Speech is, well, speech.

It seems that every sub, self- identified grievance group wishes to have it’s name attached to some sort of “hate speech” legislation.

Some of these “grievance groups” are huge. Islam for example. Some are minute “trans people” for example .

Many of the whole range of diverse groups wishes to have some form of speech prorogued in order to avoid offense falling on their ears and eyes. Some of them deploy activist outrage in order to drive home their point that whatever has offended them has REALLY offended them. And for a few the implicit threat of force is included in the activism. Salman Rushdie and Charlie Hebdo are grotesque examples and there are plenty of lesser ones.

And now we have that phenomenon of our modern world – cancel culture. A mostly digital representation of the worst aspects of the Terror in France and lynchings in the USA. The motivating factor in all cases is insane levels of anger aimed at destroying as much of a person as possible.

Free Speech , vigorously defended, is the ONLY antidote to this mob insanity. Reasonable people from all sides MUST speak out, every time these egregious attacks happen. We must be “out there” talking logic and reason. We must be pointing out the utter insanity of this behavior and we must not leave the field to the mob.

Free speech is powerful and fragile. Once lost it is incredibly hard to recover. Once governments discover they can pander to the mob by reducing Freedom of Speech is there any doubt, at all, that they will continue to do it? The UK has become an awful example of this. They even have policemen tracking down offenders who dare to post something controversial on-line that “offended” someone. This in a country that used to revel in Free Speech.

Speak out.