Leftists Choose Censorship Over Debate
People often advise me not to engage in debate with leftists because there’s simply no point: Their beliefs are too dogmatic for their minds to be changed. Although I believe rational debate is like a healthy supply of water for any society, I understand the sentiment. It is incredibly difficult to find points of agreement with our political foes when they prefer to scream in our faces and call us “fascists” rather than listen to arguments that might weaken their positions.
Take the immigration issue. Why is it “racist” of me not to want hundreds of thousands of Somalis, Haitians, or Afghans to move into public housing right next door but “colonialist” or “imperialist” if a hundred thousand Americans take over Somalia, Haiti, or Afghanistan? Why am I “deplorable” for calling those places “sh*thole countries” when natives with the means to escape are fleeing their homelands as quickly as possible? Must I really pretend that third-world nations are every bit as luxurious and stable as most of the United States?
This whole “pretending” nonsense bothers me greatly. Are we not adults? Are we not capable of expressing our thoughts and debating each other without having to participate in wild fantasies just to avoid “hurting” someone’s feelings? Compared to all of human history, our present obsession with “feelings” is a total aberration.
“Feelings” aren’t just a luxury problem. They’re the kind of problem that could exist only in lazy, welfare-dependent societies in which a majority of the population believes the government should hand out “free” food, medicine, and shelter. When most of your country is obese, men are too busy playing video games to get married and provide for their children, and people believe they are “entitled” to burn down Walmart unless the Treasury refills their EBT cards, “feelings” become a big issue. People too busy earning enough to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves don’t have time to get angry about the newest list of words deemed “politically incorrect.”
“Politically incorrect” is a commie idea. It’s a rhetorical weapon meant to make it impossible for certain speakers to win public debates. When you can’t mention uncomfortable facts, those facts effectively disappear. People inclined to support freedom generally do not tie one hand behind their backs when debating ideas. In fact, freedom-minded individuals tend to push the limits of any discussion because vigorous debate and contentious arguments have a way of breaking down cognitive presuppositions. People who like to learn often defend untenable positions in order to grapple with sophisticated counterarguments and solidify the foundations of their own convictions. When leftists start censoring what can be said out loud because the contents of the debate are “politically incorrect,” they treat adults like children and leave society the dumber for it.
Perhaps because westerners have grown tired of “political correctness” lectures these last few decades, leftists now use government power to target “hate speech” and “misinformation.” Europe has gone all-in on prosecuting citizens for the “crime” of communicating “hate.” Again, talk about luxury problems. Can you imagine someone trying to make a living a century ago having enough time or energy to care about what or whom his neighbors “hate”?
If you don’t like what someone says, walk away. If you don’t like what someone believes, don’t hang out with him. These are basic playground rules that humans learn at an early age. Only leftists grow up to decide that — akshually — the best way to handle a difference of opinion is to obsess about it, scream at the “hurt feelings offender,” and use the criminal justice system to shut the bad people up!
On the playground, young members of the “feelings police” used to receive a wet willy or wedgie as a gentle encouragement to mind their own business! Unfortunately, junior members of the “feelings police” grew up to take control over Western governments and now want payback for all those saliva-moistened fingers inserted into their ears and tightened underpants raised up to their necks.
Let’s be honest: When you look at Starmer, Macron, Merz, and Queen Ursula von der Leyen, don’t you see a quartet of socially awkward kids who probably excelled at being tattletales?
Adults don’t fear so-called “hate” or “misinformation.” If information isn’t true, the answer isn’t to censor it. The solution is to advance truthful information and to counter what is false. If an argument is biting, callous, or offensive, the answer isn’t to lock up the speaker as a thought “criminal.” Occasional outbreaks of “hurt feelings” are the necessary cost of safeguarding free speech.
Make no mistake: When governments award themselves the power to decide what is “hateful” or “false,” they do not limit their purview to racial slurs and fringe beliefs. Instead, they quickly move to criminalize opposing viewpoints as forms of “hate” and political dissent as “misinformation.” This absolute slipperiness of government censorship’s slippery slope is why so many Western nations have made it impossible for Christians to practice their faiths publicly without risking prosecution. It is why “climate denialism” is adjudged every bit as “dangerous” as Holocaust denialism. It is why illegal immigrants are encouraged to wave the flags of foreign nations, but patriotic Westerners are condemned as “bigots” for waving the flags of their own countries.
Healthy societies embrace healthy debates. Unfortunately, it is difficult to debate leftists when they outlaw all debate.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/12/leftists_choose_censorship_over_debate.html