We should be thankful for our First Amendment: free speech isn’t so free outside the United States. Check out my latest article at The Federalist.
We should be thankful for our First Amendment: free speech isn’t so free outside the United States. Check out my latest article at The Federalist.
well put, Kyle! in recent times, we have seen the first amendment standing like a rock against those who would shut down all discussion and use the power of the almighty State to enforce their own viewpoint. the rock is eroding, however, because many states, and maybe even the national government (i haven’t checked), have already passed hate speech and hate crime laws. these laws usually forbid behavior that is already forbidden by other statutes, so it would seem to be a silly waste of time to pass them. it is the nature of the left, however, to forever advance their agenda, and at any cost. since their agenda includes putting the “smart people” – themselves – in charge of everything, losing the freedom to utter what goes against their wishes is no cost at all in their eyes, and since we in the stupid stinking masses won’t elect them to permanent power, they will do whatever it takes to get that total power. as your article so aptly illustrates, hate crime and hate speech laws are tools forbidding vague behaviors that can be laser-focused to silence, if not eliminate, the opposition.
it would be hard to conceive of a tool for the hard left that could be more perfectly crafted for their use against society than these types of law. republics tend to not change much once most citizens are content, since every day is much like the previous ones, and the majority is happy just living their lives. they will not vote for a radical change that gives enormous power to a small group, because that action has been well-documented in the past century to have *very* bad results – bad for families, bad for children, bad for religion, and bad for business; thus, the hard left cannot win elections based on truthful representations of their beliefs and intentions. they also have a *very* hard time fomenting violent revolution to seize control, for the same reason.
if nothing else, however, the hard left learned very well in the past century that if they control education, they have a chance to turn society to their own ends. it is very difficult, and takes a long time; had islam not entered the picture, it would probably have taken at least another generation, and perhaps 2. at some point, however, they realized that they also succeeded most often, and seized power most rapidly, when society was in flux: russia in 1917, china and nations in southeast asia after WWII, etc. in all those cases, there had been a war, but the lesson was that society had to be in turmoil; war was not necessarily needed.
islam, like all other religions, has spectra of belief, behavior, and knowledge of their scriptures and religion; belief ranges from total disbelief to total acceptance of all mandated beliefs, behavior ranges from complete non-compliance with religious dictates to total piety, but knowledge is typically scant, because one must pray in arabic for allah to accept the prayer, and most muslims don’t speak arabic. the imam usually knows the scriptures (the quran, the “traditions,” and the sira), reads them to the ummah in arabic, and then tells them what to do and how to do it. often, a believer’s behavior will not even reflect his beliefs, as he knowingly behaves in religiously-improper ways. as it happens, islam demands that non-believers be forced to accept the rule of islam, or else be killed by believers. a second option is available to christians and jews, who may pay an unspecified amount of “protection” money to the muslim authorities (often around 25%, but sometimes higher) and retain their religions. virtually all muslims know that the scriptures tell them that they are better than non-muslims, whom allah hates, and that non-muslims are worse than feces (allah’s words, not mine). as one becomes a more-devout muslim, one discovers that allah *demands* that every muslim either take part in jihad, or at the very least support jihadis with financial support. and of course, jihad means to *kill* non-believers if they do not accept islam.
the left in western nations has been full of virtue-signalers for decades, but they finally realized that if large numbers of muslims can be imported into western nations, it is *guaranteed* that there will be many pious muslims among them, and attacks *will* be made. at every turn, the hard left makes excuses for muslims, not even allowing attacks on islam to pass unmolested; meanwhile, the pious attack us at will, in some places, like eurabia, virtually without punishment. this is a guarantee that conditions will continue to deteriorate.
like many who rail against the “fools” who allow this, i used to be astounded at how stupid our leaders must be to allow it. it finally occurred to me that this is *deliberate*, because it is beyond the realm of statistical probabilities that *every* *single* politician in power will *refuse* to examine islam. after all, why wouldn’t a hard-left muslim-defender direct subordinates to produce a definitive report on muslim scriptures *proving* that they are innocuous? it took me a while to understand, but i think what is happening is that the hard left thought leaders, ruling in the academy, teach all who enter to be leftists. in fact, since the 1970s, when the hard left completed their seizure of power in higher education, they have extended that power down into secondary and even primary schools. nowadays, every person who graduates from *any* level of public schooling is at least a nominal leftist; they have not been taught critical thinking unless absolutely necessary (which is allowable in math and the hard sciences, because the teaching of the “soft” sciences and humanities to which all are exposed ensures that humans are not thought of as part of the physical universe), and are taught leftist ideas in lieu of it. the pool of people available to fill positions in media, government, and other institutions are at least half leftist in the u.s., and are a far larger fraction in eurabia. thus, the government here is at least half leftist, with larger fractions in eurabia. once conditions in society at large are so dire that one must risk one’s life in order to by food or go to work, people will welcome imposition of martial law, or at least tolerate it. once everything not permitted by the State is illegal, if a True Believer is in power, it may be possible to instantiate a people’s republic with no assassinations; if not, no more than 20 or 30 may be needed. once the hard left has seized the levers of power, they will never willingly turn loose; freedom will finally be dead.
the hard left apparently intends to implement this country-by-country, although the EU is a special case. the EU bureaucracy is already autocratic and impervious to voters, so they may only have to seize power in france (where the political singularity will in all likelihood happen first) and germany (which is the financial center). if ms. may and other traitors in UKistan can hold the brexit folks at bay, they could cement the deal, with other nations being threatened with military action if they demur. fakebook, twister, and other internet platforms could be blocked, with only approved platforms granted access to the populace, so that the spread of information could be blocked. by the time that anybody realizes that something other than recovery from attacks by pious muslims is going on, the first roundups of dissidents could be complete.
in order to make it “real” to the stupid stinking masses, of course, the new people’s republic will have to solve the “muslim problem.” no doubt the left will turn to mass murder, especially since muslims have so conveniently isolated themselves in their banlieue, but the left has also allowed their muslim allies into the governments of eurabia (and the u.s., for that matter), and if early warnings don’t come from government-employed muslims, leaks about mass murders will almost certainly be repeated by them. once MINOs and sporadically-practicing “moderate” muslims hear about such murders, they will no doubt suddenly turn pious, and it will be millions of pious muslims against thousands of hard-core leftists, with nominal leftists in the police and military, who no doubt believe what they virtue-signal to one another, hesitant to actually carry out such repulsive orders, even though they might harbor great anger against muslims. i think i need not go too far down that speculative road; let it suffice to say that my money would be on the muslims, were i not also in the fight. once civil war between leftists and muslims erupts, free people will face their final chance to rid themselves of both. perhaps they will wake up then, but if not, freedom will be the same joke to our great great grandchildren that it was to soviets and is to chinese in the PRC and cubans in cuba; if the muslims win, our great great grandchildren will know of neither us nor our beliefs.