“The legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions.” —Thomas Jefferson, letter to the Danbury Baptist Association
This cartoon is accurate and it’s a real problem. I have been on the receiving end of this idea. To be sure, in my case, students have the freedom to draw up petitions and make a lot of noise, but that doesn’t change the sentiment from which their actions issue. That sentiment is fascistic. However draped in the language of social justice, it is a totalitarian desire.
The right of others to be authoritarian in spirit is given in a free system. One is free to say and write whatever. The problem is authoritarianism in action—and thus the sentiment expressed in the cartoon is condemnable even if it is wrong to punish those who merely express it.
However, if my employers were to ever take up the desire, and punish me for my disbelief, then the situation becomes manifestly fascist. And the fact is that a lot of employers have indeed taken up this desire, and people have suffered on account of disbelief. The specter of fascism is not merely haunting America but palpable in so many ways. This is true as well as in Europe.
Tragically, because of the chill this puts in the air, most others are forced into a kind of bad faith, where they disbelieve but go with the flow to avoid the consequences of openly expressing their disbelief. That is yet another sign that freedom has already been compromised; people debase themselves because they are fearful of misfits and those with power who have their backs.
I saw on the interstate Friday a Tesla with the brand and emblems removed. This was presumably to avoid having the vehicle keyed or worse. It is a sign of the times. We have one side that believes in personal liberty and the right to expect that property and person will be safe from destruction and violence. The other side believes that sentiment justifies destructive and violent action. The vandal has always been a pain in the side of civilization.
I might wish others saw the world the way I do, but to force them to, either by punishment or terrorism, is a deeply totalitarian impulse. Both punishment and terrorism have been used to force populations to agree with utterly fallacious worldviews. It is in the face of this force that we must rise.
“But isn’t your belief that you should be free from coercion also a belief?”
The only thing I demand is what I demand for everybody else: the right to be free from having to believe what somebody else believes. This freedom requires but one universal rule. Is this coercive. No, it isn’t. But you will hear that it is. So I want to arm you with a rebuttal.
The quote above is made up, but it captures a sentiment, and I have heard it said in this form or another. I bet many of you have, too. It’s what we call a tu quoque move—a man who demands liberty is accused of holding a belief, as if that alone makes his stance equivalent to the coercive actions he is rejecting.
It’s a sleight of hand: it implies that because I have a conviction (freedom from coercion), I’m somehow hypocritical for opposing others imposing theirs. This move skirts a critical distinction. My “belief” isn’t about dictating what others must think—it’s about preventing anyone from doing that to anyone else. It’s not a positive imposition of a worldview, but a negative boundary against force.
This should be obvious—anti-coercion is not coercion. But for many it is not. It’s an obvious contradiction, albeit obscured by the Orwellian world that has grown around us (where, for example, racism becomes antiracism). But that is the contradiction that lies at the core of the sentiment I capture in the quote. That is what the other side believes.
If you take anything away from what I am writing here it is that fascism is not on the side that demands freedom from compelled speech, but rather on the side of those who demand others change their core beliefs and values so misfits fit in. “Should?” Whatever. “Will?” No. To be sure, a free society tolerates misfits. It is not obligated to change the world to normalize their deviance, since this limits the freedom of everybody else. The desire that it should be otherwise is the fascist spirit.
The fallacy here lies in equating opposites. But belief in liberty isn’t the same as belief that demands conformity. The misfit is free to be a misfit. A free society does not tell the individual how to dress or even how to think of himself (although if it is self-destructive, then we might wish to help). The principle of liberty is to prevent him from forcing others to accept or respect his nonconformity—and force comes in many forms.
Acceptance and respect are not the same things as tolerating nonconformity. We are only obligated in a free society to be tolerant. We are not obligated to affirm the delusions of others. If nonconformity interferes with the liberty and rights of others, then the state must act to stop the misfit for the sake of liberty and rights.
There is very real danger here. The now ubiquitous dodge blurs the line between power and reason. If every belief is just a belief (and this is the core assumption in postmodernism and its progeny), then everything becomes about dominance—the imposition of the will of the one or the minority on the rest of us.
This is what lies behind the keying and firebombing of Teslas, which if tolerated, will almost certainly move to the next level, namely violence against persons. Indeed, it’s happened before. My warning isn’t speculative. Propaganda of the deed is a historical fact. This is terrorism.
Those who work from this fallacy—which is the fallacy of “speech is violence”—flatten the difference between the principle that protects individual autonomy, on the one hand, and a dogma that crushes it, on the other. It’s a rhetorical trick that lets those who seek to coerce others off the hook: “Well, you’ve got your beliefs, we’ve got ours, so who’s to say?”
Again, they’re not the same type of thing. One side’s belief, if manifest in positive action, law, and policy, comes with shackles and violence. The other is the precondition for freedom. If coercion appears here, it is in defense of liberty, not the arbitrary imposition of ideology. Coercion in the latter is just. Coercion in the former is criminal.
My universal rule—freedom from coerced belief—doesn’t need to justify itself by power. It is a necessary condition for reason to even function. Any power used in effecting that freedom is not an imposition but an action protecting myself and others from the imposition of ideas that would limit individual liberty. No one has to bow to the thug. He only does so to survive. If he is armed, then he is justified in using violence to survive.
Once you or I have been coerced into a worldview, all argument is negated; all that’s left is obedience to whatever idea is foisted upon us. Put another way, repression and violence don’t “reduce” to power because they start there. If force is legitimate, then it is authority. The state has the authority to coerce citizens because it represents the will of the people to secure their liberty and rights—when the state acts otherwise, it is illegitimate and thus an expression of fascist power. And then, and only then, do the people have the right to rebel. Not riot. Rebel.
Freedom of conscience and speech make it possible for the center of attention in the cartoon to make her or his demands. This is freedom that leaves fools on the hill. If you want to bend over for misfits, then bend over. That’s also part of freedom: the freedom to debase oneself. But I won’t. And if you want to continue living in a free society, then you won’t, either. I therefore appeal to your sense of self-dignity, since self-dignity, widely held, is a chief bulwark against life in a totalitarian society.
Self-dignity will also help you avoid becoming a misfit yourself. To be sure, there is a current out there that finds fashionable nonconformity for its own sake (the young are especially susceptible to the pull of fashion). But disobedience is really only righteous when it’s in opposition to delusion and tyranny. The civil rights struggle was righteous. The project to make us conform to untruths is not.
freedom and reason 