A Letter From Rhino Times Reader Austin Morris
A lot of decent and fair minded folk decry anonymity in public speech. They hold that you should stand behind what you say, although I’m not sure exactly what that means, other than simply identifying yourself.
This appears commendable at first blush, and I suspect that’s why so many people concur.
I don’t. Anonymous free speech is the bedrock of every free society – not every society that claims to be free, just every genuinely free society. Anonymity allows things to be said that otherwise cannot be said. Without anonymity the truth is suppressed, and debate is confined within boundaries determined by the state, societal norms, or thuggish ideologies that are both violent and intolerant.
Who dare affix his name to a trenchant critique of National Socialism or the Fuehrer in a German newspaper in 1932? You’d be guaranteed a visit from the SA or Brownshirts, and it wouldn’t be for a cup of tea. But at that point a persuasive Letter might dissuade some voters from voting for the Nazis – who were ultimately voted into power in 1933. Anonymous free speech could have made a difference.
And today, who dare level even mild criticism of Islam, or the more militant LGBTQ people? Islam’s violent intolerance is so extreme that they cannot abide even a drawing of their prophet. Putting aside that this is ridiculous, the point is that they will visit murderous violence on any journalistic organ that disregards their totalitarianism, as they did in the 2015 Paris murders of twelve journalists working at the Charlie Hebdo magazine.
And then there are the Brownshirts of the 21st Century – Antifa. There are others.
Are we to be silenced by violent murderous thugs? Should we have to place our families in mortal danger just to raise a red flag? Or a legitimate concern?
During the COVID-19 pandemic I was permanently banned from Facebook. My crime was that I said things that weren’t allowed. I said it was obvious that the virus was man made, not zootic. The bloody thing first showed up a quarter mile from China’s primary biological warfare laboratory, and we were supposed to believe that it was a coincidence? I also argued that the hurriedly developed, unproven, novel chemical cocktail “vaccines” that had been granted 100% legal immunity were obviously dangerous, and should be avoided.
For expressing these beliefs I was silenced. I had taken the precaution of employing a pseudonym, and I’m glad I did because the abuse and threats came thick and fast. I was “selfish”, “a danger to society” and needed to be confined to house arrest… How quickly we lose sight of constitutional safeguards. How quickly the majority becomes authoritarian. The mob easily descends into animalistic brutal behaviour, as Vladimir Bukovsky pointed out repeatedly.
Speaking the truth can be a very dangerous thing to do, even in contemporary America.
That’s why anonymous free speech is absolutely essential in any society that professes to be free.
I’m grateful to the Rhino Times for facilitating it.
– Austin Morris
