The cost of luxury beliefs - play stupid games, win stupid prices

 So these luxury beliefs are essentially beliefs that are espoused by the upper middle class because they are -in general- not impacted by the consequences of said beliefs. Most of the woke stuff belongs to this group of beliefs. For example, liberals, by large, are worried more about the future of girls than boys -but only when the boys in question are not theirs. Then suddenly they actually worry as much as conservatives. 

Another case is the de-fund the police. It has been a very popular thing in later years after George Floyd -with foreseeable consequences where it was tried.

And now there is Shivanthi Sathanandan, who actively campaigned against the police.

 

 Until, that is, four armed men beat her up in front of her family and stole her car. And now she is quite pro-policing, proving the old saying that a conservative is a liberal who got mugged. It is quite ironic, I guess. It is not nice to laugh at others' misfortune, but in this case I guess a mild sense of satisfaction of having seen the person facing, what she is advocating for for other people, is somewhat justified. I think she thought police was only important for poor people, and her words would have no effect on her own personal life. Suddenly she feels that it is important to have police presence. Obviously the whole conservative media is having a field day with this, and rightly so-, while the left side of the media keeps quite silent on it.

What I would put large sums on, however, is that her political career will not suffer for this, and she will not be forced to face the apparent hypocrisy in the sudden change of tune. She -and others- can just continue with other idiocy without actually considering what they are advocating for. (Just mentioning that her photo under her statement does not really look real -the blood looks more like red wine, and while the makeup is perfect, no smears, no tear marks, nothing, there is also no swelling. If you want to see how someone who got hit on the head looks like, well, google it - it is quite different. I mean sure, it was a nasty experience, but you do not have to make it look even worse for a little more drama, eh?)

Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequence - the most idiotic thing you can say in an educated crowd

There are several arguments to justify not taking part in a debate or trying to censor other viewpoints, which I will address in another post, but this post is only about this one particular "thought".

You hear this often from people who claim that there is no such thing as "cancel culture", and justify people losing their jobs, their positions, getting in trouble with the police and having a social backlash for saying that does not agree with their "progressive" views with saying "well, freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences". But. This statement is incredibly stupid if you spend just one minute thinking about it. And highlight what the issue is, here's a similar quote.  

"There is freedom of speech, but I cannot guarantee freedom after speech"

Idi Amin

And just who is this Idi Amin? A prominent anti-racist, perhaps? A progressive icon of identity politics? An esteemed gender studies author?

Well... Not exactly. He is your stereotypical African dictator from the '60s-'70s with coups, murder, torture, child soldiers and fancy uniforms. (With a possible death toll of 300 000 if you ignore all the civil wars he was responsible for.)

I used to make the point that if the sentence in the title was true, in that case even Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany and East Germany had freedom of speech. After all, you could shout that "comrade Stalin can suck my dick" -you were absolutely free to do so. This is the logic of these people. The consequences would be there, obviously, but the speech itself was free. In the case of telling Stalin to perform autofellatio, it would be a bullet in the back of your head, but you can die in the safe knowledge that the speech was free. The consequence was there, though. This, as the real world example of Idi Amin shows just, an empty play with words. We all understand what freedom of speech means. Obviously there are limits -and it is always a matter of debate where those limits exactly are- but the whole idea is that you can only take part in the "marketplace of ideas" if you do not have to be afraid.

And "consequences" do make one to be afraid. Having to think of consequences when you try to say that trans women are not women does stifle speech. (I got banned from reddit for saying this. In Scotland you can get the police coming to your house if you post this. You can lose your job for this.) Having to worry about your family when you decide whether to say your opinion about something in your workplace, at your university, in social media is exactly the opposite of what the marketplace of ideas should be. It is self-imposed censorship due to the fear of consequences. In other words: the exact opposite of "freedom of speech".

The UK's non-crime hate database... freedom of speech indeed

What an Orwellian idea - have a database for "non-crime hate incidents" that do not meet any of the standards that would constitute them as crimes. This is for speech perceived as ‘motivated by a hostility’ to race, gender, or other protected categories. 

Anything and everything can fall under this category. The sarcastic question of "Are you deaf?", stating ideas about gender and trans ideologies which do not fall within the "accepted" dogma (like "trans women are not women"), any criticism of feminist ideas... you get the gist. Anything and everything someone perceives as hateful can be logged - and the police has no obligation to inform the person in question that he or she is in some sort of database. No mechanism of appeal, no way of getting removed from this database. After all, it is not a criminal database, right, so we do not have to abide those pesky rule of law stuff. Due process? Getoutta here! It is not a crime procedure so why bother?

So while technically there is free speech -good luck daring to voice any of your opinions. If you end up in a database, who is to say what the consequences would be? You need a background check for your job? Well... good luck. Your employer finds your name in a database? Well... good luck. Want to appeal or challenge the process? Well... good luck.

Not to mention the main issue here: this goes against anything and everything liberal democracies should stand for. This is literally thought policing. In the United Kingdom. Not in Soviet Russia, not in East Germany, not in North Korea. In the middle of the "Free World".

It was surprisingly easy to attack the core values of liberal democracy. All the dystopian books and movies got it wrong. You do not even need a crisis for this. You can just do it. Wannabe autocrats, take note...