I wrote a week or so back about the Edwards campaign’s attempts to turn pointed criticism into “hate speech,” a designation that carries with it the stigma of criminality thanks to the (unfortunate) existence of actual hate speech laws, which are increasingly poised to grease the slipperly slope toward a linguistic “tolerance” based upon the illiberal premise that particular identity groups have a “right” not to be offended — a concept that, should it continue to gain policy support, will have the practical effect of turning the concept of free speech completely on its head, replacing it with a kind of “benevolent” totalitarianism that would dictate the kinds of speech that are acceptably free.
Such a maneuver is a transparent attempt to protect leftist dogma, which relies, for its power, on the ability to stifle and shame competing narratives. Under the guise of “sensitivity,” such thinking is actually an attempt to heavily regulate the marketplace of ideas — which, given leftist distrust of markets and market forces, is not really too shocking.
But the problems liberalism faces in the US comes not so much from straight leftist dogma as it does from the ability of “progressives” to pressure the cultural ethos — the idea being to stoke grievances for the purposes of appealing to two things: 1) the best intentions of Americans, who truly don’t wish to offend; and 2) the kind of cost-benefit analysis thinking that pervades business and that animates opportunistic law makers.
On this second point, political advocacy groups — who pretend to represent the interests of aggrieved identity groups — are quite successful (as Jesse Jackson, among others, has learned): oftentimes the target of their calculated ire will “settle” rather than risk the bad publicity that comes with being labeled racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-poor, etc, the end result being that the political advocacy group has been able to dictate the policy and practice of private businesses.
Which is why I find this particular instance of sub rosa strong-arming, revealed by Jihad Watch’s Robert Spencer, unsurprising:
[…] this week I have gotten emails telling me that Jihad Watch has suddenly been blocked in all sorts of places: Fidelity Investments, JPMorgan Chase, even the City of Chicago. Word is that Jihad Watch and other sites have suddenly been labeled as purveying “hate speech.”
This is a tried and true tactic of the Left: intellectually bankrupt as it is, it silences its critics rather than dealing with them on the level of ideas. They can’t answer us, so they try to shut us up and discredit us. Leftists, as well as apologists for Islamic jihad terrorism, label their opponents “hatemongers” and “bigots,” hoping thereby to make people of good will turn away from their message. And the politicized nature of this Internet censorship will come as a surprise to no one.
In reality, Jihad Watch is dedicated to the defense of human rights for all people against those who would impose Islamic law, with its institutionalized discrimination against women and religious minorities, over both Muslim and non-Muslim societies. There is no “hatred” in this, except when we report the words of hatred and supremacism of the Islamic jihadists. We are trying to raise awareness of the nature, extent, and goals of the global jihad, which threatens everyone who loves and cherishes freedom and the equality of rights of all people before the law.
And so, we are going to fight this, as best we can, and I am sure MEMRI and HotAir [who have likewise been blocked, including in places of government workplaces — though access to CAIR and Arab News sites remain untroubled] are also. Today I am going to contact every organization that, according to emails I have received, has banned Jihad Watch, and urge them to remove the ban. Wherever you are working today, if you get a chance please take a moment to check if you still have access to conservative sites — and if you don’t, lodge a respectful but firm protest. Let us not take lying down being vilified and silenced, when we are telling the truth.
[my emphases]
Controlling narratives — and defining authenticity in order to factor out “approved” criticism — is at the very heart of the progressive movement’s agenda. Policy opponents — people whose “crime” is often merely a strategy disagreement over how best to tackle a particular problem — are intentionally demonized and marginalized as sub-human, obscene, vile, and (it follows) unworthy of engagement.
They are, in fact, mentally defective, a cancer to be snuffed out, so that the collective “good” — designed, organized, and implemented by those who claim to be working on behalf of “the people” — can prevail. And just as it makes no sense to try to reason with cancer, the argument goes, it makes no sense to try to engage something so self-evidently cancerous that it would presume to challenge the revealed truths held by neo-progressives. So committed are neo-progressives to this idea, in fact — this demand for a unity of message — that those who stray from the approved discourse are often publicly attacked and, subsequently, excommunicated.
I’ll leave it to you to locate any historical precedents.
Gordon Brown, in response to al Qaeda attacks in Britain, has decided the best way to prevent terrorism going forth is to police the speech of the actual victims as a bow to the calculated grievance mongering of those from whose ranks come their attackers and would-be murderers.
And, as Diana West has recently argued, President Bush himself has fallen into that same trap — though his reaction has been far less draconian than the kind of mind-bogglingly Orwellian dictate issued by Britain’s new Labour leader and prime minister.
But just as physical appeasement is precisely the wrong way to fight terrorism, linguistic appeasement is precisely the wrong way to fight the encroachment of illiberal leftist power plays disguised as feel good measures to promote “tolerance”.
Businesses, who will often take the path of least resistance, need to reminded that grievance mongers make up a rather small percentage of the population, and that “voluntarily” censorship, under pressure from such grievance groups, will alienate many more people than it will appease.
Similarly, government needs to be reminded that criticism is not “hate speech,” just as universities need to be reminded that “free speech zones” are inherently un-American, and create a learning environment that is, on its face, anti-intellectual.
So I urge those of you reading this to take Mr Spencer’s challenge. Because progressivism — and the leftist, collectivist thinking it represents — will only become stronger the more it is able to insinuate itself into the fabric of American culture.
Because, given its proponents’ willingness to justify practically any means to bring about its desired ends, and given that it is an ideological movement based solely on will, “contingency”, and manufactured consent, it must be beaten back by the very liberal principles it pretends to champion.
And one of those principles is the insistence that free speech and the free exchange of thought in a vibrant marketplace of ideas not be cheapened by emotional appeals to the kind of “tolerance” that is nothing more than a calculated attempt to constrain and control what speech is deemed “appropriate” — an ideological gambit that, if successful, will indeed have the effect of marginalizing those who refuse to obey, while forcing those who fear its wrath into adopting the very kind of PC speech codes that act as de facto templates for censorship.
If you want to use the N-word so badly, just do it. And quit whining.
Ah, the fresh scent of the tolerant 12-year-old progressive mind, always ready to engage ideas on their face.
david;
Nabobs? Numskulls? Nitwits?, Neolinguistic nattering knuckleheads.
Oh, wait … nonsensical?
How am I doing?
It’s too funny that David goes right ahead and proves Jeff’s point, and he does not even realize it.
You can always count on david for the intellectual rejoinder.
One problem Jihad Watch will face is a reluctance by any employee to bring to their company’s attention that they’ve been surfing the net rather than working, so please bring back my favorite website…
“an ideological gambit that, if successful, will indeed have the effect of marginalizing those who refuse to obey”
Marginalizing?
I think the Leftist Play Book calls for fining, imprisoning and ultimately re-educating.
Phinn;
Don’t forget free prescription drugs for treatment.
It’s Progressive Rage Boy!
There is no difference between Collectivism and the Corporation.
Mental pygmie Progressives believe themselves as the anti-establishment standing up to the man without ever reflecting that they have collectively become the establishment man killing individual liberty.
I’ve been trying to order a sub rosa all week, but the guy behin the counter at Subway keeps telling me the recipe is a secret.
Wow, looks like the Rapid Response Troll Armada left base without their nuclear croaking points today.
N-word? Oh! Neocon! Yes, that word certainly does sum up hate speech, neocon, Neocon, NEOCON!
Neocons.Is there any other hateful slur that begins with N?
I’ve been calling her Rosa’s assistant. Sometimes I call her Lupe, but to be honest that was only the one time. I never would have thought to call her sub-Rosa.
On a serious note I am glad you’re out there Jeff. Your argument is lucid, clear, logical, and the links are devastating. This is a very important conversation to be had and it goes to the core of a liberal and free society. I appreciate your efforts and have made careful mental notes for the next time I have a related discussion in my personal life.
Those leftists and their mandates for corporate and government deployment of internet filtering technologies!
“for the next time I have a related discussion in my personal life.”
Please do that as often as possible.
I think the problem, shine, is with the selectiveness of the filtering technologies, and with the fact that the filtering is based around a concept of “hate speech” that is anti-liberal.
But feel free to simplify if it helps you sleep at night.
david —
Two niggers walk into a bar. Bartender says, “Hello. what can I get you gentlemen?”
There. That ought to keep your little mind grinding away for hours.
Tell me, was it everything you thought it’d be?
“Please do that as often as possible.”
Well, since you asked politely…
Try as I might, I still can’t get any “n-words” to walk. Though if I could, I should think a bar wouldn’t be such a bad destination — particularly if it were Happy Hour at the time.
Can you say “Net Neutrality”, actus? Sure you can.
It’s important I think to remember the other end of the spectrum of the speech police. Where the media can’t suppress opposing views, they’ll be sure to label them as “harsh rhetoric” … Kaus had a nice example yesterday I think…
The NYT cites the following quote as an example of the “heated rhetoric” that alienates Latino voters from Republicans:
Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, a leading opponent of the measure, at one point in the debate, said, “The bill would provide amnesty and a path to citizenship for people who broke into our country by running past the National Guard.”
“I think the problem, shine, is with the selectiveness of the filtering technologies, and with the fact that the filtering is based around a concept of “hate speech†that is anti-liberal.”
The arguments against these, including against their arbitrariness, and the lack of due process, have been made over the past 10 or so years worth of litigation against internet filtering mandates. One of the points raised about the arbitrariness and poor standards is that those are inevitable features of attempting to filter something so large as the internet. But it does help to simplify that this is due to liberals. I’d be surprised if someone at JP morgan made the decision to exclude those websites. More likely the vendor they use has a staff or subcontractor that flipped a toggle as part of their trawling of the internet. Great liberal blame? Or bureacratic/corporate incompetence?
So the “incompetence” just happens to allow “access to CAIR and Arab News sites”… interesting theory. Not much more than that, however.
A trawl that looks for what, shine? It’s not conscious, so it must be asked to look for something specific. What would that be/
You can keep trying to pull away from the topic — Google, for one, certainly appreciates it — but the fact is, there is a movement coming from the left to control speech.
It’s true that some on the right would like to censor things as well, but I’m on record as opposing them, too — and my concern here is with the mechanism, and how it has been embraced by a particular worldview.
“So the “incompetence†just happens to allow “access to CAIR and Arab News sitesâ€Â… interesting theory. Not much more than that, however.”
Sure. Just like the incompetence will let you find porn too, but may ban access to goodvibrations.com or something like that. Thats the point: its hard to take much meaning from individual bans because these are so ineffectual and arbitrary. It’s censorship by Dilbert.
Corporations are going to want to ban access to neo nazi or white power websites — free speech and marketplaces of ideas not really finding homes in corporate networks. Just like bans on porn will catch the occasional erotica, so will bans on white power “hate speech” also be incorrectly applied.
But I agree. We should have unfiltered (and unsurveilled) internets at work.
You think Jihadist sites should go unsurveilled? Kiddie porn? Or do you think that Digg will take care of it?
“You think Jihadist sites should go unsurveilled? Kiddie porn? Or do you think that Digg will take care of it?”
At work. I don’t think JP Morgan, or whoever employs you, is going to be surveilling jihadist sites. What i mean is that I prefer that employers not filter or monitor the surfing habits of their employees. Free speech and marketplace of ideas and all. I understand, though, that free speech and marketplace of ideas aren’t really corporate values.
“free speech and marketplace of ideas aren’t really corporate values.
” I thought you would leave Google out of this.
Whats the google connection?
Google it.
1. Clearly what we need is a good old fashioned/modern progressive leftist Inquisition. How convenient that we’re getting closer to a nice bright roasty one all the time.
2.
DaveDavid sure is mad about something. Maybe it’s not the N-word, it’s the I-word.3. Having convincingly lost the last race thread you crapped in shine/actus, WTF?
4. Because at the least McGehee already won.
As you were.
Dammit, I hate to have to agree with Shine here but most corporations don’t bother to rate web sites. Usually you just subscribe to a service that performs these ratings for you, this can be somewhat dependent on the firewall company you are using. It’s quite possible that just one company has decided that Jihadi Watch was hateful and because of the way these subscriptions work all the subscribers get painted with the same tar brush. Putting this out there as some sort of widespread effort by the left is not too likely. More likely is one guy/gal working at the firewall company didn’t like it and put it on the list. Sometimes the sites that get categorized in different areas are downright amusing.
All of which does not at all contradict Jeff’s points, I just doubt this particular effort involved more than one or two people.
“What i mean is that I prefer that employers not filter or monitor the surfing habits of their employees.”
What I suspect that you actually mean is that you want Big Daddy Gubmint to use armed men to FORCE private employers to operate their privately-owned computers in their privately-owned offices in the way that you would prefer.
Like we force them to privately operate a lot of their privately owned gear to protect interests of workers, the public and shareholders? Maybe. But you’ll have a hard time arguing in favor of free speech and privacy when its already hard enough to get them to recognize safety or pecuniary interests.
Or maybe just government employees should be free of monitoring and filtering and the corporate/leftist hate speech project.
That’s right, shine. There is no hate speech project. Just the workings of a fevered imagination.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Controlling narratives  and defining authenticity in order to factor out “approved†criticism  is at the very heart of the progressive movement’s agenda.
This is fundamental to Commie agitprop operations. It’s how the PLO developed the “stolen land” meme that the left swallowed hook, line and boating dock. It’s how they all operate actually. Thats how we get the seemingly odd tangents from the leftards who post here. They will always try to steer discussion into the propaganda templates provided them by a dead tyrannical state.
“That’s right, shine. There is no hate speech project. Just the workings of a fevered imagination.”
If you believe that you should check out FIRE. They document and fight against university speech and other thought-restrictive codes. You should read the venom they spit at Bob Jones U. Well deserved too.
I make a point of working for internet startups. Have been doing so for 8 years now. Downside: risk of company suddenly going tango-uniform. Upside: no restrictions on internet access. Actually, none of that large company crap.
Ya know, the way shine proved SGT Ted’s point in the very next comment is heartening.
I am a contributor to FIRE, shine. I even get a newsletter.
I have no interest in playing games with you. You are free to disregard my analysis if it suits you. Of course, I don’t think you actually DO, which is why you spend so much time trying to pick at it from the periphery.
Luckily, I’m wearing bug spray.
Lemme guess, shine requires at least 40% DEET.
“Of course, I don’t think you actually DO,”
Of course I don’t. I don’t deny that FIRE or their work protecting freedom on certain campuses exist or is needed. I think their work is even more widely needed. I just think when it comes to internet filters, the world is a little different, given what I know about them. Driven by corporate incompetence and search for outsourced “solutions” rather than anything that may animate FIRE’s un-conservative opponents.
“I just think when it comes to internet filters, the world is a little different, given what I know about them. Driven by corporate incompetence and search for outsourced “solutions†rather than anything that may animate FIRE’s un-conservative opponents.”
Just curious, but why is it so hard for you to just come out and say something of substance like this? Why do you feel the need to spam up the threads with faux-mystical inanities and snark instead of just making your point?
“Just curious, but why is it so hard for you to just come out and say something of substance like this? ”
I said it at the beginning. And someone even agreed. But the experts on the hate speech project disbelieve me. As if I’m a defender of the speech codes, as opposed to an opponent of idiotic corporate filtering.
Corporate filtering is idiotic. I don’t disagree with you. And it may be that in this case, all we’re seeing is accidental filtering. But if you follow the link, you’ll find that Mr Spencer has been receiving emails noting that it is because of “hate speech” that his site — and two others — are being blocked.
Now, because filtering software can’t determine what hate speech is without being “told,” the question becomes, who is doing the telling? What are the variables determining the filtering? What is the political orientation of the person or persons deciding on those variables, given that the Arab News gets through, while Jihad Watch is blocked? Any guesses?
I’ve touched on why I believe we’re seeing this movement toward speech restriction. And I have explained why I believe the movement is predictable, given the online political power of a certain strain of left-liberalism — and the draw of PC accommodation.
In short, the problems with internet filtering in general aside, I don’t think what we’re seeing in this case is accidental. We know, for instance, that Google is playing with its own software, and that it has actively excluded certain conservative sites from its “news” service, even while it allows in diametrically opposed “liberal” sites.
And my own site has been turned in to filtering companies for supposedly engaging in hate speech, pornography, etc., — though I was able to get myself off the lists. For some reason, I doubt that the people who “reported” me were politically neutral, or ideologically dispassionate.
Somebody told photobucket I had a naked Muslim woman pic on my site, and they nuked it from my album.
Also, YouTube allows jihadi incitements to murder, but nukes Malkin’s criticisms of them. That may be more to the point.
Most tellingly, YouTube let an atheist post all the critiques of Christianity and Judaism he wanted. When he posted a couple of minutes of quotes from the Koran, that was banned as “hate speech” and they threatened him with banning from the entire site.
“But if you follow the link, you’ll find that Mr Spencer has been receiving emails noting that it is because of “hate speech†that his site  and two others  are being blocked.”
Yes. Thats the category they would be misidentified in. And a health or erotica website would be misidentified as porn. More because of the idiocy of the filtering company than any prudery on the part of the jpmorgans of the world that decided to use that filter. And it wouldn’t be very indicative if an american health website got banned but not a european based one, again, because these things are adhoc and uncomprehensive.
Now you’re asking questions about how these filtering companies work and make their decisions. Go back to the early days of litigation over internet filtering — some of it starting like 10 years ago I think — and check out the criticisms that people were levelling at it. They sort of answer your questions.
I don’t doubt your work on hate speech. I acknowledge FIRE and its concentration on speech, thought and religious restrictions at non-conservative schools. It’s just that I think this one we can’t read much into, because of the nature of filtering technologies.
“We know, for instance, that Google is playing with its own software, and that it has actively excluded certain conservative sites from its “news†service, even while it allows in diametrically opposed “liberal†sites.”
Ooh. I’d love to see this link. You’re talking beyond them just limiting who goes into google news or not?
“Also, YouTube allows jihadi incitements to murder, but nukes Malkin’s criticisms of them. That may be more to the point.”
And they turn over data to chinese torturers. Terrible.
You can Google it, shine.
Though you’d probably have better success with Ask.com…
As the World Turns…
The Nation, a weekly political magazine founded 1865, describes itself as the flagship of left-wing politics. It’s editor and co-owner, Katrina vanden Heuvel, is both a long-standing, articulate, and steadfast advocate of leftist causes and a recipie…
[…] equality of opportunity over equality of outcome; federalist principles; a traditional idea of the First Amendment and free speech; and an aversion to social engineering, judicial activism (on both sides of the political divide), […]
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