Richard Spencer Speaks at Florida University Richard Spencer Speech at Florida University
and the Battle for Free Speech
Richard Spencer's speech has set off a firestorm of reactions from those who vehemently oppose
his views.
In that firestorm lies the ugly specter of a different tyranny than the one they are
rightly rejecting.
This video is being made before the scheduled speech
today, October 19th, 2017 by Richard Spencer at
the University of Florida, but it is not so much about the speech itself as it is about
what is emerging from the rise of Spencer and his white nationalist goons, the polite,
well-dressed Nazis that are still, at the end of the day, just Nazis, every bit as hateful
and dark as the Nazis of Hitler's Germany.
The State-Run media is painting the event as a challenge to the notion of free speech
and defining when speech goes too far and loses its first amendment protections.
University of Florida President W. Kent Fuchs, speaking to CNN, said that the event is going
to change the complexion of the campus.
"It's not going to feel like a research university for 50,000 students, and the whole purpose
of that is to keep people safe."
Fuchs added that he was advising students to shun Spencer and to also speak against
Spencer's "message of hate and racism."
Here are a couple of the reactions from the students on campus that CNN chose to highlight.
From Fara Moskowitz, "There's a lot of fear, there's a lot of anxiety.
There's a lot of just unknown what's going to happen."
Wes Li, 20-year old, "It's very tense and upsetting.
A lot of people aren't going to be around campus because they're worried."
The narrative is being pushed, the way CNN covered the story, in the way the Florida
President talked about the speech, and in the two examples CNN chose to highlight as
responses to students.
This narrative, in large part, is being aided and abetted by anarchists, Antifa, anarchists
who fundamentally reject the state but whose tactics seem to be emboldening the very state
they purport to hate.
It was the Antifa cry of "punch a Nazi" that gave legitimacy and fuel to the narrative
that existed before the current rise of Antifa, the notion of Hate Speech, the idea that speech
that is deemed offensive, speech that is deemed hateful is not protected speech and should
not be allowed.
Antifa themselves are not really participating in the debate about is it or is it not protected
speech.
That question lies outside of their worldview altogether.
In their worldview, the whole notion of public space is a non-starter.
They are almost treating public space as a sort of march, a land between two kingdoms
that no kingdom claims.
As such, within their parameters, someone is free to say what they want, but they're
not free from the consequence of their actions.
Intellectually, I
understand the points they make.
No one wants to see the rise of White Nationalism, in any form, save for the small minority of
actual white nationalists that exist in this country today.
When you exist within the reality of the coercive enterprise, the state, the First Amendment
as a protection of speech in a public space does indeed create a safe haven for groups
like White Nationalists to organize and gain legitimacy.
If you believe as Antifa does, that White Nationalism has a real chance of actually
seizing power if it is not stopped early, you can understand why they would feel compelled
to
go into those marches and confront the white nationalists with violence, to destroy every
attempt they make to organize.
First of all, I do not agree with Antifa that white nationalism has a real chance of seizing
power now or in the near future.
I do agree with Antifa that white nationalists having the power to gather in public spaces
and spew their hatred and vitriol does empower them, does help them grow their numbers and
this, definitely, is troubling to me.
But now, you have Antifa, and the threat of that violent repercussion to a white nationalist
rally, creating a false legitimacy of the state limiting free speech on the basis of
hate speech.
After all, if you raise
the cost of security, a cost raised not so much by Spencer as by the threat of violence
by Antifa and other counter protesters (but not most), you give the state an emotional
appeal to the masses to convince them to agree to new laws, maybe even a new amendment, that
will give the state the power to determine if your speech is hateful, if your speech
is offensive or not.
Make no mistake, Antifa will find itself on the brute force end of these laws, this new
amendment, and their hope of moving toward statelessness, rather than being advanced
by punching Nazis, will be hindered.
To put it more plainly to Antifa, and I know some of them,
and some of the people who support the punch a Nazi philosophy, your tactic of punching
Nazis will build a stronger state.
Whatever happens today, Richard Spencer will come out still being portrayed as the villain
he is, a man whose ideas are anathema to anyone who values even the remotest notions of liberty.
But, thanks to the threats of violence by Antifa and other counter protest groups, those
who would wish to roll back what little liberties are left in America will be given vast storehouses
of ammunition with which to fire at those of us who still cling bitterly, even hopefully
to liberty.
After the speech, and whatever event emerges from it, is over, we will update the article
this video is
based on, which you can find at the upper right corner of this video, as well
as in the description and comment sections below.
This is
Paul Gordon of iState.Tv and this has been your i(whatever) feature.
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