? Worse still, what would happen if they got wind of the concept of free thought from us? They might question the wisdom of Kim Il-sung. And that was <em>verboten<\/em>.<\/blockquote>\n<p>Education in North Korea consists mostly of studying the collected works of the despots Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il\u2019s \u201crevolutionary thought.\u201d Their doctrine of Juche is the backbone of North Korean society. In his book, <em><a class=\"steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2qlXQBw\">The Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future<\/a><\/em>, Victor Cha explains the indoctrination:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Juche was seared into the minds of every North Korean every day through repetitive indoctrination sessions. There was almost a biological and anatomical rationalization for loyalty that went along with the spiritual. Juche\u2019s writings taught that the Great Leader (Sury\u014fng) Kim Il-sung was the brain, the party was the nerves, and the people were the arms, legs, muscle, and bone of the state. Two messages of obedience emerged: (1) without the brain, the rest does not function; therefore, there must be complete loyalty; and (2) independent thinking was not needed, since this was handled by the brain. The only critical thinking that was allowed was self-criticism based on guilt for not serving the leader well.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In North Korea, speaking your mind is incomprehensible.<\/p>\n<p>Reading my essay, you might think I&#8217;m overwrought. Surely, those who want to restrict hate speech don\u2019t want \u201ccomplete loyalty\u201d to a future presidency of, let\u2019s say, Elizabeth Warren. They don\u2019t want Americans to memorize her speeches or study her ponderings in school.<\/p>\n<p>If you believe my worries are unfounded, read again the exchange with the Scottish teacher and Murray. The teacher thinks he is innocent in stifling dissent. He is merely spreading \u201cnational school authority policy.\u201d The teacher knows what Murray thinks and he \u201cknows what the authority thinks.\u201d The view of the \u201cauthority\u2019s\u201d trumps the student\u2019s opinions.<\/p>\n<p>In a future democratic socialist administration mired in economic collapse, is it a stretch to predict that protection of free speech will continue to wane making criticism of government policies verboten?<\/p>\n<p>If disagreement over the number of genders can\u2019t be tolerated, surely disagreements on a debt jubilee or a wealth tax wouldn\u2019t be tolerated either.<\/p>\n<p>Ishikawa didn\u2019t understand the freedoms he had in Japan until he lost freedom in North Korea. Like Ishikawa in Japan, today\u2019s Americans don\u2019t know we are swimming in the warm waters of liberty, with the freedom to speak our mind.<\/p>\n<p>In degree, America is far removed from the world of North Korea. But when government is given the power to determine what is acceptable speech, we are operating out of the same totalitarian mindset that leads to dystopian hell. If totalitarianism comes to America, we will have no one to blame.<\/p>\n<p><center><\/p>\n<div class=\"dclickad\" data-client=\"darth-azrael\" data-slot=\"1572966279712\">\n<\/div>\n<p><\/center><\/p>\n<div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<h5><a class=\"steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"http:\/\/fee.org\/people\/barry-brownstein\/\"><br \/>\nBarry Brownstein<br \/>\n<\/a><\/h5>\n<p>Barry Brownstein is professor emeritus of economics and leadership at the University of Baltimore. He is the author of <a class=\"steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/smile.amazon.com\/The-Inner-Work-Leadership-Barry-Brownstein\/dp\/0984425403?tag=foundationforeco\"><em>The Inner-Work of Leadership<\/em><\/a>. To receive Barry&#8217;s essays subscribe at <a class=\"steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"http:\/\/givingupcontrol.us11.list-manage1.com\/subscribe?u=9f90da3819262b93ad1f6d668&amp;id=d86ea3faef\">Mindset Shifts<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"font-style: italic;\">This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the <a href=\"https:\/\/fee.org\/articles\/without-free-speech-all-speech-becomes-government-speech\/\">original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/fee.org\/counter\/186286\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/><script src=\"https:\/\/fee.org\/Scripts\/fee-repub.js\" async=\"async\"><\/script>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I viewed this video, I wondered if it was a hoax. I thought it must be a group of actors trying to make a point about how far restrictions on speech have gone. Unfortunately, the video captures reality in Scotland in 2019. The video picks up an exchange between a Scottish high school teacher and a student. The class was asked to sign up for a website, and according to the student, the teacher commented on how old fashioned the website was for listing only two sexes. The student, Murray, remarked, \u201cBut sir there\u2019s only two genders,\u201d and the teacher insisted they continue the discussion outside the classroom. National School Authority Policy Murray recorded the encounter on his phone. Here are some of the lowlights of the recorded dialogue: Murray: \u201cWhy did you kick me out of class? It\u2019s not very inclusive of you.\u201d Teacher: \u201cI\u2019m sorry, but what you were saying is not very inclusive, and this is an inclusive school.\u201d Murray: (referring to the teacher\u2019s viewpoint that there are more than two genders): \u201cThat\u2019s your opinion.\u201d Teacher: \u201cThat is my opinion, and that is an opinion which is acceptable in this school.\u201d Teacher: \u201cWill you please keep [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[82,737,3551],"class_list":["post-23854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-politics","tag-1st-amendment","tag-free-speech","tag-hate-speech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23854\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}