Reflections on Tanya Cohen's Thoughts on Free Speech

As I've mentioned before, it's not uncommon that I come across a leftist diatribe somewhere online so ridiculous that it seems like it could have been written by a right-winger having a bit of fun. Sometimes, however, I come across a piece so fundamentally absurd that I'm overcome with the uncomfortable sensation of wanting to both laugh and cry at the same time and the wish to lock myself away in a chapel somewhere saying however many Hail Marys and Our Fathers it takes until a chorus of sword-wielding angels descends from the Heavens to smite leftists everywhere. But I digress.

Enter Tanya Cohen, an author who, funnily enough, just published a piece on a site called Thought Catalog advocating state censorship and criminalization of speech she finds problematic. It is easily the most offensive, naive, and frankly disturbing op-ed I've come across in a long time, but I suggest you read it because I imagine it is, unfortunately, a pretty accurate indication of how most of our liberal peers and colleagues see the world. Every sentence is saturated with stupidity, each paragraph constructed perfectly to reveal the author's smug liberal certainty about the world. There is in fact so much stupid crammed into Miss Cohen's nearly-four-thousand words that they almost need to be examined sentence by sentence in order to fully-unpack this verbal knapsack of nitwittery. In the interests of my time and your sanity, however, I will merely reproduce and discuss some of the choicest ones.

"One of the most admirable things about Europe is that most (if not all) of the right-wing rhetoric that you hear in the US is explicitly against the law there." 

Really? Censorship is admirable? In Miss Cohen's warped mind, legally prohibiting the airing of opinions from an entire half of the political spectrum is a good thing. This is the very first sentence of Miss Cohen's Stalinist screed and sets the tone for the entire piece. It is also worth noting that her assertion about Europe outlawing "most (if not all)" of the sort of right-wing rhetoric one hears in the US is demonstrably false.

"For example, attempting to link Islam with terrorism, saying that gay marriage isn’t really marriage, or saying that trans women aren’t really women would get you charged with discrimination and/or incitement to hatred. "

Translation: people's feelings - or rather the feelings of anyone who isn't white, male, or Christian - are more important than the truth. While making a direct link between Islam and 'terrorism' - whatever that is - might require some small amount of intellectual acrobatics, showing a direct link between Islam and murderous, bloody violence requires nothing more than a copy of the Koran and a history book. I also hate to break it to Miss Cohen, but gay marriage is not really marriage, trans women aren't women, and Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny aren't real either. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

"In fact, a politician in Sweden was prosecuted for hate crimes for posting statistics about immigrant crime on Facebook."

Which is a real shame, because Scandinavians know all too well the consequences of unfettered immigration. Norway recently experienced a gigantic drop in violent crime when they decided to get serious with deportation of Muslim immigrants, and a few years ago Sweden saw a terrible upsurge in sexual crimes against native Swedish women that went hand in hand with increased Muslim immigration.

"Consider the case of Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson.  In a civilized country with basic human rights, Phil Robertson would have been taken before a government Human Rights Tribunal or Human Rights Commission and given a fine or prison sentence for the hateful and bigoted comments that he made about LGBT people."

I can't help but wonder if Miss Cohen believes Dan Savage should be hauled in front of a government tribunal for all the disgusting, violent hate speech he's spewed at conservatives. I would also posit that in a truly civilized country blatant and excessive sexual degeneracy would not be tolerated, but clearly we have very different definitions of the word. Here's some more of her thoughts on Phil Robertson:

"In the US, however, he was given no legal punishment, even though his comments easily had the potential to incite acts of violence against LGBT people, who already face widespread violence in the deeply homophobic American society – and his comments probably DID incite acts of violence against LGBT people."

Firstly, I had no idea that American society was deeply homophobic. Secondly, it's worth pausing to reflect on the first sentence. Evidently Miss Cohen thinks that even words that have the potential to incite acts of violence against LGBT people - not actually do, mind you, but have solely the potential to do so - should be banned. I would be curious, then, to know Miss Cohen's thoughts on the Koran and Hadith. On an unrelated note, kudos to Miss Cohen for putting the word "did" in full caps - I can only imagine this was done to draw our attention away from the word "probably".

"Most countries have freedom of speech, but only in the US is 'freedom of speech' so restrictive and repressive."

Being able to say what you want without fear of a fine or sentence is the definition of repressive? Who knew? In this Miss Cohen reveals a fundamental lack of understanding about debate and how a free society should operate. Even if I were ignorant enough to believe that the sophomoric neo-con nonsense spewed forth daily by the folks at Fox News constituted "hate speech" against gays or muslims, I would hope I'd be smart enough to recognize that in America gays and muslims also have the ability to go on TV and tell the country that Fox News is full of it.

"Countries like the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, France, and Australia – to name just a few examples – take a much more sensible approach to freedom of expression.  They allow legitimate freedom of expression while banning bigots, hatemongers, conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers, pro-pedophile groups, terrorist sympathizers, harmful media, Holocaust deniers, pick-up artists, climate change deniers, and other forms of expression which damage society and social cohesion."

Again, having lived in Europe (the UK to be precise) for a number of years I can attest to the fact that this is arrant nonsense. Anjem Choudary, anyone? The fact is, much like in the U.S., the liberal consensus and PC orthodoxy have resulted in a situation in which anyone can be as conspiratorial or hateful or terrorist-sympathizing as one wants as long as one isn't white and Christian and the targets of one's ire are white and Christian (or Jewish) - if you want to see real hate and bigotry in action, go to any Palestinian Solidarity rally on a European college campus or a Femen protest.

"While America has always been far behind the rest of the world when it comes to basic human rights – we still have yet to ban firearms, we still have yet to provide free higher education, and we still have yet to implement free universal healthcare, for example –"

The idea of human rights is complete and utter nonsense. Even if they were real, they certainly wouldn't include benefits that were only devised in the last seventy years like free education and free healthcare. And I imagine they would almost certainly protect the individual's right to self defense by any means necessary.

"How can the US possibly call itself a free country and a democracy when it’s the only country in the world without any kind of laws against hate speech?"

How can any American possibly believe European countries are free when they can and actually do put people in prison merely for saying something offensive? Which brings me to this related gem: 

"Do Americans have no idea how ironic it is for them to call their country 'the land of the free' when it doesn’t have any kind of law against hate speech?"

Face meet palm. Does Miss Cohen have no idea how ironic it is for her to assert that a country can't be free if it doesn't have any laws prohibiting free speech?

"Before moving to the US to work with human rights organizations here, I grew up in Australia, which is a much more civilized and progressive country than the comparatively backwards United States, with a much deeper respect for basic human rights."

Tony Abbot and his government are literally turning immigrants away by the boatload. I WISH America or the UK had Australia's "deeper respect" for what Miss Cohen calls basic human rights if that's what it looks like. Also, Australia is a former penal colony populated largely by the descendants of criminals in which half the native animal and insect species could at any moment kill you, and its greatest exports to the world are the one accent more annoying than cockney and bad beer. But as I said before, Miss Cohen and I clearly have very different definitions of the word "civilized".

"Do Americans have any idea how ridiculous it seems to people in civilized countries when Americans who call themselves 'progressive' actually OPPOSE laws against un-progressive speech? In Australia, you absolutely cannot call yourself a progressive unless you actively work to criminalize all forms of un-progressive speech."

Again with the use of "civilized". She keeps using that word. I do not think it means what she think it means. It is very refreshing, however, to see a leftist who is dead honest and open about her vile, totalitarian intention to squash "thought crime".

"As a descendant of Holocaust survivors, I know first-hand the extreme danger that flows directly from hate speech. Those championing hate speech, however, clearly do not understand just how dangerous hate speech is.  There is a hierarchy of power in society, with straight, white, Christian men firmly at the top."

You'd also think, being a descendant of Holocaust survivors, that she'd know first-hand the extreme danger that flows directly from allowing a government to decide what speech is or isn't acceptable. It's also ridiculous that a liberal Jew who, from what I can gather from the interweb, lives in LA of all places can say with a straight face that white, Christian men are firmly at the top of the "hierarchy of power in society". If white, Christian men were firmly at the top of anything, the last seventy-odd years of pop culture and social developments would have been radically different.

"The human right to freedom of speech has always been subject to the human right to freedom from hatred and discrimination."
 
The human right to gaudy Hawaiian shirts has always been subject to the human right to freedom from bad Tiki drinks. See, I can make up stuff too. 

"Freedom of speech does NOT give you the right to offend, to insult, to disrespect, to oppose human rights, to argue against the common good, to voice approval of totalitarian ideologies, to perpetuate toxic systems of privilege and oppression, to promote ideas which have no place in a modern democratic society, to be provocative or incendiary, or to express opinions which are unacceptable to the majority of people."

So, basically, freedom of speech is completely dependent on the whims of political leftists. It's sad that Miss Cohen seems totally unaware that she herself is in fact voicing the approval of totalitarianism, which by its definition is when the line between the state, society, and politics disappears. One can't get much more totalitarian than advocating the banning of speech one finds to be politically problematic.

"At a time when racism, fascism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, and Islamophobia are surging in Europe, it is now more important than ever for the United States to finally fulfill its international human rights obligations and enact a law against all forms of hate speech."

Fascism and Islamophobia "surging" in Europe? It would probably make it a far more palatable place to live than it is now...