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As an aside, let the reader be reminded that Ms. Obejas' claims of a
military/government conspiracy to conceal the events at Guantanamo are
absolutely false. Not long ago, the base was visited by none other
than Bill O'Reilly himself, who, with extensive camera recordings as
his evidence, publicly declared the facilities sound and the prisoners
in good care. This type of understanding is what true free speech
brings to the public. Ms. Obejas is free to deny it, of course, but
the United States treats people who overtly seek to kill its citizens
and destroy their property in a far more dignified and lenient manner
than does the Castro regime anyone who dares utter a word in criticism
of its boundless socialist wisdom (the former are given sheets of
cloth to sit on while they pray; the latter are given sheets of cloth
to cover their bleeding corpses).
The fourth member of the panel was Grazyna Zajachkowska, a Polish
photographer who had partaken in student demonstrations against Soviet
rule in the 1980s. Unfortunately, Ms. Zajachkowska was afflicted by a
cold and could therefore not speak at length about her experiences
under Soviet censorship. She did, however, muster the energy to
contend that the current corporate expansion into Polish media is far
more dangerous than any Soviet threats to free speech had ever been.
To be precise, she stated, "It is a scary, fascist world that we are
entering into." One can learn much about what is truly important to a
person by noting what she chooses to say and what she chooses to omit
when she has only an extremely limited amount of time to speak.
Of course, for a grand finale, any good panel on free speech
limitations has to include one of those government officials who takes
my tax money and uses it to fund degenerate art – obeying "community
standards," to be fair, which means, whatever standards I happen not
to hold. Gregory Knight heads the Chicago Department of Cultural
Affairs, which is in charge of determining which artists get free
rides on taxpayers' money.
First, Mr. Knight lamented the significant
decreases in funds available to artists through the National Endowment
for the Arts as a result of changes which were instituted during the
late 1990s. Apparently, the downfall of an organization that presumes
that it knows better than the private consumer what said consumer's
esthetic tastes should be is a bad thing.
Then, Mr. Knight explained
the intricacies of the process by which he and his fellow bureaucrats
select which art will get funding and which will not. Apparently, the
art cannot be absolutely inoffensive, as it would be boring and devoid
of esthetic value (as defined by those who consider esthetic value
equivalent to shock value), but then the art also has to be
politically correct. That is, it must avoid offending certain groups
of people while being allowed, nay, encouraged, to offend certain
others. Namely, smearing the Virgin Mary with feces is allowed, but to
depict homosexuals with anything but glorification will get one
subjected to censorship (of the good, beneficent, "community
standards" variety, of course), since the government does control the
major museums of the city and thus holds a monopoly over most major
art markets. But this is a good monopoly of the "community standards"
variety, namely, a monopoly which is able to use force to compel
consumers to fund it and to determine what art is and is not available
to them. It is far more tolerable than the "monopolies" of the evil
fascist corporations – never mind that those corporations do not and
cannot control such vast portions of any market, nor that they never
resort to anything but voluntary agreements with their customers and
that the commodities they supply are determined entirely by said
customers' demand.
At this point, Achy Obejas chimed in with her critique of the private
art market in general. Apparently, private art foundations are
undesirable because they give grants to artists for limited periods of
time and make these grants contingent on the production of particular
works that actually reflect the esthetic preferences of said
foundations' owners. After all, it is a violation of the artist's free
speech for him to be paid only to represent views that his employer is
willing to fund! Moreover, the heinous evil of private grants consists
of the fact that there are just so many of them and the artist
actually has to endure the intolerable burden of seeking them out and
choosing wisely which ones to apply for!
A much freer society is one
where the government comes to you and assures your financial security
for life provided you can put a few blotches on a canvas and are not
one of those reactionary taxpayers whose money is being taken to
finance said blotches. As to the question of why I, or you, or anybody
else who is such a taxpayer, can be forced to fund these "avant-garde
innovators," the answer is simple: without our "help," their free
speech would be violated, since scarcely anybody on the free market
would be willing to fund their twisted exercises.
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More bad types of censorship |
Among the other highlights of the conference, I learned about more
"bad" types of censorship, one of them being "self-censorship," i.e.,
an individual's mind actually screening itself for what thoughts it
ought to think and express. Apparently, individual self-control, that
is, anything that allows one's communication to be different from that
of an "uninhibited" zombie under hypnosis, is tantamount to
suppressing one's own freedom of speech! Perhaps the government should
try to break up the monopoly that rationalistic, imperialistic,
prudish, male-chauvinistic, Eurocentric, repressive, reactionary
constructs hold on the mind of this author, much like it tries to
break up the "monopolies" that corporations allegedly hold on the mass
media. How easily this version of "free speech" can render itself open
to the worst types of tyrannical intrusions!
Finally, at the end of this amusing zoo of absurdities preached by the
modern Left, I got to ask the panel a question: "Is it not true that,
for free speech to be maintained in full principle, it is property
rights which must be preserved above all? What is true free speech
except for the ability of all individuals, whether they are you or
Rupert Murdoch, to acquire whatever property they see fit and to use
it to communicate whatever messages they see fit? And is it not true
censorship to attempt to use the coercive powers of government to
limit the free speech and property rights of some, namely,
corporations, and redistribute wealth to others, namely artists who
might or might not have received similar support were they, and the
market, left to their own devices?"
The response I received from the
panel allowed me to glimpse further into their genuine mindset. The
speakers, and the majority of the Left, are not opposed to censorship
at all! As a matter of fact, Achy Obejas answered me with the standard
Holmesian rejoinder that I do not have the right to shout "Fire!" in a
crowded theater. Had I the opportunity to reply to this, I would have
stated that the only reason I would not be able to have such a right
is because the theater (in a legitimate free-market society) would be
somebody else's property, and the owner would have the liberty to
expel me from his premises if he thought my actions a disturbance. In
my own theater, I should be able to cry, "Fire!" as often (or as
rarely) as I please.
Then, Ron Gregg told me that the government
must
regulate speech on some media, because some media, such as the
airwaves, must remain public. This, of course, begs the question,
"Why?" What entitles "the public" to "free" or state-provided airwaves
anymore than it is entitled to "free" or state-provided shoes, bread,
or Internet access? Why not just privatize everything, the airwaves
included, and toss aside the nasty dilemma of which absurdities the
government ought to subsidize, and which intelligent, independent,
courageous acts of individual expression it ought to suppress? Mr.
Knight, and half the degenerate artists along with him, would be out
of a job, of course, but what prevents them from experiencing an
awakening of common sense and finding work that actually contributes
to everybody's economic prosperity rather than sapping it?
Finally, after learning what free speech is not, I came upon the
clearest realization of all that I experienced that evening, namely,
that America's Founding Fathers did not put their lives, fortunes, and
sacred honor on the line so that, ten generations down the line, an
elite elect of "the avant-garde" would be able to enshrine genitalia,
glorify promiscuity, shamelessly utter obscene curses (as many panel
members did that night), or publicly broadcast their alternative
lifestyles and homosexual affairs (as two of the members did). These
activities are part of a disgusting fringe that must be tolerated,
true, but tolerated with what aim? Is not the only reason for the
toleration of absurdity the creation of an absolute and impenetrable
barrier against violations of the free speech of those who truly use
it to a noble, rational, life-affirming end? After all, a free society
must not allow itself to fall onto the slippery slope of certain
statists claiming, "We already censor pornography on the grounds that
it violates 'community standards.' Why should we then not censor
laissez-faire capitalists, especially when their expressions are in
even greater disagreement with 'community standards'"?
Nevertheless,
it is not the base, disgusting, and fleeting elements in life that an
individual should use his inalienable right of free speech to promote;
but rather the dignified, elevated, and eternal: the harmonies of
classical music, the impeccable mathematics of representational art,
the crisp, delightful reasoning of a 2000-year-old intellectual
tradition dating from Aristotle to Ayn Rand, and beyond, the message
of individual liberty in its truest sense – a liberty of property,
conscience, and judgment, a liberty to toss the dictatorships, the
bureaucrats, and the degenerate perverts out of one's own life and to
undertake the heroic quest of finding one's own happiness in the use
of one's mind.
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