Are We Incrementally Giving Up Our Right to Free Speech?

 
Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

The Third Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; (my italics) or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Court decisions have extended this prohibition to all levels of government.

One might think that, with these two bulwarks of human rights so clear on the matter, freedom of speech is an unassailable concept. Instead, freedom of speech is under attack throughout the world, especially on U.S. college campuses.

Nowhere in either the Declaration of Human Rights or the Constitution is there any mention of a freedom from being offended. Freedom from offense is a “right” of recent manufacture. It derives from the recovery movement of the last century. This movement promoted the idea that we are all victims of abuse of some kind. People were encouraged to view the world through the eyes of a victim. They preached that all humans are fragile and easily damaged by any speech they deemed hurtful. Censorship was postulated as a moral necessity.

In the February 22, 2015 issue of the Washington Post, writer Wendy Kaminer criticizes university administrations for adopting the recovery philosophy in their cultures. They sought to protect minority groups on campus from being exposed to speech they considered racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise discriminatory. Kaminer wrote that, “Popular therapeutic culture defined verbal ‘assaults’ and other forms of discrimination by subjective, emotional responses of self-proclaimed victims.” She further points out that, “The tendency to take subjective allegations of victimization at face value—instrumental in contemporary censorship campaigns—also leads to a presumption of guilt and disregard to due process.” She concludes, “This is a dangerously misguided approach to justice…Instead of advancing equality, it’s teaching future generations of leaders the ‘virtues’ of autocracy.”

Unfortunately, the media world seems to be collaborating in this assault on free speech. When gunmen attacked a recent cartoon contest in Texas because the subject was images of the Prophet Mohammed, one of the frequently asked questions by reporters was, “Should such a contest have been allowed to take place?” Where was the outrage at the attempted massacre?

I wrote in a previous blog post about my belief that “political correctness” is a totalitarian concept beloved by absolute dictators like Stalin, Hitler, and the Kim Dynasty of North Korea. Criminalizing an individual’s thoughts, no matter how much we may disagree with them, is anathema to a free society. What happened to the “marketplace of ideas” that educators and politicians of both parties used to praise? Who gave progressives or conservatives the authority to decide what the rest of us may think and say? It is time they realized that millions of Americans believe that “political correctness” is being taken to the absurd.

In the April 29, 2014 issue of The Washington Post, columnist Kathleen Parker decried the death of straightforward speech in an article entitled, “When sensitivity triumphs over truth.”  Her unifying theme is that, “We are slowly becoming a nation that pays greater heed to sensitivity than truth, and that prefers the comfort of committee-crafted thoughts that neither offend nor enlighten.”

I, for one, refuse to see the world through the eyes of a victim. I admire straightforward communication. I hate racism, despise any form of government that oppresses individual initiative, and have been called a feminist because of my views on full equality for women. Based on my study of science, I believe that sexual orientation and gender identification are hard-wired into the brain, and governments should let the subject alone. But I’ll be damned if I’ll cede to any other human the right to tell me what to think or say. I’ll leave that to God.

The accompanying cartoon from the Miami Herald, which was reprinted in The Washington Post, inspired this blog post.

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Warren Bell is an author of historical fiction.  He spent 29 years as a US Naval Officer, and has traveled to most of the places in the world that he writes about.  A long-time World War II-buff, his first two novels, Fall Eagle One and Hold Back the Sun are set during World War II.  His third novel, Asphalt and Blood, follows the US Navy Seabees in Vietnam.  His most recent novel, Snowflakes in July, is a Pentagon thriller about domestic terrorism.  He is currently working on a new novel, Endure The Cruel Sun, the sequel to his best-selling novel, Hold Back the Sun. For more about Warren Bell, visit his website at: wbellauthor.com or see him on twitter @wbellauthor.

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Shifting My Mind to a Different War

I spent yesterday afternoon polishing the draft of the first chapter of my new novel, Asphalt and Blood. To do so, I had to shift the focus of my mind forward a good twenty years. My first two novels, Fall EagleOne and Hold Back the Sun, take place during the Second World War. Asphalt and Blood tells the story of how the U.S. Navy’s Seabees helped the Marines retake Hue City during the 1968 Tet Offensive.

As I worked through my manuscript, I was mentally transported back to Vietnam during the war there. I spent seventeen months “in country” during two tours as the Operations Officer of a Seabee battalion. My second deployment was to Hue/Phu Bai to the north of Danang. We first arrived there less than six months after the Tet battle, and I became very familiar with the area over the next nine months. Talking with people who were there, I learned that Seabees had a significant presence during the fighting. Thus was born the spark that led to my present project.

After over forty years, my memories of Vietnam are still vivid. Most Americans think of that country as one big rain forest. This may be true of the far south, but the areas in which the Seabees mostly worked were quite different. The northern part of the former Republic of Vietnam is more like parts of Southern California, with rolling hills covered with scrub growth. The beaches along the South China Sea are wide bands of fine white sand—a beautiful tourist area waiting to be developed. The coastal plains around Hue are a sea of iridescent green rice fields stretching from the blue mountains inland to the sea. Given the climate and peace, the farmers there can grow three rice crops per year. These wiry people are some of the hardest working in the world. Our problem was that some were carrying AK-47s after dark.

Another reason I wanted to write Asphalt and Blood is to tell the story of the Seabees in popular fiction. Many of us who served there found our experiences far different from what most Americans envision. Reading press reports during the Tet Offensive, we began to wonder what war the reporters were viewing. What those of us there witnessed was akin to the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. The VC that came out to fight in big unit battles had some initial successes but were then savaged by American forces. From that point forward, the principal enemy was the North Vietnamese Army. Tactically, the Tet Offensive, launched over the objections of Field Marshall Giap, was a disaster. The media turned it into a political victory for the enemy.

I still hesitate to believe everything I see in press reports. Thirty years later, when members of my family were serving in Iraq, I asked them about their take on reports on that war. Their answers were that media reports bore small resemblance to what was actually happening. Don’t get me wrong. I am a staunch defender of press freedom. I just believe that reporters have a responsibility to “tell it like it is.”

Asphalt and Blood is scheduled for release next Labor Day.  As far as exhaustive research will allow, readers should expect an accurate description of the Battle of Hue City.

Note: Warren Bell is a historical fiction author with two novels released and for sale either for Kindle or in paperback from Amazon.com.  Both are set during WWII, with Fall Eagle One taking place in Europe, and Hold Back the Sun is set in the war in the Pacific.

On Thankfulness

This is the time of year when Americans reflect on what we are thankful for. Those in committed relationships should be thankful that they were able to find someone to share a lifetime of romance. My wife Annette, my partner for over 55 years, is the greatest blessing of my life. Close behind must come the blessings of family. Humankind has organized itself in nuclear families since, as the Greeks used to say, “time out of mind.” My children, their spouses, and my grandchildren have enriched my life beyond measure.

Those of us who live in free and open societies should be especially thankful. Too many of us take the blessings of liberty for granted. Far too few of the world’s citizens live in open societies. Billions of others live in states ruled by despots for whom the welfare of their citizens is not a consideration at all. Winston Churchill once said that, in a free society, if one receives a knock on the door in the dark hours of early morning, it is probably the milkman (as opposed to a squad of secret police coming to arrest you).  Freedom of speech and religion exists only in free societies. In most of the world, the press reports only what the government approves.

Anyone who has access to modern medicine should be thankful for it. When I was a young man, life expectancy for an American man was about sixty-nine. Now it is approaching eighty. And the additional years often provide a much higher quality of life. If you do not indulge in self-destructive behavior (drug use, smoking, overeating to the point of obesity), your chances of having a long life are quite good. How to make the same level of care available to all is one of the world’s biggest challenges.

I’m thankful to have lived in the time and place that providence allotted me. My parents and their ancestors lived much harder lives than did my generation. I lived in an age of opportunity in which it was possible to quite literally live the American dream. Coming from relatively humble circumstances, education opened for me the door to upward mobility my grandchildren may never enjoy. My “golden years” are presently very comfortable. The innovations introduced during my life are mind-boggling. So far, I’ve been able to sort of keep up, but the adeptness of my grandchildren with electronic devices is astonishing.

I am also thankful for a relatively long life. In Greek mythology, Achilles was given the choice of a short life of fame or a long but common life. He chose fame, and died young outside Troy with a poison arrow in his heel. Odysseus, on the other hand, lived a long life and visited much of the known world. Alfred Lord Tennyson described the wisdom of Odysseus gained in his poem, Ulysses (the hero’s Roman name).

I am a part of all that I have met.

Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough gleams

That untraveled world whose margin fades

Forever and forever when I move.

As though to breathe were life!

Life piled upon life were all too little

And to me little remains.

And this grey spirit yearning in desire

To follow knowledge like a sinking star,

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

I have experienced a wide swath of history, some of it good, some of it discouraging. I continue to be an optimist. Somehow, we humans always seem to muddle through to an acceptable solution to most problems. Given the choice of Achilles, I would choose to live long.  
Note: Warren Bell is a historical fiction author with two novels released and for sale either for Kindle or in paperback from Amazon.com.  Both are set during WWII, with Fall Eagle One taking place in Europe, and Hold Back the Sun is set in the war in the Pacific.