Rights are — boiled right down — one of the biggest divides between Right and Left.
Is America a nation of people who believes the words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights –” Or is it not?
Can those rights be revoked if and when someone disapproves of the WAY you exercise them? Orwell called this ThoughtCrime, and it’s obvious that younger generations either have not read “1984” or worse, have mistaken it for a model to be followed.
Polls show that several groups have 30-40% of their membership ready and willing to yank your freedom. And would you believe these precious snowflakes actually think that by doing so, they’re defending freedom? Those poor, benighted souls.
Because, there are some things you must not say… or else.
And guess whose grand idea this is? Surely it’s those Cranky Old White Guys from the “Party of No”. Right?
Actually — by the numbers — those are the people least likely to trample your free speech.
According to Pew Research:
Democrats are twice as likely as Republicans to kill certain free speech with Independents splitting the difference. (18%, 35%, 27% in favor of preventing offensive speech, respectively).
Men are less likely than women to favor it (23% and 33% respectively).
Whites are less likely than non-whites (23% and 38%).
But it’s this last stat from the poll that’s the ugly one:
Only 12% of people over 70% would favor this. Boomers and Gen X’ers are in the middle 20’s. Fully 40% — nearly half — of American Millennials favor censoring offensive statements against minorities.
Art that is specifically intended to be offensive? That’s fair game. Offensive music lyrics? The warning label alone has boosted some album sales. Comedy sketches singling out a particular group — without that in their acts, some comics would starve. In fact, Bill Maher and Chris Rock make a killing doing exactly that. And since this is America, they can freely continue to do so.
But some speech — they claim — should be punished. We’ve already seen real life examples like Paula Deen. And the mob doesn’t even care whether you actually said it. They just want a head on a plate.
By contrast, consider this. Calling for, as an example, the death of all white men, or 10,000 volunteers to kill white people, is somehow seen as justified by the very people who might complain of a racial slur uttered in their presence.
When you factor in the poll that Democrats are already 51% in favor of criminalizing “hate speech”, we are seeing an encroachment of freedoms that is antithetical to the very DNA of America.
What’s the next move? Riots over offensive cartoons? Is it really so different?
