Whether it’s in state legislatures, Hollywood or on college campuses, calls for hate speech laws, the shutting down of traditional speakers, demands for political correctness and other limits to free speech are growing louder. There is a reason for this and it is the evolution of communism and socialism in the United States.
If you want to know the real Russian influence, this is it.
On Friday, Chris Matthews asked left-wing columnist and editor-in-chief of Democracy, Michael Tomaskey, about the controversy surrounding Ann Coulter and Berkeley University. The MSNBC host first demeaned her by suggesting it was about money on Coulter’s part. Matthews then wanted to know where the idea you can shut her down came from.
Tomaskey said, “Yes. It’s been happening for a while. Jean Kirkpatrick got blood flung on her, I think. I can’t remember when that was. Maybe in the ‘90s or something like that. They don’t value free speech that much. They consider free speech to be kind of a bourgeois value, and they’re more interested in —“
Matthews asked, “Who are these people who think that?”
To which Tomaskey responded, “Well, I don’t know. Just kids — college kids on the left.”
He’s being a bit disingenuous in his answer to the admittedly dense Matthews by saying it’s “just kids” at “elite universities”. Of course it’s not only the kids, it’s their professors and some of our politicians and journalists. Tomaskey knows that.
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Free speech is considered a bourgeois value by the hard-left, bourgeois being the propertied middle class. To the left, freedoms are class values, controlled by certain classes. Communists do not respect class values and want them torn down. Socialists want them in the hands of the so-called workers.
Russian communist revolutionary Vladimir Ilylich Lenin is quoted as saying, “Freedom is a bourgeois prejudice. We repudiate all morality which proceeds from supernatural ideas or ideas which are outside the class conception. In our opinion, morality is entirely subordinate to the interests of the class war. Everything is moral which is necessary for the annihilation of the old exploiting order and for the uniting the proletariat. Our morality consists solely in close discipline and conscious warfare against the exploiters.”
Ergo, free speech is a class value that needs to be eliminated.
Freedom of speech in a socialist setting is the freedom to criticize anything you want as long as you aren’t trying to increase support for bourgeois rule. It’s basically the same as bourgeois freedom of speech, you are able to criticize anything except the status quo. Socialism is allegedly for the greater good. That is, there is a higher moral purpose that we know must be true. Therefore it is okay to repress people who are against this higher moral purpose.
During the ten days that shocked the world, Marxist revolutionary and Soviet politician, Leon Trotzky, born Lev Davidovich Bronstein, spoke at length in favour of shutting down free press.
“During civil war the right to use violence belongs only to the oppressed….” (Cries of “Who’s the oppressed now? Cannibal!”).
“The victory over our adversaries is not yet achieved, and the newspapers are arms in their hands. In these conditions, the closing of the newspapers is a legitimate measure of defence….” Then passing to the question of the Press after the victory, Trotzky continued:
“The attitude of Socialists on the question of freedom of the Press should be the same as their attitude toward the freedom of business…. The rule of the democracy which is being established in Russia demands that the domination of the Press by private property must be abolished, just as the domination of industry by private property…. The power of the Soviets should confiscate all printing-plants.” (Cries, “Confiscate the printing-shop of
_Pravda!_”)
“The monopoly of the Press by the bourgeoisie must be abolished. Otherwise it isn’t worth while for us to take the power!”
A socialist says free speech is limited to those who own the means of communication such as media outlets which they say is the bourgeois class itself. They believe we only have free speech for the ruling class. They want the means of communication removed from the capitalist class and put in the hands of the workers who would allegedly control it democratically.
Marx would say there is no such thing as free speech and all freedoms and all speech has a class character. You only believe in free speech to the extent you have been brainwashed into bourgeois ideology.
Of course Karl Marx never stopped shooting off his mouth and had no problem getting his revolutionary ideas heard and they are still heard loud and clear, so much so that his followers want to shut down the free speech of anyone with whom they disagree.
The silencing of the right that we currently see in our media, on college campuses, in Hollywood, and elsewhere is part of this leftist movement in the United States – the real Russian influence.
