Tuesday, December 8, 2015

They say shut up so that I may speak freely

Something big just happened in the never-ending debate concerning free speech. It is that Madison Gesiotto wrote a piece that sheds a great deal of light on the subject.

Gesiotto is not a household name. In fact, I never heard of it before; and most people outside her entourage probably never did either. She is a staff editor for the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law who feels so passionate about the subject; you may consider her article to be iconic.

She wrote: “Liberals attempt to silence conservatives on college campuses nationwide,” and had it published on December 4, 2015 in The Washington Times. She begins by criticizing a segment of society she calls liberals – whose views she opposes – using these words: “Liberals claim to be proponents of diversity, but repeatedly expose themselves as hypocrites by opposing diversity of thought and belief.”

That's a legitimate point of view to have, of course, but how does she say the liberals oppose diversity of thought and belief? They do, she says, by hurtling nasty and false labels at her and the other conservatives, branding them as racists, bigots and misogynists. It is by exhibiting this level of intolerance towards the others that they shut down conversations and stifle free speech, she goes on to explain.

She elaborates on those themes by repeating them over and over while raising the level of the passion she puts into her message as she progresses. But since she has accused the liberals of shutting down conversations and stifling, even silencing free speech – which is a serious offense – you decide to look closely at what she accuses the liberals of doing to see if they committed an act that might be construed as illegal or unethical. But you find that they only express their point of view in a passionate way – no less passionate than herself.

Still, she goes on to say that they have a mission, and claims she knows what it is. She explains this much: “their mission is to hush conservative dissenters of the settled liberal worldview to make examples of them and in turn silence other conservative dissenters.” You see nothing illegal or unethical in this, even assume it is gospel truth, and so the question in your mind remains: where is the crime?

Although she shows no sign of being aware of that question, she seems to make an instinctive effort to answer it. She does so by listing the ideas contained in the liberal plank; ideas that would differ from those of a conservative plank. She goes from there to make it sound like the ideas are so nefarious, it is a crime for the liberals to silence the conservatives and force them to adopt such views.

Here is the list she made of the nefarious liberal ideas that differ so much from the values by which the conservatives think and live: (1) the liberals support abortion; the conservatives don't. (2) The liberals do not respect the women who voice conservative views. (3) Black women who voice conservative views are treated even worse by the liberals.

If true, there would be something unethical in that stance but nothing illegal. And the purpose of having a debate about it is to persuade the other side that these are bad ideas, or be persuaded by the argument of the other side that they are ideas worth adopting. Moreover, the fact that the liberals are forceful in expressing their ideas does not entitle the conservatives to accuse them of stifling or silencing the conservatives.

That said, the time has come to admit to ourselves, and to reveal to the world that the reason why the tension rises every time this subject comes up, is that something about it is kept hidden by both sides. The discussion goes in a never ending circle because the history of how it all started remains hidden from view due to a system of coercion that borders on the criminal; one that was applied then and continues to apply today.

The truth is that thousands of years of experience had taught the Jews they can take control of a nation when they silence the opposition and monopolize the debating floor. In America, they took advantage of the weak spots inherent to the system and wove a tapestry of antisemitic accusations, threats of lawsuits, cries of illegal discrimination, bribes and blackmails to erect the system that's in force today … one in which you can say practically anything except that the Jews messed it up and should bear full responsibility for stabbing America's democracy in the heart.

Only when this is done will America break the Jewish yoke around its throat, and be free once again to speak with the voice of a true democracy, not this pathetic chant of “we're the best because we're free, and the others are not,” at a time when all that the liberals and the conservatives can say to each other is this: shut up so that I may speak freely.