Free Speech Has a Limit

The Speech That Changed Humanity Forever

We Americans take freedom and liberty seriously. Look at the world around us. In Great Britain, Count Dankula was was found guilty of a hate crime after recording a video of his girlfriend’s dog doing Nazi salutes. White farmers face eradication in South Africa. China increases its censorship grip. America truly is the last bastion of freedom. Then why would I dare suggest that freedom of speech has limit?

This post is inspired by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and his book, Skin in the Game. I recommend you read all his books. The ideas of the Black Swan and being fooled by randomness have fundamentally changed how I view the world. Skin in the Game is needed for fairness in the world. People who pay no price for wrong viewpoints can and will abuse the system.

Speech, used for deception, led to the fall of man. The serpent tricked Eve into eating the Forbidden fruit. As a result, humanity was cast out of the Garden of Eden. On the other hand, the serpent paid a price for his deception. He was cursed to slither on his belly and eat dust. There was Skin in the Game.

Speech has the power to destroy Western Civilization. Feminism has convinced women that femininity is wrong, a tragic irony. The serpent has returned to corrupt countless minds into a life of lonely feline-filled misery. "Empowerment" is the Thousand Cock Stare, mountains of college debt for a worthless degree, and soul-sucking jobs. Professors in Women's Studies Departments under the shield of tenure can poison minds with no recourse. The Ivory Tower of Academia is notorious for lacking a spine and any Skin in the Game.

"Experts" viewpoints created a health crisis in this country. The low-fat crusade caused obesity and diabetes rates to skyrocket. Also consider the experts that created the 2008 Financial Crisis. No one was punished for either catastrophe. Consider fake rape claims. A woman can get away with destroying a man's life with just an accusation.

The Mainstream Media has destroyed countless reputations with their words. There are countless examples of news organizations putting out erroneous information that goes viral. They eventually retract or issue a correction, but the damage has been done. And they are allowed to repeat this cycle without any recourse. General Flynn is a Patriot that the Fake News Media destroyed.

A relevant tweet from Trump:

Peoples lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation. Some are true and some are false. Some are old and some are new. There is no recovery for someone falsely accused - life and career are gone.

The Most Intolerant Wins is a chapter in Taleb's book. The intolerant minority forces renormalization in a group. My friends and I were deciding on a place to eat for lunch. Despite the fact that the majority of us would have loved one restaurant, our other friend is a picky eater. We were forced to cater to his food choices.

Below is a passage from The Intolerant Minority:

Let us conjecture that the formation of moral values in society doesn’t come from the evolution of the consensus. No, it is the most intolerant person who imposes virtue on others precisely because of that intolerance. The same can apply to civil rights.

So, we need to be more than intolerant with some intolerant minorities. It is not permissible to use “American values” or “Western principles” in treating intolerant Salafism (which denies other peoples’ right to have their own religion). The West is currently in the process of committing suicide.

Freedom of Speech requires a punishment for those who seek to use speech maliciously. Selective intolerance is required to maintain tolerance. One of the many paradoxes of life. Ed Latimore once said, "To be strong enough to protect something, you must be strong enough to destroy it as well." To protect freedom, one must also have the power to destroy it.

Perhaps the best lesson of all from Skin in the Game:

Start by being nice to every person you meet. But if someone tries to exercise power over you, exercise power over him.