As fissures in the American political landscape deepen, a rather large crack in the truce between the tribes has opened surrounding the concept of free speech. The Left proclaims itself the defender of free speech, while at the same time no-platforming mild conservatives, purging rightist Twitter accounts, and even going so far as to redefine in the public sphere the First Amendment’s protections. Opinion polls reveal the coming conflict over the basic idea of expression.
The progressive machinery will work to shut down opposing views. This is not about speech, but power.
Millennials are far less likely to support freedom of speech. This is a function of how the question is framed and also of millennial demographics. As the media proudly notes, millennials are far less white than older generations. The framing of free speech questions revolves around whether freedom of expression should be allowed for words that offend minorities. Who defines what counts as offensive is what matters. Shouting racial epithets is different from pointing out racial disparities in any given area, but the act of noticing disproportionate crime rates sends specific ethnicities and white progressives into hysterics. As America grows less white, the framing of speech restriction will make gutting the First Amendment almost certain.
This is not entirely a racial issue. The seeding for speech restrictions starts early, just like any other large political propaganda campaign. The global warming drive needed school propaganda of ozone layer holes, eliminated rain forests, and acid rain. It also required cultural products geared towards kids like Captain Planet. The cartoon theme song and messaging of bringing pollution to zero was slick. It was funded by billionaire Ted Turner. A generation later, these children become voters ready to validate upstream progressive priorities.
The same has happened for free speech restrictions. In America, the seed meme was anti-bullying. Anti-bullying was so strong a school movement that it made it to state legislation. Bullying has been with humanity forever but formerly was something dealt with between the bully and the bullied. Overcoming a bully, simply by standing up to the bully, was once a test of one’s mettle or a moment character development for young people. No more. Rather than have the bullying be dealt with by the two student, or even the students’ parents, school authorities took over.
The generation that grew up with anti-bullying messaging is now of voting age. Each year, new voters enter the pool with even more years of prime propaganda. This lower-level indoctrination does not compare to the effect universities can have on forwarding the anti-bullying and therefore anti-speech idea.
Consider the ideas embraced by and foisted on universities such as triggering, safe spaces, hate speech, and microaggressions. Conservatives laugh at the hypocrisy of the Left when progressives frame things as: “My violence is free speech, while your free speech is violence.” The conservatives forget that the Left controls institutions and continues to import voters and indoctrinate children. They cannot see the potential or near certain future ahead of them.
A heavy blue state like California or New York will introduce legislation against certain types of speech that they deem hateful. In reality, the legislation is directed at the political opposition for noticing things. This will be challenged in court, but consider what it would take for the Left can make this a scientific, academic and compassionate update of our concept of free speech.
Hate speech, defined solely by the Left and even quisling Right, triggers specific groups (racial, ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT). When hearing such speech, these individuals will go catatonic or feel pain, due to microaggressions. The emotional and mental trauma may even require them to take certain medications or seek psychiatric help. Emotional and mental trauma in turn, so the argument will go, causes immediate, physical harms. The hate speech may even incite the target groups to violence or anger.
The appeals process will inevitably take this case to the Supreme Court. Imagine the media narrative for this showdown and the build up to it. Consider a future where the Supreme Court is lost for eternity with a solid five liberal votes, and not of the old liberal mold, but the Kagan-Sotomayor form. The media will cite statistics of stereotype threat, microaggressions, and the pain of words bringing back memories of slavery, the Holocaust, etc., despite those events being decades if not centuries in the past. The media can point to anti-bullying efforts performing a similar function as just a few conditions to free speech.
The Supreme Court will have a wealth of academic output to fall back on, millions of Americans will support it, and your corporations and businesses will already have codified them for decades. The era of progressives saying that the freedom of speech only protects you from the government limiting you, not from you starving due to blacklisting, is upon us. After all, we all don the mask of the anon when online.
The decision will be vague enough to not appear a cement shoes treatment to free speech. In addition, a vague reading will allow for more lawsuits and humiliations of progressive political opponents. This Supreme Court formalization will be sold to us as an evolution to protect people from harm, to protect the oppressed, and most importantly, to shut down any dissent from the progressive worldview.
You will, of course, be allowed to say “down with the government” at 100 decibels—just don’t comment on the social dysfunction of any progressive voter bloc.