Unshackling Free speech

“I have no time for racial thinking or religion in any form. But we need to remember that freedom is indivisible, and that ‘free speech’ is not the same thing as ‘me speech’. The precious right to be offensive must involve the right of others to offend our beliefs, too. Free speech and open argument is the way to test and clarify ideas and to get closest to the truth. By contrast, turning ideas of which the mainstream disapproves into heresies means closing down debate and closing minds.

Let’s be clear why it is that the left and liberals often want to treat their opponents as heretics to be silenced. The You Can’t Say That culture is not a product of their strength and authority, as with the orthodoxies of the past. On the contrary, it reflects the extent to which they have suffered an acute loss of nerve. They do not trust their own arguments. And they do not trust us.

The fact that those preaching today’s orthodoxies do not trust their own arguments becomes evident when one looks at what they are up against. To talk of heresies and inquisitions today might give these issues a rather grand, historic image. In reality, however, even relatively feeble opponents can now be damned by the insecure supporters of orthodoxy. The few critics of ‘The Science’ of global warming are generally not Galileo-type geniuses. The reality TV clowns who are made public examples of for daring to use words deemed racist or homophobic represent no movement in society. Yet they have to be stamped upon by the policemen of the You Can’t Say That culture.” Mick Hume, “The New Heresies.”