Americans cannot allow our good nature to let terrorist sympathizers off the hook as they rally across the country. When the face of evil reveals itself, there is only one appropriate response. It’s time for the mother of all cancellations!
Americans, especially conservatives, have a really bad hangover. Remembering better times, too many still languish in the twilight of the Reagan consensus. More speech is always better — or so the received wisdom goes.
For most of our history, the cultural attitude toward free speech absolutism was a natural default. When we all agree on the fundamental principles of our common life, it is quite easy to believe that the freedom to speak one’s mind, no matter how vile, is always a moral good. This assumes, however, that our cultural norms would always set the boundaries of acceptable discourse to an extent that the law need not bother. (RELATED: There’s Only One Way To Make Dems Stop Acting Like Complete Lunatics)
When this is the case, more speech is, in fact, better — uninhibited debate allows us to arrive at the optimal decision. Sure, we may disagree along the margins — tax rates, expenditures, or the prudence of some social policy or another — but we all do so toward the same end.
Yet we no longer live in such times. Absent the threat of the Cold War, we have strayed from the consensus that once united us as Americans. The fetishized view of free speech from this moment in history created a false dichotomy that no longer exists.
American freedom of speech became a rallying cry against communism, a symbol of stark contrast in the existential battle between two competing visions of the world. Freedom versus forced conformity, democracy against totalitarianism — to think like them was a mark of shame for all red-blooded Americans.
For those forged in this era, it’s understandable to still hold to the libertarian tendencies of better days. Yet we can no longer even agree if America is a force for good or evil, if men can be women, or if the core liberal principles of equality and blind justice are but a shiny veneer for brutality. As a legal matter, sure; the state can and should permit maximal discourse.
But Americans should no longer be cowed into believing that our culture should allow someone to feel comfortable saying anything and everything out loud. Believing, say, that “justice” can ever include the rape, murder, and torture of women and children is a view that Americans should have fear expressing — not from the government, but from the condemnation and ostracization of their fellow citizens.
NEW: Harvard students are freaking out after a truck is driving around the school, displaying names of students who allegedly signed a letter blaming Israel for Hamas’ terror attacks.
Say it with me: Hamas Harvard.
The digital screen on the truck says “Harvard’s Leading… pic.twitter.com/B7g7vyN8Wp
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 12, 2023
As the left is fond of reminding us, freedom of speech does not equal freedom from the consequences. These are the people who destroyed the common good consensus of American free speech in the first place. The American people should show no mercy for those who condone, minimize, or equivocate the terrorist atrocities inflicted upon the state of Israel. (RELATED: This Is The First Time In A Decade Leftists Are Being Held Accountable For Their Actions)
These are the same mean-spirited people who ruined a teenage girl’s life by blasting a video of her singing along to a pop song to the entire nation. They are the people who still demanded “Covington Kid” Nick Sandmann’s head on a spike, even after it was revealed CNN had misrepresented the incident. In the Harvard-specific case, the radical students now begging for your mercy are the type of people who got Parkland-survivor Kyle Kashuv’s offer letter rescinded over leaked private messages from when he was 16 years old.
The dozens of Harvard students groups are but the highest profile example of the radical students who hold Israel “entirely responsible” for the terrorism inflicted upon it. With buses now circling campus exposing their names and faces, and college administrators and future bosses denouncing their heinous views, these students are panicking — walking back their statements and throwing each other under the bus. In the coming days, they will surely make an appeal to the injustice of “cancel culture,” expecting to manipulate Americans’ own latent libertarianism against them.
Don’t fall for it.
They’re grovelling now — but only because they are entitled, narcissistic worms. They believe they deserve the carte blanche to act as our moral arbiters and wish to maintain the power and privilege they hold as America’s most elite victims. But all they want you to do is take a considered breath long enough for them to get away with it.
The truth is, anyone expressing these views is a terrible person. They will never reciprocate your magnanimity. Their appeal to grace, temperance and forgiveness is a cynical ploy to manipulate the fundamental goodness of the American people toward their own vicious ends. They will rabidly cheer on the cancellation of those guilty of far less wicked crimes if allowed to maintain their vaunted positions. They will take your good will and ruin your grandchild’s life the very next day. (RELATED: The Real Reason The Left Will Jump Through Hoops To Excuse A Terrorist Death Cult)
Some advice for students:
If an organization of which you are a member puts out a public statement you disagree with, you have a few choices.
You can:
Stay silent and have the entire world conclude that you stand by the statement.
Convince the other members of the group to… https://t.co/WEZ4kzqLBf
— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) October 12, 2023
The tide is turning against the people who have weaponized free speech over the last decade. They have re-shaped the cultural boundaries of acceptable discourse, but the silent majority now has the long-awaited opportunity to rear its head. Anyone who organizes to defend terrorism should fear the wrath of the American people.
Publish their names. Plaster their smug faces on billboards. Demand their family, friends, bosses, co-workers, schools, advertisers, sponsors, and investors answer for their contemptible views. Give them no quarters. The only way back to a righteous free speech is to purge those who have abused it.