Speech Power Dynamics

The victim-mentality among the so called free speech warriors in the political right is sickening. Right wing and right leaning pundits who whine about not being able to freely say what they want, and complain about the cancel-culture-war being waged against them by their ideological adversaries, are crying crocodile tears whenever they're being confronted by the consequences of their bigoted, racist and trans-phobic rhetoric.

In these peoples' minds "free speech" means that they're allowed to say anything they want without consequence or repercussions. I'm talking about the likes of Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, Steven Crowder and all those who think that these are the role-models to take their cue from. The individuals mentioned here have the largest online platforms and therefore reach millions of people on a daily basis; that alone should be enough to not let them get away with their constant complaint of not having enough free speech. But what really ticks me off about them is that they, when it comes down to it, just want to be able to be openly racist, bigoted and trans-phobic. Or at least want to have that right. And what angers me even more is that they've forgotten why the right to free speech is written in law in the first place, which is for the powerless to be able to speak truth to power. But these right wingers flip that on its head, and whine about their right to speak down on the powerless.

Everything is politics and every human interaction is accompanied by power dynamics. People on the political right conveniently forget this eternal truth whenever it suits them. That's why they can say that the employer-employee relationship rests on a completely voluntary basis, when in fact the employer has all the power to dictate the conditions of said relationship, and the employee has none because he or she needs the job to survive. But those right wing free speech warriors are silent when big companies limit their employees' free speech when they want to unionize. Nah, instead they'd rather bitch and whine whenever one of their peers is demonetized on YouTube when they violate their terms of service. These hypocrites will defend Amazon preventing their employees to form a union on the same grounds they attack YouTube for demonetizing their bigoted and racist peers. Sorry my dudes; YouTube is privately owned too, and they can make their own house-rules as they see fit. My house, my rules, remember?

What it comes down to is this: free speech has become law at the same time when democracies were created out of a feudalistic past. Free speech is the tool given to the people to speak truth to power. The real issue with free speech is the fact that those in power still limit our speech. Employees can't complain too much about their employers or they risk losing their job. The freedom of speech is still defined by the power relationship between the speaker and the one spoken to. So whenever someone on the political right complains about their free speech being impeded because they're not free to offend without consequence, especially offend those who are marginalized to begin with, treat them like the school-bully they are and tell them to pick on someone their own size. They won't, but tell them anyway. Tell them to put all that energy into fighting for the rights of whistle-blowers, for Julian Assange, for Amazon employees, for trans-people who commit suicide at a far higher rate than the general population, for professional athletes to take a knee instead of standing up for the national anthem, and for all those who are opposed to their government waging war in far away countries at the behest of the ruling class.

"The ruling class has always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and have yourself slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world, you the people have never had a voice in declaring war, and strange as it certainly appears, no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people." - Eugene Debbs

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