Why I joined The Free Speech Union
New ‘crimes against woke humanity’ will be birthed into existence out of thin air, and it will soon be apparent that this year’s progressive will not be progressive enough by the time 2021 rolls around.
Within the struggles of a brutal culture war, in a time when the pendulum of acceptable thought is lodged so far to the left of the clock tower of society, the right is busy gathering the repair tools necessary in order to attempt a desperate fix. If this problem is not resolved in time, the weight of the pendulum will be too great for the clock tower of society to bear – we will see it topple, and break beyond repair.
All internal mechanisms – every cog and screw which are vital to the clock tower of society’s efficient function – will be shattered by the behemoth collapsing to the ground, with the wreckage unsalvageable. Luckily, there are those who are ready to risk losing their fingers in order to insert them into the moving gears of the clock tower (made dusty through years of neglect) and restore the pendulum to its natural, healthy state of equilibrium.
Toby Young’s new Free Speech Union has made such a move, but it is fortunately not alone in trying to correct this sizeable imbalance. Over the course of the last decade, many ideological conservatives (or at least non-far-left individuals) have broken into the realm of public discourse, including Douglas Murray, Jordan Peterson, and even Donald Trump – to name just a few.
Many times, the militias of Woko Haram have attempted to smear, defame and censor these free thinkers for spouting such abhorrent thought crimes – yet this has not stopped their success. Figures such as Jordan Peterson and Donald Trump consistently host sold-out events at theatre halls and stadiums because the masses in society are eager to hear an alternative point of view.
These same masses have also been targeted through practices such as ‘shadow banning’, and the overt disbanding of accounts by the proud progressives in Silicon Valley who govern the virtual social media world – similarly, in the real world, employees’ careers have been brought to an abrupt end for – amongst many other things – daring to challenge trans-orthodoxy. This does not simply intend to punish those brave enough to stick their head above the parapet, but serves also as a deterrence to the millions of others who risk taking the ‘dance of despair’ by expressing their dissenting views.
Free speech is the weapon used by the contemporary right to share their ideas and opinions, with The Free Speech Union providing an armoury ready for battle. As is stated on their website, support (which include financial assistance or the call to arms to sign counter-petitions) will be given to members who find that their right to freedom of expression is curtailed. In contrast, the lack of free speech is the silver bullet to the woke left; they will not have to have their opinions confronted if they cull your capacity to confront them.
Their ideological base is safe… so long as your mouth is taped.
The Free Speech Union doesn’t just promise to maintain the legal right to free speech, but also to secure the exercise of free thought and expression within the social sphere as well. This is, after all, a culture war. The left does not rely on the state to cart thought criminals off to the Ministry of Truth – although we will see if this is still the case in a decade or so.
Instead, their tactic is to mobilise the outrage mob in order to pressure social media giants, sponsors, educational establishments, individual companies (to get people fired), as well as ordinary members of the public, to withdraw their support and cooperation. All it takes is one phone call to an employer to plunge a thought criminal into unemployment. The Free Speech Union was created to counteract this coercion by these forces, through using its collective power of membership numbers and membership dues, and to exert enough pressure to yank the pendulum back to a place of safety.
As is typical with a union, I confess that I have very selfish reasons for investing in a membership card. Thankfully, I was able to quality for a discount membership because I’m a student. It is within the institutions of higher education across the Western world where the woke left is at their most plentiful and most powerful. When a news story surfaces surrounding the ‘no-platforming’ of a speaker, the implementation of ‘trigger-warnings’ and the policing of “hate-speech”, you can bet your student loan that it is coming from some university.
I went into university knowing what risks I had to take to fully express my ideas – and the legions of woke acted exactly as I expected. The virtue signalling, emotion-centric, identity-obsessed culture that the left has constructed over the decades has firmly embedded itself within student discourse. I sometimes sarcastically mention that I’m sorry for being born a white, straight, able-bodied, male (the Great Four crimes of modernity) or alternatively – if I’m feeling particularly cynical on the day – I politely ask why they assumed my gender.
Can I tell them that ‘I identify as someone who’s had enough of this sort of labelling’?
The cult of intersectionality has created an environment where people are judged on the colour of their skin, their gender, and their sexuality, and not the content of their character. Your opinions mean more based on your personal characteristics, without any regard to consistency or logic. Of course, there are always those amongst us who must be ex-communicated from the Church of Identity Politics for refusing their victimhood Bible, and not believing that they have it harder than the rest of us.
So, why did I join the Free Speech Union? Am I paranoid? A right-wing snowflake? No. The answer is simple; whilst I haven’t been censored, the threat is still ever-present. Not to mention that over time, based on the current trajectory, the effects of having my right to free speech suddenly removed will only get more and more severe; simultaneously, the woke left are only going to get more and more extreme and dogmatic in their views.
New ‘crimes against woke humanity’ will be birthed into existence out of thin air, and it will soon be apparent that this year’s progressive will not be progressive enough by the time 2021 rolls around.
If you sense that a predator is stalking you in the wilderness, circling you just beneath the underbrush, licking its lips in anticipation of one-false move by its prey, do you progress through the environment defenceless, or do you arm yourself? When the predator charges, would you wish to have some weapon to defend yourself in hopes of slaying the beast, or at the very least, a chance of scaring the monster away? It appears that The Free Speech Union is now an adequate weapon for when you are alone and lost in the thick jungle of the culture war.
