We're living in a culture of fear and as a result freedom of speech is under threat.
When people feel afraid to say what's on their mind no matter how,
decently they put their positions there's a problem.
When people think questioning is violence there's a problem.
Because as soon as we say something is hatred we stop listening,
it's a tool to direct the conversation where we want it to go,
where we are comfortable with.
We need to be able to discern between things that we find uncomfortable,
and things that are hateful and we can only do that,
with some intellectual humility, with actually engaging with ideas,
and trying to see where people are coming from.
So within political discourse there's a lot of one-upmanship,
people don't want to be honest people want to be right.
And this really obstructs anything constructive happening within discussion.
We are now living for our online avatars and our brands,
more than we are caring about human beings.
We see people first through like a brand image more than we see them
for the complexity and fullness of their lives.
If we act as though disagreement is an affront to our belief system,
we are limiting our own world views for our own comfort and for our own egos.
We need to be challenged otherwise we assume that we know everything,
and there is nothing else to be said on something and
I would say that's the height of intellectual arrogance.
We should be able to withstand critique to withstand disagreement,
we should also know that not all disagreement is rooted
in some nefarious intentions sometimes that's the way people learn it's curiosity.
To engaged comprehensively in political discourse is quite a privilege,
it does take a certain education it does mean that you've read certain books,
this isn't something that everybody has access to or is exposed to.
So when we are denigrating people, criticising people, vilifying people,
abusing people for what they don't know it's very tone-deaf,
and it really suggests that you're not thinking about the people,
that you purport to care about.
Because if you were thinking about the people that you claim to care about,
you would know that everyone is at different stages of consciousness,
of political consciousness.
To vilify those people before they've even had a chance to start is disheartening,
creates resentment and ultimately can create people being attracted towards,
more nefarious movements.
Leaving free speech to the right is destructive,
and it's counter to all our aims.
We negate how much people want to be heard,
how much people want to contribute,
and if we're not allowing people to contribute because we are arrogant
enough to think that only we hold the truth we are pushing people away,
we're fracturing our own bases our own communities.
And again it's an intellectual arrogance.
Attacking people to get them to believe what we believe is a very bad strategy.
When we attack something the opposite response often happens,
because there is always going to be people who think that thing
that you're attacking is completely true and when that happens
they want to defend that and so we end up unknowingly
making a lot of people that we dislike even more popular.
When it comes to no platforming I definitely understand the motivation,
it's a motivation that is well intended because people care,
people are fearful of what could happen when certain ideas are out in the public.
However, I don't necessarily think no platforming,
for simply ideas that we dislike is helpful
there's a difference between hateful ideas,
and ideas that make us uncomfortable.
And I think we need to have the intellectual decrement
to know the difference between the two.
I don't think we should have the ability to say absolutely anything we want,
because that would be to live in chaos, however I think we should have,
a lot more scope for discussion than we do now.
To limit free speech is only going to come background to limit your free speech,
things that you believe are offensive on your side,
can also be used back against you.
A lot of people that we now revere are the same people,
that we would tear down today.
A lot of revolutionary types and a lot of people who have inspired great change,
and the people that influenced us today a lot of them wouldn't be able to exist,
under these conditions because we are completely unforgiving,
and completely divorced from what it means to be a human.
In order for people to evolve they have to make mistakes,
in order for people to sharpen their ideas they have to have some bad ones.
We have to accept that people make mistakes,
they're going to make mistakes you make mistakes,
and you wouldn't want to be judged by your worst moment.
The mainstream media is often afraid to give a platform to a variety of voices,
that's why platforms like Double Down News are really important to support.
We need to be able to have a diversity of ideas, perspectives, as a result,
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