Dangerous Hypocrisy, Censorship, and, Oddly Enough, Alex Jones

I have seen a lot of talk about the recent silencing of Alex Jones in the past days. There is outcry from his supporters and gleeful celebration on the part of his opponents. Some on the left, who have traditionally been against corporate rights, are now arguing for the right of corporations to censor political speech under the guise of protecting people from dangerous ideas. On the right, I have heard whispers of campaigns of "revenge censorship" against left leaning voices in response to the action against Alex Jones and other conservatives. However, this situation should be seen as far more disturbing than it is being presented by any one group. The real battle is not between left and right or fringe and center as it is often framed for us. What is happening to Alex Jones is just the highly visible symptom of an ongoing "disease" that threatens to rob us all of our ability to freely express and freely consume ideas. What we are currently seeing is a push by the establishment to silence anyone who does not conform to its narrative and Alex Jones fell easily into that category. They will point to vague and indefinite incidents of vague and indefinite violations but make no mistake, this is about the established authorities feeling threatened by new and independent voices. I, personally, was never a fan of Alex Jones and I can't say that I care if he has professional success or not but what is happening to him can and will happen to everyone else when "They" decide that we haven't been agreeing hard enough for "Their" liking. Arriving at my point, in these times with the seemly constant assault on everyone's ability to speak their minds, it is important to stand for the principal of free speech above our own personal politics or we will all lose this precious agency that we have enjoyed in the past.

As I mentioned above, there is a "mantra" that is being repeated by the supporters of this ban and it goes as follows: "One has a right to speech but not to a platform." That is indeed, how the law is interpreted (in this country) but it ignores the principal behind the law and the supposed principals of the people who are now making that statement. The idea behind the law is that it is important to express unpopular and subversive ideas and that determining the value of those ideas is up to the people who listen to them and not the authorities. By defaulting to this "well it is 'Their' site" attitude, people are allowing information to be filtered by an authority and its political ideology before anyone else has a chance to see it. It is legal but legality does not equal ethical, moral, or just. It used to be legal to beat and rape one's wife, own slaves, and duel in the streets, but few would argue that any of those things are good. More troubling, however, is the way in which this argument stands in direct opposition to many of the stated principals of the people who are using now it as a shield. Let's imagine, for a moment, that one of the currently embraced classes of people on the left was censored for its views. We saw the kind of outrage that was generated when the owner of a chain of chicken restaurants said something "dickish" about gay people. If that was elevated to the level of organized censorship of gay voices on a major social media outlet (because its leadership held homophobic political views), blood would flow like rivers in the streets. Okay, probably not that but saying that it would cause outrage is a severe understatement and rightly so because that censorship would be just as wrong as this censorship. To put it simply, I find this argument to be a bit hypocritical and both pedantic and narrow in its focus on legality.

The calls for "revenge censorship" on the right should be just as distressing as the current celebration and defense of censorship on the left. I don't like to classify myself on the political spectrum and, if truth be told, I hold opinions that irritate my friends on both the left and the right. That being said, I have warmed to the new focus on free speech that I see in some (not all) right wing circles. However, the rumblings that I have been hearing from some members of some communities are causing me to question that rhetoric. If one supports free speech it kind of has to be an all or nothing game. That is, one must support everyone's speech, even if he or she disagrees with it. If people, out of anger, begin engaging in the same oppressive tactics as the oppressors, they become oppressors too. As I said, I am not left or right but I know and like many people who use those labels. For those who choose to call themselves right wing, I will say this: I have always believed that one should lead by example. If you claim to stand for freedom, you cannot also stand for removing the freedom of others, even if they are perceived as your bitter enemies. That is a principal I will support no matter what political philosophy it happens to be associated with at a given moment.

The real conflict is between those of us who operate as part of the independent media, the counter cultures, or anything that falls outside the sphere of the establishment and the establishment itself. Alex Jones is the popular topic at the moment but the war on independent media is much murkier than one might think. At the same time that YouTube and Facebook are taking down right wing pages, they are also taking down independent left wing pages. For example, the highly liberal YouTube channel, Secular Talk, has had its revenue severely decreased and its content hidden because its message conflicts with the establishment narrative. For the same reason, other types of users have been targeted too. Left leaning weed and other drug content, even if it was only informational, has been suppressed right along with right leaning gun content. The right vs. left conflict is a facade that hides the truth of this matter. "They" want us to fight among ourselves while "They" oppress us all. The thing is, independent voices, regardless of whom they belong to, are in the position to effectively call out the establishment when it is doing things that are not in our interest. This is a danger to the establishment, so it works to censor us and frames its censorship in partisan terms to prevent us from uniting against it.

So, what is the real agenda that is being pushed? This is a topic of it's own (and I may cover it in detail at some other time) but I can briefly point to what I think is happening. It is all about maintaining the old systems of authority and concentrating wealth, influence, and power therein, while also removing our ability to stand against it. We can't unite if we hate each other. We cannot organize if we cannot freely communicate. We cannot educate if we are not allowed to learn. We cannot demand answers if we don't know that there is a question. In time, we will accept terms and explanations at face value. We will say "they must of deserved being censored because they are a [insert pejorative buzzword]" and dismiss things that may or may not actually be the truth, having never examined them. Soon, the only remaining voices will be propagandists and advertisers and we will not be able to resist the "Old System" any longer because we allowed our speech to be stolen by the powerful while we were too busy bickering with one another.

I don't wish to sound as though I am preaching or claim to stand on some perfect pedestal. I am just as flawed and capable of falling into unprincipled thinking as anyone else. However, this issue is important and the division that I see among the people is frightening. There is a "They" and it is coming to oppress us. If we are to have any hope of resisting, we must find a way to stand together against it. I can't tell anyone what to do. How could I? I am just some guy rambling on the internet. I would hope, though, that before one turns a blind eye to censorship, he or she asks if that censorship violates his or her personal principals and if it would violate them if it was someone that he or she agrees with who was the target of censorship for the same reason. If either answer is "yes," then the censorship will should be opposed.

Peace.

All the images in this post are sourced from the free image website unsplash.com.