A friend of mine wrote this on FB. It’s about the current political situation. I decided to copy it here, with his permission
From 31 October 2022 interview with Eugen Rochko, founder of the social media platform Mastodon:
“I specifically disagree with his“ (Elon Musk’s) “stance on free speech, because I think that it depends on your interpretation of what free speech means. If you allow the most intolerant voices to be as loud as they want to, you’re going to shut down voices of different opinions as well. So allowing free speech by just allowing all speech is not actually leading to free speech, it just leads to a cesspit of hate.
“I think that is a very uniquely American idea of creating this marketplace of ideas where you can say anything you want completely without limits. It is very foreign to the German mindset where we, in our Constitution, our number one priority is maintaining human dignity. And so, hate speech is not part of the German concept of free speech, for example. So I think that when Elon Musk says that everything’s gonna be allowed, or whatever, I generally disagree with that.”
This differentiation is critical, I believe.
In a democracy which aspires to the tenets expressed in the Preamble to the US Constitution, free speech cannot not mean *any* speech; it cannot mean untruthful speech, or irresponsible speech, if the democracy hopes to be sustainable.
A vote for Trump and his minions is a vote for autocracy, fascism, and absolutely un-free speech. It is a vote for hate, for discrimination, for fear. It is a vote for the realization of Huxley’s ‘Brave New World,’ for Orwell’s ‘1984,’ for Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale.’
It is a vote, not for the truth that all humans are created equal; but rather, for the fiction that some humans are more equal than others (as Orwell also explored in ‘Animal Farm.’)
Other than some photos here and there, I have posted virtually nothing since a few months into the pandemic — when I became overwhelmed and appalled at the turn of public discourse away from science, reason, logic, truth, and responsibility. This will be my only foray into the political sphere on FB this year.
