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Americans are not especially fond of the woke — 54 Comments

  1. The current phrase is “get woke, go broke,” and it certainly seems like, in several cases, that is what is happening.

    Examples?

    Well, how about the MSM, and CNN and MSNBC in particular?

    How about ESPN? How about DICKS?

    How about the newest example, the knitting site, REVELRY?

  2. It is not entirely clear who first coined the term “The Great Awokening”, but the effects of this truly pernicious new form of intolerant dogmatism (essentially a secular version of religious fundamentalism) are everywhere evident in the culture, from the banning of books, to the generating of outrage mobs on Twitter, to vandalizing statues and covering murals, to squelching freedom of expression, and, above all else, to fulminating against the worst of all sins, whiteness.

  3. Moreover, wokeness largely explains why the media is held in such low esteem, as they are a bastion of wokeness.

  4. Most people do want Free Speech.
    And most think offensive speech is … offensive, bad, and they don’t want to hear it.

    It’s not clear how many understand that Free Speech, like Nazis marching in Skokie, or burning the US flag, is also hate speech.

    We need Trump and more GOP folk to clearly talk about how speech IS NOT violence, and it is violence which is illegal. The speech that is wrong is that speech which advocates violence.

    The hypocritical Dems want to claim to support “civility”, while hating and insulting Rep women like Ivanka or Sarah Pallin as c***.

    I’m constantly enraged by the hypocritical double standards of what Dems can say, so much hate-filled and hate-oriented words, against Trump — yet complain about hate speech.

  5. ‘Get woke, go broke’ seems to be losing is truthfulness I fear. People said that about Nike when they put out the Kaepernick commercial six months ago and nothing has happened to them except pretty good earnings reports and revenue growth. ESPN has also pivoted away from ‘woke sports’ and is doing ok showing that it doesn’t have to be a death knell to a company.

    Small to midsize companies may be more susceptible to damage however.

    The bigger point is that a huge percentage ( my guess is 70%) either don’t care or have never heard of the controversy because they are too busy living a real life as opposed to keeping up with the latest twitter outrage.

  6. On the website of the group that did that study, here’s what they say about how they handled “political correctness”:

    How did you define political correctness?

    ‘Political correctness’ is a complex and subjective phenomenon, with no single definition. As such, we did not provide respondents with a definition but instead our study contained many questions that seek to explore different angles of the subject. These included asking about dynamics of discourse on multiple subject areas: race and racism; sex, gender, and sexuality; immigration; and Islam and Muslims. For each of these subjects, we gauged whether Americans think people have become “too sensitive”. We also measured whether “today in America” people feel “pressure to think a certain way” about each of these subjects, or if instead it was “acceptable” for them to express their views. We further asked Americans whether they experienced pressure in the context of being with “people like me.” Additionally, we asked whether “political correctness is a problem” directly. Finally, we explored these subjects in our in-depth interviews and focus groups. Depending on the framing of the question used, we found that between half and 80% of Americans reported a degree of frustration or self-censorship.

  7. it is a no brainer for anyone with the slightest concept of Risk aversion, even for minorities like myself who are supposedly the beneficiary of the PC culture the risk of getting my life and career ruined for an careless indiscretion of saying something offensive to someone unintentionally is far greater than whatever benefit I might get from it such as not getting my feeling hurt. I can easily toughen my skin so i don’t get offended easily, but man keeping up with the ever expanding PC vocabs and watching with careful diligence every word that comes out of my mouth is far more difficult.

  8. It is obvious to me, the 1st Amendment is intended to protect speech that some people or even 99.999% of the people disagree with. Paraphrasing Tommy Smothers, the only valid form of censorship is to not listen.

    Time once again to reprise A Man for All Seasons.

  9. Saw an article along these lines about Germany somewhere the last couple days. Apparently Germans are fearful of saying things in public that they are thinking or saying in close company.

    This is happening here also I think though to a lesser extent. Immigration and homelessness are two topics that come to mind. There are plenty of Trump haters that secretly agree with him on immigration but don’t want to say it too loud.

  10. Tom G,

    Fascists know no shame, hypocrisy is their weapon to silence you. Just say NO.

  11. Dave,

    It begins with you. Speak your mind. Whenever you hesitate, they win. When they win you are diminished. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Otherwise, it will come down to copper plated lead projecticles. That is where we are headed unless we stand up and speak out. Fortunately, where I live few disagree with me.

  12. Diversity breeds adversity. Don’t indulge color judgments. #PrinciplesMatter

  13. John Stuart Mill perfectly stated it; “If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”

  14. I still remember when the limit on free speech was yelling, “Fire!” in a crowded theater.

    It was pretty much understood that the cost of free speech was having to hear a lot of offensive BS. So, we taught our children that, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” We learned not to be so sensitive, while also learning to conform as needed to get along.

    I just don’t remember it being that bad…

  15. The problem with “Hate Crimes”, including speech, is no one can prove what was the state of mind of the person committing the crime. I recall that when the concept of Hate Crimes was first proposed and turned into legislation, a lot of very sharp legal minds were objecting strenuously on the same basis. We are now seeing the logical extension of this slippery slope. If we continue like this, how much longer until we are in “1984” territory?

  16. The surprising difference between the percentage of people that express opposition to political correctness and support for free speech and what we hear and get from news reports and so forth is that the pro-PC and anti-Free Speech folks are just so damn noisy. The squeaky wheel and all that.

  17. German adults had similar opinions of the jugend youth who were herding them to the history we all know.. same way too… except this time, the Frauen mit erhöhtem Bewusstsein und Gleichstellung march with them.

    in fact, it was the women who woke em…
    they woke everyone… from stem to stern…
    every point of movement has originated with one of them
    from feminism, to lgbt (which was always baked in), to unpacking knapsacks

    twas women who woke em…
    and if no one else could have stopped them
    then they are the only ones who could stop themselves
    but this train has no brakes…

    i guess this ALSO applies to women EVEN MORE SO:
    Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one. – Charles Mackay Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841)

  18. It be interesting to see the purchasing demographics of Nike. If skewed to youth, those under 35, I wouldn’t be surprised why its sales haven’t dipped.

  19. The very concept of ‘hate-speech’ belongs to the distinctive arsenal of the radical left; it’s a term like “kulak”, whose content is deliberately vague while the consequences of your being included in the category are very clear, and damning.
    This sort of words are not “natural”, do not arise spontaneously from common usage; they are introduced with a precise political intent, and are meant to hit, humiliate and isolate the enemy – as Alinsky openly taught in his rules, especially n°13.

    Given the artificiality of the term, the first difficulty for the activist is to spread its use, but here the left can trust the peculiar blind belief and the proven organization of its ‘cells’: it’s not a case that most SJW groups’ main activity, precisely when public discussion is proposed, is the incessant chanting and repetition of slogans by the mob.

    One fundamental principle – identified and exploited by both Goebbels’ Propagandaministerium and the KGB in Soviet Russia – is that endless repetition of a slogan INFALLIBLY modifies most people’s perception and reaction.
    Pavlov – think about that – has been one of the few (the only one?) scientists whose research was constantly supported and financed in the USSR, even if he openly refused to accept the Marxist ideology !

    Then there’s the educated leftist, the one who reads at least the NYT (in my country, Italy, the analogous paper is “La Repubblica”): everybody who comes from the left (me included) knows that dissent means expulsion; so, any leftist develops a special ear capable of recognizing a new dogma: in articles and speeches given by the cool people in the cool places, a term begins to be used as if it were an indisputable evidence and those who “incredibly” refuse to accept it are gradually described as controversial, then conservative and eventually Fascist.

    The sad and irritating fact is how easily the other side – classical liberals but also conservatives and, increasingly, mainstream religious churches and confessions – accepts not just the term, but its USAGE as intended by the left: in other words they, being decent people willing to honestly discuss even the most absurd issue (like: “men can be pregnant”), politely accept the elements of discussion as potentially valid, instead of calling out the fraud since the beginning.
    Jordan Peterson, who refused to accept the political imposition of a new grammar, has been obviously categorized among the untouchable of the alt-right (another of those terms, btw). It’s always the same plan as with “kulak”: putting the dissenters in “Gulags” (real or social) where they disappear and cannot be heard any more.

  20. Paolo,

    Very well said. Thank you.

    I wonder what could possibly be the defense against such a weapon? Is there any educational antidote that can be used to inoculate people against such planned attacks on their freedom?

    Where is Lenny Bruce when we really need him?

  21. BTW: One of the terms that Hugo Chavez coined for his opposition was “Los Esqualidos” or “The Squalid Ones”. Semantically, it made no sense whatsoever. The opposition was primarily the middle and upper-middle classes. His primary appeal was to the lower classes. Yet, by using the term repeatedly, he reshaped the very meaning of the word.

  22. Paolo,

    Excellent comment! Thanks.

    Yes, there is a strong tendency to absorb a Newspeak meaning of a word or phrase so that it displaces the former meaning PLUS the concepts connected to it; or, if the term or phrase is newly invented, to repeat it so as to create or modify a cast of thought.

    Yet, we learn language and the meanings of words in just this way, especially as we are learning our mother tongue. And our attitudes toward this or that are shaped (to some extent, anyway) by what most impresses us about other people’s attitudes toward the word, term, sentence, slogan.

    So at one time it was fairly common for two men to share a single room and a single bed; as for example, Lincoln and his law partner William Herndon. (Room-rent less costly for one room than for two, plus sharing that rent, plus two bodies in the same bed keeps both warmer than if they’d be if they slept in separate beds.) So, general opinion was that there was nothing inherently wrong with the practice. But now, such a situation involves all sorts of suspicions of homosexual activity or at least proclivity between the two men. And as for children sleeping with their parents, Well! — especially if the child is a daughter and the parent is her father.

    And dear Dr. Spock told a whole generation of parents that they should harden their hearts and let the crying baby cry. Else, Bad Mother!

    The problem for each of us is to find the “sweet spot” where we are open to helpful changes of interpretation and of attitudes while spotting the counterproductive or unhealthy ones. And by “we,” I mean each of us as an individual.

  23. Excellent Paolo. If one side of a two sided debate gets to select the terminology and create a frame for the debate, then usually the debate is lost before it is started.

    Here is a small example from Neo’s blockquote:
    “Progressive Activists, on the other hand, worry that free speech is often a cover for offensive and dangerous speech, …”

    Well which is it? Offensive speech or dangerous speech? No, no, the PC crowd will complain, the two are the same! My personal offense must be elevated to the level of a crime victim. Once that has been achieved, it gives me a club that I can use for political advantage even in circumstances where I’m not offended at all.

    Here’s a probable example:

    In a statement Friday, the Tempe [Police] Officers Association said six officers walked into a Starbucks to enjoy some coffee on July Fourth. The group was approached by a barista who told the officers that a customer “did not feel safe” because of their presence.

    “The barista asked the officers to move out of the customer’s line of sight or to leave,” the association said. The officers ultimately left the store “disappointed.”

    (boldface mine)

  24. So having gone all ’round Robin Hood’s barn to find examples, these two really excellent ones from Lynn Hargrove in the very next posting (“Fox on a Chilly Night”), at

    https://www.thenewneo.com/2019/07/06/the-fox-went-out-on-a-chilly-night/#comment-2441564

    “I know that very few people know [that Burl Ives] is singing “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” at Christmas. Of course it is a banned song now, being about bull[y]ing and racist.

    Never mind that its “message” is that when people make fun of you, they may well be making fun of a quality that will save their bacon down the road — and that G-d willin’ and the crik don’t rise, they will come to celebrate you and your quirk! So there’s nothing necessarily wrong with being “different.”

    (Although I hope the lyrics were written in a spirit of playfulness, however good the life lecture.)

    And of course “Goober Peas” a song from the Civil War I guess is banned because there were slaves in the US then.”

    And all the sports teams named in admiration for the American Indians — the Braves, the Redskins, etc. “we” now know are really insults and not to be borne. Ditto “Little Black Sambo” (who knew it’s racist to portray little Negro kids as liking pancakes!), Huckleberry Finn, so forth….

    But the Younger Generation(s) live in an era where all this nonsense is the Common Wisdom.

  25. ” Ditto “Little Black Sambo” (who knew it’s racist to portray little Negro kids as liking pancakes!)”

    The Sambo of the original book of course, was actually Indian. Not black, nor Negro, nor American.

    Hence a tiger, being liquefied to butter. Some assert it was originally a South Indian fable or folktale of some kind.

    Nonetheless, it was objected to in the U.S. on the basis that illustrations depicting Sambo, tended to degrade black children in general as ” pickaninnies”.

    And certainly there were cartoon take-offs in the 1930’s which can be seen as presenting Sambo as a Negro child (I guess these characters are meant to represent humans rather than anthropomorphised cartoon-beings of some kind), living in an American style house, maintained by a hugely fat caricature of a black woman … with a tiger being the only seeming connection to the real story.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSfGvptL_TY

  26. Well, my “Little Black Sambo” carried that title (and whatever East Indians are, few of them are Negro — as far as I know anyway). It was a Little Golden Book, if I remember rightly, with wonderful illustrations*. The kid surely looked Negro, and his Mama was a large Negro-looking lady. As for “pickaninny,” (1) I never heard anyone refer to Sambo that way — and remember, the overall subject I was addressing was the extent to which our individual interpretations of words is shaped by the people of our society, and when one is of the age to be reading Little Golden Books, that society is generally rather small. And (2) It wouldn’t have occurred to me even when quite a bit older to think of “pickaninny” as a particularly demeaning term of any sort, any more than “kid” or the recent “rug rat,” though I suppose that to many people it bore a tinge of that.

    *I just took a quick look for various artists’ illustrations, including the one Amazon is carrying as a Little Golden Book, but none of them are like what I remember.

    And if anybody cares, what I got on the emotional level was that the little black kid was basically cut from the same cloth as any other kid.

    Anyway, I guess that somewhere in my Life’s Journey I did run across a statement that the original story was laid in India; but if so, I’d forgotten, so thanks for reminding me. :>)

  27. I do remember “Little Black Sambo” in a Golden Book. I don’t think I ever thought he was an American, but then, I also read illustrated children’s versions of Rudyard Kipling, so I knew it was India. Not too many tigers around the American South. And what a sheltered childhood I had! I never heard of a “pickaninny” in any context at all.

  28. And, Paolo, well said! Are you @PagliaP67? I have enjoyed your comments here and there for several years, and agree with much on that Twitter account (what I can read of it, of course, and often with context I can make a bit of sense of Italian).

  29. “Los Esqualidos” sounds like it could well be “The Deplorables.”

    If it worked for Chavez, shouldn’t it have worked for Clinton?

    Well, almost, I guess.

    ————-
    “…defense against such a weapon?….Where is Lenny Bruce when we really need him?”

    Yes, I was thinking of the need for popular courses in how to break out “spontaneously” in uproarious belly laughs, seminars in hysterical giggling, voice training in peals of laughter and/or safe techniques in throwing oneself on the floor and then rolling and writhing around in uncontrollable mirth.

    Sort of like the equivalent of martial arts or krav maga. So very useful in a whole slough of eventualities. Could become very popular….

  30. No more Lenny Bruce, Don Rickles, Richard Pryor, much less Andrew Dice Clay. Howard Stern is still around, I think, though he’s been invisible and silent to me for years.

  31. TommyJay on July 7, 2019 at 1:27 pm said:
    Excellent Paolo. If one side of a two sided debate gets to select the terminology and create a frame for the debate, then usually the debate is lost before it is started.
    * * *
    Well said.
    I have seen comments and even posts arguing that Republicans & Conservatives need to quit using the frame and terms put forth by the Left ( no longer separate them from Democrats), but it’s a difficult thing to do, especially if the media is part of the “one side” defining usage and doing the chanting.

    In re “Little Black Sambo”: I almost certainly had the same Little Golden Book as our compatriots here, and my opinion then (and now) was that he was one sharp dude, and it engendered in me a positive opinion of black people (I only learned the story’s origins later) which has endured.
    It helps that most of the black people I knew, & know, personally are very estimable.

  32. Oh, I never thought of Little Black Sambo (and his folks, Black Mumbo and Black Jumbo) as American Negroes. I knew they lived in some exotic land — and that they were fictional f’r’eaven’s sake. (I’m not sure that at age 4 I was aware of the distinction between Africa and India. But from the illustrations I registered “Negro” — today known as “Black” — because I was vaguely aware of “blacks.”)

  33. Little Black Sambo was the namesake of a diner franchise called “Sambos” back in the seventies. The walls were decorated with same illustrations as in children’s book. I liked this place because they offered 10 cent bottomless cup coffee. It was a loss-leader, of course. Even then, there were PC rumblings. Eventually, I think they changed the name and re-branded.

  34. Antifa has its roots in stalinist russia…
    willi munzenberg anti fascist league
    later..

    Antifaschistische Aktion, abbreviated as Antifa, is an anti-fascist network in Germany

    The first German movement to call itself Antifaschistische Aktion was proclaimed by the German Communist Party (KPD) in their newspaper Rote Fahne in 1932 and held its first rally in Berlin on 10 July 1932, then capital of the Weimar Republic.

    [and they were part of the groups that beat up the Nazis when their speeches claimed that hitler was a better socialist than lenin or stalin… ]

    \In May 1929, the Roter Frontkämpferbund had been banned, after rallies escalated on “Maifeiertag” in Berlin. 33 people were killed and many injured in the confrontations between police and protesters. May 1, 1929 was the bloodiest “Maifeiertag” in German history. Following a skirmish between Nazi and Communist members in the parliament, Antifaschistische Aktion was formed as a broad-based alliance in which Social Democrats, Communists and others could fight legal repression and engage in self-defence against Nazi paramilitaries.

    After Hitler

    Groups called “Antifaschistische Ausschüsse”, “Antifaschistische Kommittees” or “Antifaschistische Aktion”, all typically abbreviated to Antifa, spontaneously re-emerged in Germany in 1944, mainly involving veterans of pre-war KPD, KPO and SPD politics, as well as some members of other democratic political parties and Christians who opposed the Nazi régime.

    In the French, British, and American zones, Antifas began to recede by the late summer of 1945, marginalized by Allied bans on political organization and by re-emerging divisions within the movement between Communists and others, while in East Germany the Antifa groups were absorbed into the new Stalinist state.

    they actually claim they have nothing to do with each other despite its the same groups, same leaders, same symbolism and so on… even stalinism being the same…

    The American Antifa of the early 21st-century has drawn its aesthetics and some of its tactics from the original German organization
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    Activists involved in the movement tend to be anti-capitalists and subscribe to a range of ideologies, typically on the left. They include anarchists, socialists and communists along with some liberals and social democrats. Their stated focus is on fighting far-right and white supremacist ideologies directly, rather than through electoral means.

    Although there is no organizational connection, the lineage of antifa in America can be traced to Weimar Germany, where the first group described as “antifa” was Antifaschistische Aktion, formed in 1932 with the involvement of the Communist Party of Germany

  35. Even though they are a small percentage of the population, the “woke” and their supporters are deadly. They ruin lives and businesses without remorse and for the slightest of infractions. While the leaders of the woke movement likely fall into the 21% of whites who agree with political correctness, I would guess the number against it would be higher except for the fear that the pollsters were “woke” themselves and could exact revenge through doxxing or other means on anyone who disagreed with them. People of other races (especially those considered “people of color”–blacks, hispanics, and native americans) would be less worried about what the woke mob would or could do to them personally, but equally annoyed by their presence and behavior, and thus more of them would answer the question truthfully.

  36. melange:

    Actually, SJWs (the “woke”) are particularly hard on certain black people or other minorities who are on the right, such as (for example) Candace Owens.

  37. }}} American Indians (hey, shouldn’t that be “native Americans” to be PC?)

    That’s based on the idiotic idea that Columbus (et al) did not realize they were not in India. They knew how big the world was, and it was clear enough that they had not traveled far enough to reach India.

    The term is derived from “In Dios” (“of God”) in that the natives were as of Eden, completely innocent of ideas like nudity-as-sin.

  38. }}} Snow on Pine on July 6, 2019 at 3:03 pm said…

    Marvel COMICS. Not the movies, but the comics, are in deep doo-doo. Sales are declining in general, but Marvel comics have been taken over by the Woke Looneys. There suggestion that Phase 4 may embrace some of this. If it is constrained, that can work, but if it goes whole hog like the comics, Phase 4 will tank one of the most valuable marques in the industry.

  39. }}} It is obvious to me, the 1st Amendment is intended to protect speech that some people or even 99.999% of the people disagree with. Paraphrasing Tommy Smothers, the only valid form of censorship is to not listen.

    Time once again to reprise A Man for All Seasons.

    One of the greatest back-and-forths in all of history:

    Roper: So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law!
    Thomas More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
    Roper: I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
    More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you — where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast — man’s laws, not God’s — and if you cut them down — and you’re just the man to do it — d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!

  40. I still remember when the limit on free speech was yelling, “Fire!” in a crowded theater.

    It was pretty much understood that the cost of free speech was having to hear a lot of offensive BS. So, we taught our children that, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” We learned not to be so sensitive, while also learning to conform as needed to get along.

    I just don’t remember it being that bad…

    1) The limits allowed on our Rights derive from improper and dangerously irresponsible uses of them — shouting fire in a crowded theater, inciting a crowd to violence, shooting a gun into the air, or ignoring what is downpath of the target…

    Not “something MIGHT be harmed”, but “someone IS harmed”, or at least “at serious risk of serious harm”. This latter does not include “Ouchie! You hurt my feeewings!!”

    2) Yeah, “Sticks and Stones…” does not seem to be taught in school any more, along with the rest of Aesop. All part of PostModern Eddimikashinalism not supplying any part of either of the West’s foundations of either Greek Thought and Ideal, or of Judeo-Christian Ethos, those, synergistically, being the primary sources of its success.

  41. OBH – there is actually a children’s show that features cute tellings of Aesop’s fables, suitable to the pre-K age group, but there is certainly no serious study of them as political “memes” — which is what they were supposed to be back in the day.
    I strongly suspect that Mr. Aesop didn’t have any more real influence over the Greek governments than we do ours, but it’s a nice fiction, and the fables are still true.

  42. Artfldgr on July 8, 2019 at 11:04 am said:
    Antifa has its roots in stalinist russia…
    willi munzenberg anti fascist league
    later..

    Antifaschistische Aktion, abbreviated as Antifa, is an anti-fascist network in Germany
    * * *
    Very interesting, thank you.
    Antifa apparently chose their name deliberately because they are targeting today’s “Nazis,” which happen to be not just the recognized White Nationalist/Supremacist groups, but everyone not vocally and demonstrably Left-wing aka socialist/communist.

  43. https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/07/04/meet-the-anti-woke-left/
    Meet the anti-woke left —
    ‘Dirtbag’ leftists Amber A’Lee Frost and Anna Khachiyan on populism, feminism and cancel culture.

    The left is in crisis across the West. It is out of power in most countries and out of touch with its historical working-class base. Class politics has given way to identity politics. And noble causes like anti-racism, anti-sexism and anti-discrimination have congealed into a stifling morass of political correctness and competitive victimhood.

    Thankfully, there are some pockets on the left who recognise this predicament. I’m in New York to try to understand the thinking behind the ‘dirtbag left’. The phrase was coined by Amber A’Lee Frost, a writer, commentator and activist, to describe a loose constellation of American leftists who reject the civility, piety and PC that has come to characterise much of the left.

  44. https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/05/17/in-defence-of-the-minority-of-one/
    SALVATORE BABONES
    17th May 2019

    There are no such things as minority rights – or at least, there shouldn’t be. Adams and Tocqueville, the very writers who introduced the ‘tyranny of the majority’, both recognised that it was even worse to give special rights to a minority. The greatest assurance of the lives, liberty, and property of the members of any minority group is for society to hold fast to a tradition of individual liberty for all.

    … It was left to John Stuart Mill to grasp fully the reality that individual liberty is the prophylactic that safeguards society from the tyranny of the majority.

    In On Liberty (1859), Mill took it for granted that the limitation of ‘the power of government over individuals’ was necessary to prevent the tyranny of the majority. … Individual members of minority groups who feel oppressed by everyday microaggressions, dehumanised by other people’s opposition to their opinions, or terrified by facts that might trigger their memory of historical trauma, might pause a moment to reflect on the implications of seeking redress through the law. If they live in an Anglo-American democracy, they would be asking the government to override age-old common-law liberties in favour of their own interests. That’s about as dangerous as it gets.

    For if a minority can use the machinery of government to control behaviour it finds offensive, it is difficult to see how a majority can be prevented from doing the same. Everyone is offended by something. Construe an issue as a matter of minority rights, and it can only be won by subverting democracy. Construe it as matter of individual rights, and… well, everyone is an individual.The legitimacy of liberal democracy rests on the principle that every individual citizen enjoys the same rights and freedoms – and the same interest in defending them. Liberty first, democracy second. When everyone is in the same minority of one, there is safety in numbers. That’s why, in a well-functioning liberal democracy, minorities don’t have any rights. Only individuals do.

  45. People don’t even know that they are asleep in a dream, let alone who got woke up.

  46. Geoffrey Britain on July 6, 2019 at 9:42 pm said:
    John Stuart Mill perfectly stated it; “If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”

    Lots of people would love me to be silent, one way or another.

    They have about as much chance of that happening as silencing the Son of God (the one they know).

  47. parker on July 6, 2019 at 6:50 pm said:
    Dave,

    It begins with you. Speak your mind.

    I speak my mind all the time. Then I get told that because people here are “older than me” (*ahaha, as if they know anything), they get to tell me off because they know more than me.

    Ridiculous human antics. Human pride will be your downfall, but you think it is somebody else’s problem.

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