Political Cowards

Michael Lumish

{Also published at Jews Down Under.}

Courage the Cowardly Dog

Part of the problem that we have is the generally pussitudinous nature of most well-meaning, western-leftists when it comes to their politics.

That is, people will often hold strong opinions on political questions but are highly reluctant to discuss those opinions among people prepared in disagreement.

Or, if they are willing to engage in argument that argument often devolves into self-righteous ad hominem denunciations or disgust for those with the temerity to disagree with socially-prevailing orthodoxies.

The litany of accusations resembles religious chantings, with the snapping of fingers and the nodding of heads, as we see on the campuses.

Racism! Homophobia! Sexism! Transphobia!

"You are a cis-gendered, heteronormative, white male, patriarchal asshole, who needs to shut the hell up!"

{You are the Devil and the Power of Christ compels you! The Blood of the Martyrs compels you!}

But it must be understood that people who think in religious terms about politics have rarely thought through their positions and thereby rely upon intimidation, both social and physical, to shut people up, in much the same way that the Church used to and the Mosque still does.

It has less to do with the actual situation of lives as lived then it has to do with patrolling the permissible boundaries of acceptable theo-political discourse.

Among the things that I find disturbing about this historical moment in the West is the declining willingness of our friends on the progressive-left to actually discuss their positions with those who do not already hold those positions.

In some measure, at least, all of these "snowflakes" and Social Justice Warriors are embracing the Anti-Free Speech Movement.

Instead of reasoned argument they rely upon snubbing, silencing, de-platforming, dehumanization, mockery, social isolation, street violence, and an imperious refusal to engage the insidious individuals who they deem beneath their political contempt.

In today's political climate to so much as wear a red baseball cap makes one a "fascist" among idiots without the cognitive wherewithal to fairly articulate their own beliefs while listening to the beliefs of others.

The truth, as I have been endeavoring to get across to people, is that such a cowardly political stance represents the failure of liberalism.

If you consider yourself a liberal, but you oppose freedom of speech, then you are not a liberal.

You may be a socialist or a communist or a fascist or an anarchist or nothing whatsoever, but you are not liberal. If you do not believe in freedom of speech then you do not believe in the freedom of the individual, but rather power and control over the individual... all for the greater good, naturally.

Freedom of speech - whether Antifa or Black Lives Matter like it or not - stands at the very foundation of Enlightenment liberalism, which is the source of democracy... which is a little gift from those insidious dead "white" guys.

One cannot stand for democracy or liberalism or social justice or, even, general human fairness if one falters on freedom of speech.

Without freedom of speech, there are none of those things.

This should be Basic Civics.

This should be taught in the seventh grade.

Yet many of the highly educated, well-meaning, sophisticated idiots out there in the universe have yet to figure that out.

Furthermore, of course, the entire university-based movement in opposition to freedom of speech - as we have seen all over the country throughout 2017 - goes against everything that the university system, free inquiry, the empirical method, and liberalism stand for.

Fascists oppose freedom of speech which is why the German National Socialists did so.

Communists oppose freedom of speech which is why the Soviet Union threw those with alternative political viewpoints into "mental institutions."

Antifa and progressive-left college students oppose freedom of speech which is why they keep shutting down the campuses when they bring in conservative speakers like Milo Yiannapolous or Ben Shapiro or any number of alternative thinkers who were hounded off campus this year.

When I was growing up it was always the political right that endeavored to stifle free-expression of ideas, but times have changed.

Now, sadly, it is the political left that thinks it can intimidate people into ideological conformity.

I think that they are mistaken.