Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Free Speech

  • Is Nothing Sacred?

    The Los Angeles Dodgers, in 'go woke, go broke' mode, have foolishly breathed new life into the late Christopher Hitchens and the  blasphemy question. Substack latest.   But will the 'woke' go broke?  That depends on us.   As our institutions continue to shove deviancy and degeneracy into our faces, the meaningful question is: Will the Right…

  • Confuse Hate and Dissent and You Will Find Hate Groups Everywhere

    Did you know that Moms for Liberty is a hate group?   At least that’s the view of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a far-left political organization, which is drawing scorn for labeling Moms for Liberty and other parental rights organizations as “extremist organizations,” including them on the same “hate map” as neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. Like…

  • The Left’s Destruction of the Universities

    Said destruction is a special case of the Left's destruction of everything it touches. Here we read about a professor failing a student for refusing to condemn her Christian faith. This case is a few years old, but characteristic. Things are worse now. Since the Left has captured the Democrat Party in the USA, if…

  • Bukowski on Censorship

    The Laureate of Low Life is against it. Surprised? Of some interest. Not that I think much of Buk. But you know my masthead motto: "Study everything . . . ." My Bukowski category currently sports 13 entries.   What do he and I have in common? Cacoethes scribendi. We both like to write, Write, and…

  • Free Speech, Censorship, Toleration, and a Lame Libertarian Argument

    Substack latest. 

  • PayPal, Social Media, and the Control of Information

    The PayPal Fiasco was no Accident PayPal on Oct. 8 sent out an update to its terms of use, or acceptable use policy (AUP), that included a shocking addition. It reserved the right to confiscate $2,500 from people’s accounts if they spread “misinformation.” It was a clear announcement of what many already suspected: PayPal has enlisted…

  • “I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.”

    Really? I call 'bullshit' on this saying misattributed to Voltaire. Substack latest.

  • Free Speech, Censorship, Toleration, and a Lame Libertarian Argument

    Your right to free speech entails my duty not to impede your speech; it does not entail a duty on my part to provide you with a platform. "But then you are censoring me!" In a broad and defensible sense, yes. I am tolerant and so I tolerate you and your beliefs. To tolerate, however,…

  • Salman Rushdie, the Left, and Free Speech

    Last week's Sunday CBS Morning Show featured a segment on Salman Rushdie, the author of The Satanic Verses, who was recently attacked in an apparent assassination attempt by a Muslim living in New Jersey.  You may recall that the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa on Rushdie in 1989 in which the ayatollah called for Rushdie's…

  • Free Speech Absolutism?

    Substack latest.

  • Free Speech Absolutism?

    Time was when leftists were latitudinarian to the point of extremism on the question of free speech. But of late a "sea change into something rich and strange" (Shakespeare, The Tempest) has occurred, the 'trigger' being the liberation of Twitter by Elon Musk.  Leftists are now spooked by the specter of 'free speech absolutism.' And…

  • A Timid Plea for Freedom of Speech

    JULIUS EVOLA wrote a fascinating introduction to Pali Buddhism. You say Evola was a fascist? Well, Jean-Paul Sartre was a Stalinist; Gottlob Frege was an anti-Semite (according to Michael Dummett); Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt were members of the Nazi Party. Are those affiliations good reasons to not read these great authors? Not to a…

  • Some ‘Tweets’ on Free Speech

    Thanks to Elon Musk, Twitter has been liberated from the speech police.  Free at last! I may sign up. In these hyperkinetic times, pithy sayings are needed to punch through the noise. And sometimes one needs to SHOUT. Dissent is not hate. If I dissent from your VIEWS, it does not follow that I hate…

  • Don’t Talk Like a ‘Liberal’

    When you do, you validate their obfuscatory and question-begging jargon.   For example, leftists believe in something they call 'hate speech.' As they use the phrase, it covers legitimate dissent.   It is foolish for a conservative to say that he is for 'hate speech,' or that 'hate speech' is protected speech. Dennis Prager has…

  • A Foolish Notion

    Foolish  is the notion that the truth must not be spoken if it could possibly be used to harm someone or hurt his feelings.