We Have Met the Enemy and He is U.S.

We Have Met the Enemy and He is U.S.

I have a general rule regarding politics and the internet, and like the rule of oil and water or chainsaws and children's parties, I don't mix 'em. However, there is an issue that is dear to me that I will speak on here. This issue is that of free speech and what I see as a cultural tide of groupthinking that threatens it.

I heard a quote the other day, and it basically said that the people of this generation will have to change their names to avoid the dumb things that they said online. The sad fact of the matter is that despite our so-called First Amendment rights, people's lives are being ruined simply for the fact that they said something that a dominant culture or sub-culture found to be offensive.

And this is why Walt Kelly's Pogo is so important. "We have met the enemy and he is us." I submit to you that our true enemy is not the government or some vague, eponymous, shadowy villain represented by figureheads on the political right or left depending upon your voting affiliation. I submit that "us," that, "we, the people," are the greatest potential threat to free speech in our time. Our good intentions and belief in democracy, equality, and morality are punishing people and beating them down for being racist, misogynist, immoral, and offensive. Big Brother is not nearly as big as Facebook and Twitter.

Let me give you an example. After the Boston Marathon Bombing, a segment on the radio (I believe it was NPR) had a reporter interviewing someone involved in the investigation. The reporter was trying to drum up fear in a government that could so quickly identify terrorists from the volume of data and video that was available online. The government official did not see the government as particularly threatening in this regard, however. The official pointed out that even if Big Brother had access to every bit of data on the internet, it did not have even remotely enough people to sort through that data, rendering its controlling power moot. The real power, he ascertained, was in the hands of the common people, who in this case had themselves quickly sorted through the data available online and had helped identify the bombers. And it is this collective power that is most dangerous when it comes to free speech.

The collective power of our internet cultures vastly outweighs, in many respects, our governing authorities. And unfortunately, this power is the death of free speech. Sure, you can still say whatever you want, and the government cannot put you in prison. But it does not have to. The government is hilariously behind the curve here. Our own cultures, our own people are putting people in ideological prisons and sentencing them for life.

One need only do a cursory internet search to find a volume of situations where one person's free speech cost them their livelihood. There's the case of the man who filmed himself being a jerk while expressing his objection to Chick-Fil-A's stance on homosexuality. The last report of his situation had him living on food stamps. No one will hire him for fear of the potential internet backlash I just heard on the radio how it took months for a woman whose tweets were misinterpreted to find a job after she was fired. Every time someone says something that someone else finds to be offensive, the collective power of the people, our power, has shown itself to be unlimited, unfeeling, and embroiled in wrath. We are no longer afraid of what the government will do if we express a counter-cultural idea. No, it is far worse than that. We are now terrified of what will happen to us in our workplaces, what we can lose forever in terms of health and wealth if someone finds a tweet and misconstrues it to an employer.

Note that I am not an advocate of free speech without limit. Clearly, as with all reasonable things, there are limits to speech. But lately the tide has gone so far in the direction of protecting people's feelings and creating "safe spaces" that it is time to do the unthinkable in today's society.

It is time to embrace the apocryphal Voltaire as written by Evelyn Beatrice Hall. It is time to defend to the death the right of racist, misogynist, misandrist, and un-politically correct speech. It is time to defend offensive things in the service of preserving the right to say what one pleases without governments or cultures destroying our lives.