“But Hypocrisy?!”
Y’all missed me? I know it’s been a little while since I posted an article. My excuse is fairly valid: I’ve been out-of-town a bit this month. I just came home a few days ago from my Turning Point USA (TP USA) conference: the 2021 Student Action Summit (SAS). Soon enough, I’ll write a piece about my experience at SAS 2021. However, I want to share my thoughts about a recent controversy from SAS.
Plenty of articles were written about SAS 2021. One notable example dealt with an adult film “actress” who attended this Turning Point Conference.
So, here’s the story. A disgusting adult film “actress” purchased a VIP Pass to SAS 2021. She attended the conference for one day before SAS attendees recognized her and began posting about it on Twitter. I only learned about this reality after
Consequently, many students, parents, and donors were not happy about her attendance at a “conservative” conference. So, TP USA barred her from the rest of the conference and refunded her tickets.
Of course, Mind you, SAS attendees mainly range from ages 16-26. So, minors and their parents attended the event. That’s the main reason why TP USA disallowed this adult actress from the event.
Unsurprisingly, TP USA received flak from liberals and “conservatives”. Liberals and libertarian-leaning conservatives claimed that TP USA was engaging in “cancel culture” by barring this adult film actress.
“But, that’s hypocrisy. We can’t cancel people because that’s what the left does?!” Supposed right-wing Americans and pundits constantly parroted this take on Twitter recently. This judgement is just a talking point if you think a little bit.
What is Cancel Culture?
Let’s take a hypothetical example. Pretend that a well-known white nationalist attended the conference (THIS EXAMPLE IS JUST A HYPOTHETICAL SITUATION). TP USA has constantly condemned and disagrees with all racist and white nationalist views. Nevertheless, would TP USA be hypocritical for banning white nationalists from their events? The answer is obviously no! So my question is this: how is this situation any different from the one that occurred at SAS 2021?
This controversy at SAS brings about an important conversation about free speech. First off, free speech is pretty epic. We are so blessed to live in a country where political and religious speech are free from government censorship. There is not a single place in the world where free speech is more treasured than in the USA.
Nevertheless, the ideas of “free speech absolutism” and the “free marketplace of ideas” are a farce. Both of those ideas are not conservative positions. In fact, they both originated during the 1960s college campus protests in America.
The concepts of “free speech absolutism” and the “free marketplace of ideas” go hand in hand. The former category means that any type of censorship—whether governmental or private—is inherently bad. The latter category refers to notion that ideas act like a free market. In an economic free market, the most efficient companies and products win out over time. Similarly, the best ideas win out in a “free marketplace of ideas”.
If you scrutinize both of these ideas, then you’ll hopefully realize that both are bunk.
If you attend an American university, then you know that the “Free market place of ideas” does not exist. Try being a conservative professor in a public or private American university. Tenure
If you have an account on any major social media platform (i.e. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, etc.), then you know that free speech does not exist on the Internet—the main method of mass communication in Modern America.
Both examples show that conservative ideas are at best unfavorable and at worst are completely censored outright in modern American.
“Cancel Culture” has become a meaningless term in my mind because it has been abused by libertarian-leaning individuals. “Cancel Culture” has nothing to do with a private organization upholding standards—such as Biblical standards at a religious school. It has everything to do with the modern form of “ostracization” we see in American culture.
You (Carson King) posted a stupid tweet when you were 16, you lose your Busch light sponsorship. You (JK Rowling) criticize cancel culture, people viciously attack you on social media. You (Mike Lindell) question the 2020 presidential election results, your products get boycotted.
Cancel culture is all about attacking and ruining people’s lives for questioning anything that the regressive barbarians in America support. That’s what cancel culture is.
Cancel culture is not about banning a porn star from attending your conservative conference—where minors were in attendance. It’s not about stopping drag queens from reading a children’s book to kids at a public library. It’s about the erasing of people who don’t toe the line on current cultural narratives about transgenderism,
Having exposed the fraud that is “free speech absolutism”, let’s look at what free speech has implied in American history.
A Broader View of Free Speech in America
The historic view of free speech in America is not “free speech absolutism”. Instead, true free speech has standards. It is “freedom with standards”.
According to various Supreme court cases over time, not every form of speech is “free speech”. Defamation, obscenity, fraud, perjury, and direct incitement to violence are all unprotected forms of speech. Clearly, one cannot make a Constitutional case for
On a similar note, political commentator Michael Knowles holds some of the most logical, well-thought takes on what “cancel culture” and “free speech” actually mean. His recent book Speechless discusses the topic further.
Also, here’s an appearance that Michael made on Charlie Kirk’s podcast a few weeks ago that I really enjoyed. Definitely give it a listen when you get a chance.
Michael explains in Charlie’s podcast that not all censorship is bad. That’s a hot take that I can go into further in another post. However, American history is on the side of Michael’s argument. “McCarthyism” and obscenity laws (including the 1990s Children Online Protection Act) censored communists and pornographers. Now, libertarians might disagree here and say that censoring those people was not a good idea.
Well, look where we are now. Militant Marxists run our educational system, corporate America, and the mainstream media. They teach your children to hate their elders, their faith in Jesus Christ, and their country. Pornographers have ruined the lives of millions of young men by addicting them to hardcore pornography. Even if you think that all forms of censorship are bad, just remember that militant leftists are already censoring us. Let’s at least come to terms with that reality.
I could go on and on about this issue. But, I’ll stop here for today. Please feel free to share this blog with anyone who’d be interested. Thanks again, and stay classy!