This sort of Orwellian nonsense is getting downright deranged.
[…] I decided to raise my cats to be gender neutral.
The cats’ lives wouldn’t change, I reasoned, and it would help me learn to use plural pronouns for my friends, neighbors and colleagues who individually go by they, their and them. Even though using they, them and their as singular pronouns grates on many people because it’s grammatically incorrect, it seems to be the most popular solution to the question of how to identify people without requiring them to conform to the gender binary of female and male. It also just feels right to refer to people as they wish to be referred to.
Around the house, with just me, Essence and Trouble – named for Rare Essence and Trouble Funk, for the DC music lovers reading this – things were pretty easy. I’d make a mistake (called “misgendering”), saying something like “Where’s your brother?” (Yes, I talk to my cats.) Usually, I’d remember to fix it (“Where’s your sibling?” or “Where’s your pal?”). Just as I’d hoped, I began finding it easier to remember to use gender-neutral language for the humans in my life.
And I began to get an infinitesimal taste of what transgender and gender-nonconforming people face. I’m not talking about the outright bigotry and hatred –something I can’t know without being in their shoes — but the complete cluelessness. Friends would come over, I’d introduce the cats and their pronouns, and some would ask, “But what ARE they?” Some would randomly use “he” and “she.” Some would stumble, unable to form a sentence when talking about one of the cats.
How morally superior the author must feel promoting the “in” idea that words like “he” and “she” are now vestiges of antediluvian bigotry. Such ridiculous ideas ultimately are allowed to prevail because the few people who dare to stand up to the insanity are called bigots.
And I do mean insanity.
Seeing the word “Trump” written in chalk has become grounds for calling the police.
Students see themselves as in need of protection from modern art.
Raising one’s hands or nodding one’s head is seen as a violation of “safe space” rules.
If you think that the sex and speech climate at U.S. universities has gone awry, U.K. college campuses are becoming downright dystopian. Remember last year, when British student leaders declared clapping too triggering and requested that students show approval with jazz hands instead? Now students have moved on to tackling another menacing movement: the raised hand.
Granted, raising one’s hand has long been the universal symbol of “I have a question,” especially in educational environments. But sometimes hand-raising can denote disagreement with a speakers’ position, or even exasperation, and that’s where we get into dangerous territory, say University of Edinburgh students. The move could be viewed as disrepsectful—and thus a violation of the school’s “safe space” policy.
It would all be very funny if it didn’t work. But it does work. First, the ruling bureaucratic and academic classes toe the line, and eventually it works its way down to every last commission, board, committee, and even the workplace. (Yes, a man I know was recently required to attend an official sexual harassment indoctrination seminar for managers or face being fired.)
My worry is that despite the First Amendment, most Americans will find themselves effectively silenced.
And they won’t even be allowed to roll their eyes in disgust.
UPDATE: Many thanks to Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit for the link, and a warm welcome to all!
Comments
27 responses to “Neutering speech until silence prevails! (And no menacing movements either!)”
randy ted cruz would be better off if he was neutered.
Maynard G. Krebs had an aversion to the word “work.”
.
I expect that if I were in college today, I’d be kicked out for asking questions…and doing a LOT of eye-rolling.
(Not to mention chalking all sorts of subversive things – like quotes of the first amendment.)
If only we had stopped with
Congress Shall Make No Law
But it wouldn’t be a government then would it?
Maybe we can do this today:
Congress Shall Make No More Law
The only thing they can do is repeal laws.
“The tyranny of emotions leads to the tyranny of the State.”
From the video: http://classicalvalues.com/2016/04/trump-is-a-uniter-nsfw/
any comments on this?
California raids home of anti-Planned Parenthood activist
http://hotair.com/archives/2016/04/06/california-raids-home-of-anti-planned-parenthood-activist/
newrouter,
I left this comment there:
There is the Drug Prohibition precident. From which we got militarized police.
And now the right is bitchin about the “other side” using those tactics?
You wanted a police State. You got one.
Cry me a river. Hell. Cry me an ocean.
>And now the right is bitchin about the “other side” using those tactics?<
really? the irs taking down "tea party groups"? when has "the state" taken on "the left"? you be a burned out hippy simple simon.
When nearly everything is illegal, whoever has power can target virtually anyone.
>When nearly everything is illegal, whoever has power can target virtually anyone.<
funny how the "right" is always the target of "the state".
why can’t “the state/left” leave people alone? for example fuck your: gay wedding?
Why can’t the State/Right leave people alone? For example(s):
Marijuana use
Contraceptive use (see ‘personhood’ movements)
Pain Medication
Sex acts between consenting adults unless the commercial considerations are in line with SoCon moral claims – eg., marriage
FDA grants of ‘market exclusivity’ (I guess monopoly is too crass a word) for off-patent drugs as the quid pro quo for acquiescing to Bush’s Medicare Part D
No Child Left Behind
P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act
DHS
BATF
Asset Forfeiture
Qualified Immunity for police and absolute immunity for judges, prosecutors.
Ain’t this fun? The Left doesn’t have ‘market exclusivity’ on totalitarian behavior.
Convicted of breathing while male.
when has “the state” taken on “the left”?
Nixon must have been before your time. He used the IRS on them.
MMM,
There is a college prof. (CA I believe) who wants to ban white people. I can’t find the site now. But just search
” Ban white people ”
Google says on the order of 49 million hits.
Of course that is not racism. Because…
I’m starting to wonder if I should have spent so much of my youth fighting racial discrimination.
Well we have advanced. Self hating Jews is an obvious category. And the old “Uncle Toms”.
We are now up to self hating whites.
Perhaps if we could get into self hating humans everyone could get in on the act.
they don’t sick the irs on the left they shoot them see black lives matter. julian assuage and other leakers of government misconduct.
I get the point you’re making and to a certain extent agree. However, there ARE limits and should be MORE limits to alleged freedom of speech. In a civil society no one can incite to riot, slander, libel, expropriate the writings of another through the theft of plagiarism, etc. And these are just some of the limits on speech. I have a list of others that should be placed into law. Can we at least agree that fucking in the street and calling it free speech should be banned?
Yeah, that doesn’t sound good. Would your list necessarily require changing the First Amendment? I’m reminded that the FEC wanted to censor a film critical of Hillary within 90 days of an election and the Supreme Court said no. Oh, and the various and dangerous “hate speech” laws in many European countries. Lastly, President Sparklefart’s Attorney General is thinking about criminalizing speech that she deems politically incorrect. Scary, all.
CapitalistRoader,
Don’t forget speech that is scientifically incorrect. You denier, you.
Lysenkoism is alive and well.
When did we get the Soviet model of politics installed?
CapitalistRoader, no I don’t propose to amend the 1st. What bothers me, and I’ve stated it here before, are groups who hide behind free speech to provoke, intimidate, and flout the law as well as common decency. I thought the Supreme Court ruling on the Westboro Baptist Church was very wrong. This isn’t a group without the means to make their point to a wide audience. What they are doing at funerals is every bit as indecent as public sex. The question we should ask is what kind of society do we want? One that allows the most brazen behavior, that has no moral public constraints in which anything goes, or one that upholds a certain civility even if at the expense of total freedom. If the speech, or activity hiding as free expression, is so openly hostile, inflammatory, and outrageous that the common person is incensed and goaded to action, then it is not mere free speech. It’s crossed over to the equivalent of incitement. In the case of the Westboro creeps, that is exactly what happened at a funeral in Oklahoma when their van was attacked, tires flattened, and death threats made. Their “speech” is meant to incite.
I know the the slippery slope arguments, and the unfortunate examples taking place on college campuses to limit free speech. I guess it boils down to the fact that we are increasingly living in a helter skelter and uncivil society. The bounds of a civil society are being tested and broken. The question I’ll throw back at you is do you really want unlimited free expression? Do you really want anarchy?
Further, hate speech that doesn’t rise to the level of incitement is free speech. BTW, I don’t believe in hate crime laws either.
Westboro has been taken to court and won on First Amendment grounds. That’s why Patriot Guard Riders was formed, and do what they do. That’s hardly anarchy. And such conflicts have been happening since the founding of the Republic. I don’t believe things are getting worse. 1919 and 1920 were arguably much worse than today.
You have to put up with a certain amount of discomfort in a free society. Do I get pissed off that some murderous thug will spend 70 years getting taxpayer funded three squares and a cot? Yes. But the alternative–capital punishment–is worse. Giving government employees the power to kill civilians is insane.
You have to take the good with the bad.
Free Speech in the USSR –>
You are free to say anything you want. And we are free to kill you for it.
These days we look to Islam for similar rules.
[…] IT COULD BE WORSE, SHE COULD HAVE CHILDREN: Neutering speech until silence prevails! (And no menacing movements either!) […]
Good blog, Eric.
No, Simon, Nixon did not use the IRS against the left. He tried to, for which the Republicans in the House drew up articles of impeachment. Nixon felt like he had the right to use the IRS against his political enemies. After all, the previous two administrations had used the IRS against him, causing him to be audited annually for eight years. The IRS, which is always willing to be used against Republicans, resisted suggestions that it go after Democrats. That said, I do not dispute that Nixon was an authoritarian. He was very much a liberal, and absolutely not a conservative. He hated the “Buckleyites,” as he referred to conservatives.