Free Speech and the Micro-Aggression Problem

Something on American college campuses today that very few are paying attention to is the issue of free speech. We now have this theory of “micro-aggressions”, which is simply an attempt to silence people. When I ask someone who is of Asian descent, “Where are you from?” what I mean is, “Where did you grow up?” or, “Where did you go to high school?” It’s an attempt to form a personal connection with that person, to see what we might have in common. It’s not a question related to their ethnicity.

College campuses used to be places where all sorts of ideas, both good and bad, took root. Content was the most important thing and students learned how to filter thought the WAY something was said to hear WHAT was said. Not so much anymore.

The only way for a person to convince others of an idea is through reason, and if the audience is more concerned with how something is said rather than what is said we might as well close up shop. When we don’t have free speech, when we can’t communicate, when we can’t defend ourselves with reason, all we’re left with is anger, guns, and stockpiles of ammunition.

Free speech is being attacked everywhere. Radical Muslims are attacking it with guns, and university professors are attacking it with this theory of micro-aggressions. What’s next from the professors, nano-aggressions? Where every single spoken syllable is an attack on women and minorities by straight white males? Yeah, there’s also that. No one cares about micro-aggressions when they’re said TO straight white males. They only care about them when said BY straight white males.

Why are they using the term aggression? It’s an attempt to obliterate the difference between physical action and speech, so that when you insult or offend someone, it’s as if you physically slapped them across the face. Ultimately it’s how they will destroy the first amendment because they will claim insulting someone is not speech; it’s action. The idea of free speech was purposefully and specifically designed to protect speech we don’t agree with.

In the minds of the purveyors of micro-aggression theory it comes down to a sensitivity issue, to the right of a person to not be offended. But, here’s the deal; the right to not be offended isn’t an actual right. Besides, there no universal set of things that offend people. What’s offensive to me may not be offensive to you. I’m half Jewish, and if I had a nickel for every time I heard someone say “the price was too high, so I Jew’d the guy down,” I’d be retired in Bora Bora by now. The real world is tough people; wear a cup.

I have a few questions for these students who believe in the micro-aggression theory and need safe spaces;

• Aren’t you embarrassed to be so conformist as to adopt the latest trendy idea your professors are telling you to adopt?
• Doesn’t it bother you how everyone is congratulating themselves over how moral they are because they’ve adopted this latest fashion?
• Don’t you want to be an independent person and think for yourself so you can value free speech?
• How can you live with yourself being just a follower?

We should never knuckle under to the real, hateful, physical aggression against this perceived problem of micro-aggressions. Their power rests in their belief that they hold the moral high ground and that when confronted, people will back down and knuckle under. There is no way for them to defend their position if someone stands up and says, “I don’t accept the idea of micro-aggressions. It is collectivist crap. People have no right to not be offended.”

Freedom of speech is the cornerstone of our defense against dictatorship and the ability to use our minds in the service of our own lives. Anyone who would dare to suggest that you don’t have the right to insult someone deserves to be rebuked in the strongest possible terms.