Free Speech

We are looking to make converts not punish heretics 

Matt O'Brien

It would be hard to miss the growing list of things that need to be controlled by the government so we simple folk don’t hurt ourselves or destroy the planet.  In fact, there is a long list of demands to improve America.   What all these schemes have in common is they are about using our government to make all Americans live the way some Americans, and an annoying Swedish girl, think they should.  

The Wokescolds have been very vocal and very busy, but one can detect that they are turning people off with their overheated theatrics.  Often, they wreck the lives of people on the edges of scandal.  We hear stories of the powerful and the famous who cannot live up to the standards they would mercilessly inflict on the rest of us.

This is proof that the truth will come out.  

I propose that what we must do is to offer a home to people in transition from loony leftist to honest citizen and even to respected patriot.  Just as in the antebellum south the Under Ground Railroad helped former slaves on the road to freedom, we must help our friends and neighbors. 

In some cases, it may happen one issue at a time.  Listen for a person questioning the wisdom of a sacred cow policy like the $15 Minimum wage.  That is the sign that  they are struggling to match up the promised happy outcome with the sad reality the have come to know.  That is the moment when an informed and compassionate patriot can guide that person to freedom and away from group think that has enslaved them.  It will take patience and understanding to help people that have been shackled. We cannot expect that this will be easy from us or for them, but it will be worth it.    

It is claimed that Harriet Tubman said: “I freed a thousand slaves I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.” While historians can argue if she said those exact words let us draw inspiration from her example and make ourselves conductors on this new under ground railroad which takes people away from tyranny. 

Matthew O’Brien
President Worcester Tea Party 

Land of Freedom of Speech?

Lee

You’ve probably heard this quote or have seen it floating around the internet:

“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”

Supposedly Lincoln said it, then it was Reagan who said it. Consensus says it is a gross distortion of one of Lincoln’s speeches, but it makes no difference. The words ring true no matter who said them.

Read more →

Another story about Google

Lee

The world is in uproar over the Google “Manifesto” written by now ex-Google employee, James Damore. And when I say the world is in uproar, I really mean leftist institutions and the mainstream media, all of which clearly did not read the memo before lambasting the creator as anti-diversity, and more so, anti-woman. If you haven’t had the chance to read the memo for yourself, please do. Any rational person will quickly see the psychosis of the left before leaving the first page. As a contextual side note, I hate to use the term “left” or “right” as it often sells either group short, or is too inclusive, but sometimes I find there to be a lack of a better word and therefore stick with the norm for the sake of ease of read.

Read more →

Don’t Always Believe What You Think

Matt O'Brien

“The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.”

Winston S. Churchill

A few years ago, I saw a bumper sticker that said something that stuck in my mind firmer than the sticker was attached to the bumper.  It said ‘Don’t Always Believe What You Think’.  Philosophers call this concept “Intellectual Humility”.   This type of humility acknowledges the limitations of our knowledge.  It calls on us to challenge our own beliefs and, in doing so, places the surviving beliefs on firmer ground.

Read more →

…Then Dumb and Silent We may be Led

Matt O'Brien

“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.”

Benjamin Franklin, as Silence Dogood

2015 marks the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta. These 54 lines of Latin were signed at Runnymede on June 15, 1215.  Today, we consider this document to be one of the foundations of our own Constitution.  At the time, it accomplished little for the people of 13th century England.  Within 6 weeks, it was voided, but it was never forgotten. 400 years later, the English used some of the ideas in the Magna Carta to recognize individual rights and less than 200 years after that, Jefferson and Madison scribed their own Great Charter.  The radical notions scribed by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1215 and by our own radicals 560 years later, have been under attack since the ink dried.

Today, our First Amendment, particularly freedoms of speech and religion, are being viciously hacked away under the guise of political correctness.  On college campuses, supposedly the bastions of free thinking, students, professors, and guest speakers are being silenced out of fear that they may harm someone’s sensitivities.

It’s so bad, that even President Obama, who has hacked off huge parts of the Constitution himself, recently said;

“I’ve heard some college campuses where they don’t want to have a guest speaker who is too conservative or they don’t want to read a book if it has language that is offensive to African-Americans or somehow sends a demeaning signal towards women. I gotta tell you I don’t agree with that either. I don’t agree that you, when you become students at colleges, have to be coddled and protected from different points of view.”

The sad thing is that it’s more than college students who are demanding coddling, its adults too.

Most contemporary democracies contain some form of speech protection, but ours is among the broadest.  We protect the most odious words, flag burning, offensive art, etc.  Many countries have settled on their own version of freedom of speech.  As much as I’d like to shut some people up, I realize that one day, I may the one being muffled.  It’s best to keep this freedom as broad as possible.  If we do not, then we will be leaving it to the courts and Congress to implement restrictions.  Once they start, the censorship will keep going.

As conservatives, we believe that civility is necessary to keep social order.  Good manners in speech should never be shoved aside to win an argument, to advance a political position or even as a means of pushing back against political correctness.  It’s ironic that today’s progressives are among the most vehement advocates for squelching offensive speech, while at the same time, spewing some of the most vile words to demean their opponents.  We shouldn’t stoop to their level.

Franklin knew that restricting speech was the tyrant’s way of dousing the flames of rebellion.  Free speech is necessary to transmit knowledge.  It is an essential part of being human, allowing us self-expression and allowing us to develop as individuals.  Most importantly, it allows for peaceful social change.  The potential for change is a threat to those who want to grow and project the power of the state. To paraphrase Franklin, those would overthrow our liberty depend on subduing the freeness of speech.  Many before us have defended against these attempts.  We are duty bound to continue to defend our right to speak our thoughts from all attacks.

In Liberty,
Ken Mandile
Senior Fellow
Worcester Tea Party

Choosing Words

Matt O'Brien

“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

George Orwell

In  “Politics and the English Language”, George Orwell said  “But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. ”   In corrupting the use of words, our competitors are able to disrupt the common sense of the citizenry.   “Social justice” is one good example of such corruption.  You’d have to be very cold hearted to oppose something called social justice, so what’s wrong with social justice?  Well, to begin with, and end with, it has nothing to do with justice.  By throwing together two good words and using them in a way that deceives the listener, the anti-liberty crowd has been able to fool the uninformed.

 

One of the main purposes of the Tea Party Movement is to convey the message of liberty.  To do so, we need to be careful about the words we choose, but more importantly, we need to point out the misuse of words by those who look to steal our freedom.   “Liberal” and “conservative” are two perfectly good words that have been corrupted.  Tea Partiers make the error of using the word “liberal” as an insult, when it should be compliment.  We have ceded this word to those who blasphemy it’s real meaning.

 

The left has a habit of changing the language when it stops working for them.  “Global Warming” seemed scary enough, until it didn’t work for them anymore.  They were forced to switch to the less scary phrase “Climate Change.”

 

Remember how a few decades ago, poverty was such a big concern?  We don’t hear so much about poverty anymore because the worldwide poverty rate has unexpectedly plummeted.  The lowest 10th percentile income earner in the U.S. enjoys an economic lifestyle that is better that almost every other country on earth.  What are the progressives to do if poverty is plummeting?  Let’s change the word.  Now poverty becomes “income inequality.”  All inequality is bad, isn’t it?  So income inequality must also be bad.  If income equality is bad, then one could make the case that income redistribution is good.  We lose just by accepting the phrase “income inequality.”

 

At this month’s Worcester Tea Party meeting, we heard two speakers on Agenda 21.  The very next day, I saw the agenda for next week’s meeting of my town’s Board of Selectmen.  I saw the phrases “International Property Maintenance Code”, “Master Plan Implementation”, and “Revised Water Conservation Language”.  Immediately, bells went off in my head.  I knew that they were using corrupted words that sounded perfectly well-meaning so that they could be used to advance an ideology that disputes private property rights.

 

The words of liberty, as articulated by our classical liberal founders, ring true in the ears of almost every American.  It is only those who seek to deceive by twisting good words into bad that we need to fear. They are charlatans who will lead people down a disastrous path.

 

Be careful in the words that you  choose.  Be honest.  Don’t deceive in the way our competitors do.  When you are speaking the truth about the value of liberty, you do not have to grovel in the gutter of euphemistic deception.

 

In liberty,
Ken Mandile
Matt O’Brien