Defending Free Speech for Odious Beliefs

        Free speech is a human right and should always be considered non-negotiable. Noam Chomsky once said, "If we don't believe in freedom of expression for the people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." If the only expression is one that we agree with, then there really is no freedom of expression. Of course there are going to be controversial ideas out there, but if you honestly believe you're right, why not challenge them instead of suppressing them? It may be hard to hear the odious beliefs that some people may have, but to shut down another person's speech is to shut down any opportunity of discourse that may have changed that person's way of thinking. If we don't have an open dialog with people whose ideas that may be controversial to us, there is no way of evolving our ways of thinking on either side. I would much rather have a free-market of ideas with some odious ones than a shut-down of conversation. The people who have an unpleasant way of thinking are often-times the people who need conversation the most. A great example of someone who was reformed from an unpleasant belief-system by open dialog is former Westboro Baptist Church member, Megan Phelps-Roper.

      

What's really ironic about the case of Megan Phelps-Roper is that her church goes all around the country trying to draw people into their religion. They hold these egregious, offensive signs, attempting to convert people into an ideology full of judgment, scorn and oppression. Various people have been reformed from the Westboro Baptist Church. These people were engulfed in this toxic ideology from birth. I view them as victims more than anything else. They were literally just following the teachings of the bible in which they were told to believe was sacred. All they knew was that way of thinking, so of course it would be up to other people to show them a different way. How could they have been reformed if we had suppressed their speech? What reshaped Phelps-Roper's way of thinking was open communication with people over the internet. This quote from the speech she made on Ted Talks tells us how it all started, "Someone would arrive at my profile with the usual rage and scorn, I would respond with a custom mix of bible verses, pop-culture references and smiley-faces, they would be understandably confused and caught off guard, but then a conversation would ensue." Conversation is all that was needed in Megan Phelps-Roper's case. The open-mindedness of the people she was engaging with over the internet swayed her into a more open-minded belief-system. We need to show the people we disagree with the correct way of thinking with open dialog, instead of suppressing speech.

       To defend another person's freedom of speech, even if they have a bigoted and hateful way of thinking, is not to agree with them. It may be hard to empathize with someone whose ideology is the antithesis of yours, but that's exactly what you have to do. Imagine if you were somehow living a completely conservative country, and your ways of thinking were considered barbaric and damnable. As an atheist, I would be considered a terrorist in Saudi Arabia.


                                                           Full article from DailyMail

 Of course Saudi Arabia is an extreme example, but if you believe in thought crimes, then you agree a lot more with Saudi Arabia than you think you do. Your agreement with conservative ideology is even more apparent if you think that committing acts of violence against people that you disagree with is the right thing to do.

 

  


    If you cheered the act of violence that were made at the well known alt-right leader Richard Spencer, you are obviously in favor of thought crimes. Not only is offensive violence just completely immoral in principal, it encourages violence against the people you may agree with. Do the you think violence against the alt-right is more likely to reform the people with that hateful ideology? Of course not. It's obviously going to make them more hostile towards their enemies, and more likely to commit acts of violence towards them. Why would you resort to violence when you have any other option? When you use violence against the people you disagree with, it discredits you as an intellectual person, and victimizes them. The last thing anybody needs are victimized Nazis. Authoritarian tactics have no place in a free society.

       Responding to closed-mindedness with closed-mindedness is a dead end. It gets you nowhere. Taking away rights is not going to win over the hearts and minds of the people you disagree with. In fact, it may make them even more extreme in their hateful beliefs. It is vital that we do not revert to oppressive, conservative tactics to further our agenda. If we are striving for a free and open society, suppressing speech, no matter how odious it may be, is the wrong way to go about it.

The Nefarious Agenda Behind Money in Politics

  In the United States, we are struggling to achieve populist policies such as a living wage, universal healthcare, and free college. The reality is, those policies are actually internationally centrist. If you compare the United States to any other modern nation, you can see that they have better healthcare, a higher education rate, and overall happier citizens. That's because democratic socialist policies in those countries are considered nonnegotiable. In the US, politics have shifted far off to the right because of the Oligarchy-like system we have in place. The so-called American "centrist" is actually center right on the political spectrum, and that's just how the corporations like it. The corporatist agenda is to keep American economics at a stand-still, or even to roll it back a little bit in order to keep funneling money from the American citizens right into their pockets.

Here Is an excerpt from the New York Times about just how much the top one percent is worth compared to average Americans

      

      

       

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       Corporations like the the Pharmaceutical industry and for-profit colleges are wholly against universal healthcare and free college. They would like us to believe that those policies are unobtainable, so that they can get an even more disproportionate amount of wealth, while regular citizens like us are struggling, burdened with lack of quality healthcare and unequal opportunity. If you actually look at some of the opinion polls, those ideas are very popular with the American people. To say that those policies are unobtainable is to dismiss every other modern country that has made those policies work. The 2016 presidential primaries is a great example of just how popular those policies are

       In the democratic primaries, Bernie Sanders was the left wing candidate with an anti-corporate, populist message. Going up against Bernie, was Hillary Clinton, a well known corporate democrat and the former First Lady and Secretary of State. She had a few huge advantages on her side. Hillary had a ridiculous amount of name recognition and corporate cash out the wazoo. In fact, the Clintons had taken a total of 3 billion dollars from corporations in their political lifetime. Not to mention (as we learned from WikiLeaks), the DNC and the Clinton campaign colluded to prop up Hillary Clinton and bring down Bernie Sanders. A lot of the attacks on the Sanders campaign from the establishment painted him as a fringy "pie in the sky" leftist. Despite those very important variables, Sanders chipped away at Clinton's gigantic lead in the beginning, bringing it from 57 points to just an 11 point lead, according to national polls. In the end, Clinton won over Sanders in the primaries. However, Sanders stirred up a lot of enthusiasm amongst millennials and grassroots voters, that is still going strong today. Right at this moment, Bernie Sanders is the most popular politician in the country, while Hillary's favorability rating has dropped considerably.

 

This image shows the favorabilty Bernie Sanders, mike Pence, and Hillary Clinton via PolitiFact

      Then we had the republican primaries, and as you may remember, Donald Trump was a right wing, populist, anti-corporate candidate who spoke with a simplicity and frankness that made him seem like a trustworthy, down-to-earth guy. His opponent, Ted Cruz, was a man with a very theocratic ideology, who had a clear record of being led more by his faith and his corporate donors than the will of the people. Ted Cruz was the establishment guy, so of course he was the one that was being propped up in the republican race. The establishment dismissed Trump as unpresidential because of swear words and his xenophobic, misogynistic rhetoric. Of course, you know how that went. Donald Trump demolished Cruz in the primaries. Even the overwhelming majority of the evangelical vote went to Trump. The establishment had a losing strategy. Attacking Trump on things that would have been considered "PC outrage" to his supporters did not make them shy away from him, in fact it probably helped him in many ways. There were many people who actually voted for the first time ever just so that they could vote for Trump. Trump was almost revered by his supporters, and they blindly accepted him as someone who would wave a magic wand and somehow "Make America Great Again." Although a lot of the mainstream media pundits wrote him off, Trump's victory was completely predictable and even obvious. He had a populist, anti-corporate message, which is something that resonated with the American people. Even though he may have had rhetoric that could have been considered unpresidential, his populist message was what elevated him as the Republican presidential candidate. As you probably know, Trump went on to win in the general election against corporate democrat Hillary Clinton, which gives me a huge takeaway. The American people are tired of being the second choice to the establishment's corporatist agenda.

      Unfortunately, Trump has proven himself to be a corporate puppet, by going back on a lot of the populist rhetoric that he campaigned on. He has appointed three former Goldman Sachs people into his cabinet and is now attempting to roll back the advances we  made in healthcare with the Affordable Care Act. Of course, all of Trump's advisors are corporate stooges, and he has listened to every word they have said. Instead of moving forward into the direction that is better for average American citizens, Trump is rolling back social safety nets, and pleasing his corporate overlords. We're on our way to even more of an Oligarchy-like system.

       As I said before, countries that have adopted democratic socialist policies are reportedly much happier. Here is a list of the happiest countries in the world, along with an excerpt from this article from CNBC

   

        As you can see, the United States is all the way down at number 14 on that list. Numbers one through ten all have something in common. They have universal healthcare, free college, and a much higher pay for their workers, with some additions such as free daycare and paid family leave. That is what the corporations are directly fighting against .Our politicians are being bought by corporations and doing their bidding, and in turn, creating a less happy republic for the people they are supposed to be helping. As the wealthiest nation in the world, there is no reason why our citizens should be suffering with a lack of healthcare, unequal opportunity, and low wages. In order to create a better society for our citizens, money in polics has to go.

Is Feminism Still Necessary?

           Feminism is rooted, in America, at a time when women could not vote, achieve a higher education or even go out into the workforce, let alone receive equal pay. Women were seen as second class citizens. Back then, advocacy for equal rights was badly needed. Fast forward to today and you can see that feminism has made huge strives, giving us women's suffrage, the right to a higher education, and reduced the pay gap greatly. That being said, I do believe that feminism still has a role in the United States. Women are still overwhelmingly the majority victims of domestic abuse. The idea that women should play the traditional gender role of being a homemaker and not have the option to go a different path is still alive and well in the minds of a lot of people around the world. There is definitely a need to fight back against those gender norm stereotypes. It goes without saying that women still experience sexism today. However, it seems as though feminism has taken a sharp turn into something that is a lot different than the original ideology. I've gotten the impression that many feminists have started to look for things to nitpick on that have nothing to do with the core messages of feminism.
       Feminism has taken many different forms these days. Some branches of the feminist movement have wondered off into the weeds, criticizing video games, for example, for the "sexualization" of women. As someone who has played video games with such characters in them, I can't emphasize enough as to how much I just do not care. It had never even crossed my mind. I say that to ask this question: How are sexy women in video games contributing to the oppression of women? Wouldn't it be a better use of your time, energy and platform to focus on issues that actually do affect oppressed women? If anything, the sheer silliness of the non-issues that some feminists have chosen to focus on has turned a lot of people away from feminism, which is frustrating to me. In my mind, feminism is a basic humanistic position. If you were to ask most people in the United States whether or not they think that women should have equality in the workplace and under the law, most of them would say, "Yes, of course."  That is the definition of feminism. In the western world, we have come a long way in terms of equality for women. As one of the leading nations in the world, we need to set an example for other countries that are in dire need of feminism. In theocracies such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, feminism still has a big role to play. As someone who cares greatly about equality, I feel that it's crucial that we get back to the core of the feminist message, not just for the equality of women in the United States, but for the equality of women around the world as well.
        There is still a lot of work to be done in regards to feminism in many countries around the world. In a lot of Muslim countries, women are required to wear a Hijab. In Saudi Arabia, women can't even drive, and they have to have male guardians wherever they go. That is just ludicrous! Women are literally treated like property. It reminds me of somebody taking their dog out for its daily walk. I can absolutely see people scoffing at the idea of feminism when we're over here "advocating" for less sexy women in video games, while the women of Saudi Arabia are treated like pets. The amount of oppression that women in theocratic governments have to endure is just unthinkable. Here in the western world, women are nowhere near that amount of oppression.
    Of course the fight for equality is still needed, but in some ways, the feminist movement has become authoritarian, which is the antitheses of what feminism was originally founded on. Feminism is not a radical idea. We must stop making a mockery of it by going after unimportant issues. If we care about making real change, we need people on our side, and this ridiculous amount of nitpicking alienates people from the feminist movement. We have to remember the roots of feminism, recognize how far we've come, and adjust our views accordingly.