On Free Speech and Moral Relativism
There are many things that govern life in the United States: our culture, our jobs, our morals, our religion, and our laws. One of these laws that has had a particularly strange effect on our lives is the First Amendment. We are the only country in the world whose government actually has a law that forces it to protect the expression of its populace, even to the detriment of that government. Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, Hussein, these leaders not only didn’t protect free speech but went so far as to execute any person giving their opinion of the government unless that opinion toed the party line.
The peculiarity of our situation is this: Do we allow criticism of our culture by radicals trying to incite their audiences to murder, and if we do not, how do we protect our right to free speech? The problem here is actually two fold. There are many in the U.S. who think that Democracy has produced nothing but evil set on conquering the world (this kind of self-hatred is particular to the West) and thusly these people think that the First Amendment should be taken literally and preachers of hate deserve the right to say what they want. If we say that democracy is not inherently evil and is in place to protect its voting citizens, then those protections should include the silencing of people preaching death to its citizens.
A prime example of this justified non-silencing is in the case of the Ku Klux Klan. For over a century the Klan has spread an agenda of absolute hatred among all those willing to listen. And yet we allow them to exist. They preach the same absolute non-acceptance of other beliefs that many Muslim clerics preach in England, Germany, and other European cities. Intolerance of other cultures because of religious fervor is something that has wrought war throughout the world since the beginning of religion. The Old Testament grew from subjugation of one religion by another and though there seems to be no more subjugation (slavery) due to religious discrimination, religions are clashing all over the world, fed by philosophies of intolerance. The KKK has the most basic elements of a terror organization, but it is definitely the best domestic example of this kind of religious fervor and our inability to interpret our laws to actually protect ourselves.
In the U.S. we have a fear of blaming Muslims for this round of terrorism. We don’t want to insult anyone and we are petrified of creating another Rooseveltian internment camp system for the war on terror. But we are a long way from going that far. Many people cite Guantanamo Bay as an example, but any place that feeds, clothes, provides Korans and medical assistance is a far cry from any other prison system existing in the world today. Dissidents in China, Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia are shot or publicly beheaded. Having a policy of free speech should also include the ability to call these terrorists what they are: Muslim. They aren’t freedom fighters; they aren’t rebels; they are trained to bring the West back to the 8th century, under caliphate rule. That is what al Quada fights for.
There is a bumper sticker I’m sure everyone has seen. It reads, “If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention.” I believe that’s right, but not in the way that it was originally intended. It’s meant to be an anti-establishment slogan, a way of telling people they should be more engaged than they are, but from a left leaning perspective. I think that it should be taken at face value though. People should be angry about a national and international media that is strangely silent about the origins of all terrorist attacks when it’s not the United States. People should be angry about foreign governments harboring supposed ‘Holy Men’ who have nothing but hatred and anger for women, Jews and Christians. And yes, people should be angry about the government, but that anger should be about the things that aren’t being done to protect us (of the $600 million that was allocated to terror-proof New York’s metro system only $30 has been used since 2001, and most of it on studies).
But that still doesn’t solve the problem of Free Speech. The United States has an amazing body called The Supreme Court that is supposed to do just this. Its job is to interpret the Constitution and all of its amendments. What needs to be delineated is the fact that there is a sizable difference between preaching against a government you don’t believe in and trying to recruit young men who are already angry to become bombs. It is the government’s job to stop them and no amount of education is going to help. Age related angst is nothing new and the fact that Muslim clerics are using that rage to channel their message is a testament to the inadequacy of education as a deterrent of recruitment.
What I think all of this boils down to is the slow progress toward the relativism of morality that we seem to admire so much. The dissolution of absolutes sounds beautiful but belies a deep naiveté about how the world works. Saying that there is no such thing as evil or that one cannot call another human evil allows the Hitlers, Stalins, et al., to kill millions of people without interference in a time of peace. Freedom of speech isn’t meant to protect them, it’s meant to protect you when you speak out against them. It’s not meant to protect recruitment of jihadists, it’s meant as a way for this democracy to protect itself from people who would destroy it. Moral relativism muddies intellectual waters. It doesn’t present a clear argument but instead replaces intellectual debate with emotional statements which quickly become propaganda and are hypocritical.
Instead of worrying about an insult to the Muslim world (our very existence is just that) we need to worry about allowing their extreme hatred to boil over on our soil. Terror experts the world over are saying that what happened last week in London was bound to happen. With clerics in mosques throughout London recruiting soldiers to send to Iraq in order to fight as insurgents, and with London authorities trying to stop them, there was bound to be a conflict. And this is the best they can do. Because we not only have military might but also cultural might the world over, we are the prime target for attack. What has saved us thus far, since 9/11 is our geographical location and our security forces working overtime. Without the war in Iraq I am convinced that the war would be brought to us and as much as people use their freedom of speech to denounce the government that protects them, if those protections disappeared under the weight of the rights that terrorist are given, we wouldn’t live to enjoy them.
--GIVERYOURSELFAPATONTHEBACK--
The peculiarity of our situation is this: Do we allow criticism of our culture by radicals trying to incite their audiences to murder, and if we do not, how do we protect our right to free speech? The problem here is actually two fold. There are many in the U.S. who think that Democracy has produced nothing but evil set on conquering the world (this kind of self-hatred is particular to the West) and thusly these people think that the First Amendment should be taken literally and preachers of hate deserve the right to say what they want. If we say that democracy is not inherently evil and is in place to protect its voting citizens, then those protections should include the silencing of people preaching death to its citizens.
A prime example of this justified non-silencing is in the case of the Ku Klux Klan. For over a century the Klan has spread an agenda of absolute hatred among all those willing to listen. And yet we allow them to exist. They preach the same absolute non-acceptance of other beliefs that many Muslim clerics preach in England, Germany, and other European cities. Intolerance of other cultures because of religious fervor is something that has wrought war throughout the world since the beginning of religion. The Old Testament grew from subjugation of one religion by another and though there seems to be no more subjugation (slavery) due to religious discrimination, religions are clashing all over the world, fed by philosophies of intolerance. The KKK has the most basic elements of a terror organization, but it is definitely the best domestic example of this kind of religious fervor and our inability to interpret our laws to actually protect ourselves.
In the U.S. we have a fear of blaming Muslims for this round of terrorism. We don’t want to insult anyone and we are petrified of creating another Rooseveltian internment camp system for the war on terror. But we are a long way from going that far. Many people cite Guantanamo Bay as an example, but any place that feeds, clothes, provides Korans and medical assistance is a far cry from any other prison system existing in the world today. Dissidents in China, Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia are shot or publicly beheaded. Having a policy of free speech should also include the ability to call these terrorists what they are: Muslim. They aren’t freedom fighters; they aren’t rebels; they are trained to bring the West back to the 8th century, under caliphate rule. That is what al Quada fights for.
There is a bumper sticker I’m sure everyone has seen. It reads, “If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention.” I believe that’s right, but not in the way that it was originally intended. It’s meant to be an anti-establishment slogan, a way of telling people they should be more engaged than they are, but from a left leaning perspective. I think that it should be taken at face value though. People should be angry about a national and international media that is strangely silent about the origins of all terrorist attacks when it’s not the United States. People should be angry about foreign governments harboring supposed ‘Holy Men’ who have nothing but hatred and anger for women, Jews and Christians. And yes, people should be angry about the government, but that anger should be about the things that aren’t being done to protect us (of the $600 million that was allocated to terror-proof New York’s metro system only $30 has been used since 2001, and most of it on studies).
But that still doesn’t solve the problem of Free Speech. The United States has an amazing body called The Supreme Court that is supposed to do just this. Its job is to interpret the Constitution and all of its amendments. What needs to be delineated is the fact that there is a sizable difference between preaching against a government you don’t believe in and trying to recruit young men who are already angry to become bombs. It is the government’s job to stop them and no amount of education is going to help. Age related angst is nothing new and the fact that Muslim clerics are using that rage to channel their message is a testament to the inadequacy of education as a deterrent of recruitment.
What I think all of this boils down to is the slow progress toward the relativism of morality that we seem to admire so much. The dissolution of absolutes sounds beautiful but belies a deep naiveté about how the world works. Saying that there is no such thing as evil or that one cannot call another human evil allows the Hitlers, Stalins, et al., to kill millions of people without interference in a time of peace. Freedom of speech isn’t meant to protect them, it’s meant to protect you when you speak out against them. It’s not meant to protect recruitment of jihadists, it’s meant as a way for this democracy to protect itself from people who would destroy it. Moral relativism muddies intellectual waters. It doesn’t present a clear argument but instead replaces intellectual debate with emotional statements which quickly become propaganda and are hypocritical.
Instead of worrying about an insult to the Muslim world (our very existence is just that) we need to worry about allowing their extreme hatred to boil over on our soil. Terror experts the world over are saying that what happened last week in London was bound to happen. With clerics in mosques throughout London recruiting soldiers to send to Iraq in order to fight as insurgents, and with London authorities trying to stop them, there was bound to be a conflict. And this is the best they can do. Because we not only have military might but also cultural might the world over, we are the prime target for attack. What has saved us thus far, since 9/11 is our geographical location and our security forces working overtime. Without the war in Iraq I am convinced that the war would be brought to us and as much as people use their freedom of speech to denounce the government that protects them, if those protections disappeared under the weight of the rights that terrorist are given, we wouldn’t live to enjoy them.
--GIVERYOURSELFAPATONTHEBACK--
