Free Speech, We Hardly Knew Ye

From my primary Substack "I Protest" (December 2022) at donaldjeffries.substack.com

This is another in a continuing series of previously published articles. Free speech remains under attack, with the Right now increasingly wanting to suppress “anti- Semitism,” which cannot be quantifiably defined.

The artist formerly known as Kanye West’s emergence as almost a spokesman for “White supremacy” has rocked our rotting culture to the core. Kanye, now Ye, is most decidedly Black. It can’t be denied. And he certainly cut, and still cuts, a rebellious figure. It’s just a question of exactly what he is rebelling against.

Black public figures have been encouraged, and enabled, and applauded, for being outspoken over the years. They are often prodded into talking about the “systemic racism” that supposedly holds them down, even as they accumulate millions. Ye was reportedly a billionaire. He also married into the magical Kardashian clan, who have seemingly all made billions themselves, despite the absolute absence of any appreciable talent. So he’s definitely coming from a position of privilege.

Now, unlike the previous “controversial” comments of countless Black celebrities, Ye’s remarks are being treated a bit differently. Instead of castigating “White” this and “White” that, Ye is directing his ire at a particular group of Whites. Well, actually many don’t consider them “White,” and often they don’t seem to consider themselves White, either. I’m talking, of course, about Jews. Considering their wildly disproportionate power in show business and the media, Ye undoubtedly is qualified to discuss his experiences in this regard.

As a classical liberal, I grew up opposed to any generalizations about entire groups of people. I remain strongly opposed to that. We should never judge any group by the actions of particular individuals. But there is no question that some Jews- who constitute only a tiny two percent of the U.S. population, wield an extraordinary amount of influence. Why is it controversial to observe what is clearly a fact? This is, of course, a minute percentage of an already very small minority of the people. But you shouldn’t be in big trouble for mentioning it, or even just noticing it.

Ye West is, however, in big trouble. Now he has certainly been over the top in mentioning “Jews,” the way the most devout social justice warriors mention “Whites.” No qualifier like “some,” or “a handful of powerful.” Such sweeping generalizations are easy to discredit. The same reaction would probably result if say, Steven Spielberg, started ranting about “Blacks” being less intelligent, or prone to violence. When you paint with that broad a brush, whatever potentially cogent point you were trying to make becomes lost in the shuffle.

Now, Ye may very well be acting out yet another script, like the Trumpenstein Project for example. He is, after all, an entertainer. It seems odd that he would suddenly become so publicly anti-Jewish after all the years he’s spent being built up by agents, executives, and publicists that are influenced to a disproportionate degree by Jews. He is hanging out regularly, or at least he was, with young Nick Fuentes. Fuentes is very intelligent, but clearly is obsessed with Jews and their alleged power. He openly questions the Holocaust, as Ye has done as well.

Ye’s comments test our support for free speech. Probably a majority of Americans, including most Jews, would like to see him “shut down” because of what he’s been saying. Very few of us are free speech purists. Elon Musk claimed to be, but he already said he’s not reactivating Alex Jones’s account because of Sandy Hook. And millions of Americans would agree with him. We have free speech, but you can’t talk about that. Okay. How about Pizzagate? Is that “too far” as well? Voter fraud? #Died Suddenly? Or is all that some kind of “denial?”

The U.S. is just about the only country left in the world where one can “question” the Holocaust. Everywhere else, you’d be fined or even sent to prison. The “crime” is “Holocaust denial.” I’m actually astonished that it hasn’t been criminalized here. I got into trouble long ago on a JFK assassination research forum for stating that it was wrong to send Canadian teacher Ernst Zundel to prison for “denying” the Holocaust. Now that “denial” thing is popping up everywhere. All the Republicans who mentioned 2020 vote fraud were called “election deniers” by our state controlled media. Doesn’t that mean they “denied” that the event took place?

I question everything. And everyone. Very few people have absolute credibility with me. This includes Ye West. And Alex Jones. But when you put an asterisk on free speech, you no longer have free speech. Abraham Lincoln first put an asterisk on speech when he threw northerners who questioned his policies into makeshift prisons. Suspended the writ of habeas corpus. Shut down over two hundred newspapers. But he’s our “greatest” president, the court historians tell us. The same historians that lie about every part of history.

When the great socialist Eugene Debs and many others protested American entrance into the meaningless bloodbath that was World War I, President Woodrow Wilson threw them into prison. Just like those “seccesh” sympathizers during the War Between the States. And “liberal” Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes upheld Wilson’s right to do this, declaring that you can’t “yell fire in a crowded theater.” Yeah, that’s where that came from. However you look at it, those protesting war were not yelling fire in a crowded theater.

During much of the twentieth century, it was conservatives, often led by the likes of the Catholic League of Decency, who wanted to censor things they found offensive. In Hollywood, they devised the Hays Code, which decreed no nudity, foul language, or even married couples sleeping in the same bed. Books like Lady Chatterley’s Lover were widely banned. Not for “Woke” reasons, but because the Right considered them “offensive” or “obscene.” Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart best reflected their views when he admitted he couldn’t define obscenity, but “I know it when I see it.”

When I was a developing young radical, “book burning” was exclusively associated in my mind with the Nazis, or perhaps the same religious people in the South who famously burned their Beatles records after John Lennon said, “we’re more popular than Jesus now.” General William Westmoreland, who epitomized our monstrous failure in Vietnam, said, “Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind.” And Tommy Smothers reflected the Left I eagerly latched onto, saying, “The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen.”

To be against censorship was part of being a liberal. It never occurred to me that the Left would ever want to censor anything. The argument in Smothers’ words prevailed. “If you don’t like what’s on, switch the channel.” “No one’s forcing you to read it.” I understood the wisdom there, and still do. Which makes it even sadder to see how the Left has flipped upside down on the issue. Where are groups like the Free Speech Committee now, which the Right of its day invariably labeled as “communist?” I was once a card carrying member of the ACLU. Now the ACLU is defending the incarceration of political prisoners in America, who have been denied all due process.

These days, the censors are the increasingly crazed “Woke” adherents of political correctness. Now it’s not a naked woman, or a written description of sexual activity, which is in danger of being banned. It’s any questioning of the new liberal orthodoxy. The “offensive” material is no longer called “smut,” it’s called “racist.” Once you might have been controversial for questioning religious doctrine. Now, you face danger of being “cancelled” for questioning transgender doctrine. The “Woke” warriors seem to get offended a lot more easily than their conservative forebears once did. I never found bare skin offensive, but I don’t find “extreme” opinions offensive, either.

Sometimes I wonder where all the great minds I admired have gone. Well, mostly they’re dead. But you’d think others with similar perspectives would have been born. As I’ve remarked so many times, I often feel like the last civil libertarian in America. Civil libertarians believe in the First Amendment. Period. No exceptions for “offensive” material. There is no such thing as “hate speech.” Hate is a human emotion and entirely subjective. Call it what it is- Thought Crime. All the good Leftists loved 1984. Now they have effectively institutionalized Orwell’s signature concept from the novel- Thought Crime- into modern law.

If you have decent manners, you’ll censor yourself from offending others. You won’t use a racial or religious slur on someone, because you don’t want to hurt their feelings. Or be physically assaulted. Or be prosecuted in one of our modern kangaroo courts. And those steeped in traditional liberal thought will instinctively refrain from generalizing about others. But that doesn’t mean you can’t criticize or confront some individual because they belong to a “protected” group. Blacks. Transgenders. Illegal immigrants. And yes, Jews.

It isn’t generalizations that the modern Left is opposed to. In fact, they generalize more than the old Right ever did. But it’s selective generalization, aimed primarily at one particular racial group. Whites. And strangely, most of the generalizing is done by other Whites. Self-generalizing? Adidas would never cancel a contract with Ye West if he’d said the exact same things about “Whites.” Not “some” Whites. All Whites. They’d be perfectly cool with that, as all of corporate America has shown to be. You can also be more specific and generalize about “White trash.” Even though this would definitely be a “marginalized” group, the “White” qualifier makes it perfectly fine.

You can make “Whites” sound as bad as you want, and no one cares. Least of all other Whites. “Dead White males” is a popular one. In Black Studies courses, “melanin deprived” is another synonym for “White.” Actually, “White” goes with most anything. “Supremacy,” “systemic racism,” “privilege.” Check your “White Privilege” at the door, but don’t you dare generalize about groups of people! I doubt any gay activist ever got in trouble for smearing heterosexuals as “breeders.” Well, at least not like heterosexuals get into trouble for calling gays “groomers.” It’s a confusing transgender thing, you wouldn’t understand.

But outside of “Whites,” you really can’t castigate any other group of people for any perceived stereotypes. Stereotypes don’t exist, unless they are positive. Then, it’s really cool to say that Blacks are natural athletes, or great dancers, or have giant penises. You can say Asians are naturally good at math. Indians are “better” at IT jobs, especially when they do it for half the salary. Hispanics are universally lauded as hard workers, especially when they’re paid almost nothing for it. But with Whites, you can only use negative stereotypes. No positive ones need apply. Unless they’re transgender, that is. White transgenders are no longer White.

We either have to be free to poke fun at all kinds of people, and point out their shortcomings, or there is no longer such a thing as comedy. Or really genial social interaction. “Watch what you say” is another of those asterisks on the First Amendment. Again, this is not to encourage meanness. I used to tell my kids that some lying is acceptable, and necessary. When someone asks you, “Do I look fat in this?” or “Do you like my new haircut?” There’s no reason to be blunt for the sake of it. But that is self-censorship born out of empathy and good manners.

Restricting what we can say and write is not consonant with a free society. And it makes the Bill of Rights meaningless. “Just a piece of paper,” as the immortal George W. Bush put it. The First Amendment was designed to protect speech that was unpopular, or unconventional. Speech that naturally offends. Speech that you disagree with. Everyone supports speech that they agree with. It takes a civil libertarian like Voltaire, or Patrick Henry, to swear to defend what they disagree with.

Every time you hear someone say “hate speech,” don’t let them get away with it. It cannot be defined in a legal sense, and is indistinguishable, as noted earlier, from Orwell’s Thought Crime. “Free speech doesn’t protect hate speech,” they’ll babble mindlessly. Good people have to object to this tyranny. Once you’re on this path, it becomes very slippery. We already hear “COVID Denial,” and “Science Denial.” It’s easy to foresee “911 Denial,” “Assassination Denial,” “Racism Denial,” and a multitude of other absurd maladies related to this tyrannical corruption.

Supporting free speech isn’t a mental illness. Questioning authority isn’t “denying” anything. We have the right to disagree. They used to say that every woman has the right to say “No.” Don’t we each have the right to say “No” to all the authoritarianism they’re selling? Free speech can’t be abridged. Everyone has these God-given rights, from Ye West, to Alex Jones, to Joe Biden, to each of you reading this. Self-censorship is the only acceptable form of censorship. We can never compromise on the seminal issue that defines every free country.