I receive a steady volume of email, only a portion of which I post. I respond to other messages privately. Sometimes, I’ve received messages that dislike the tone of FREE WHITEWATER. The concerns usually fall into two categories: (1) the tone is too critical, and (2) more people would read FREE WHITEWATER if the tone were not so critical. (I will address point #2 about readership in another post, and show how readership has climbed each month, and relate how many local residents visit FREE WHITEWATER weekly.)
My tone is, often, critical. It’s a blog of personal and independent commentary, and like many blogs, it adopts a critical tone. As blogs go, it’s not nearly as critical as many popular, large blogs. This medium constrains and guides style, but not content. (When I write in my vocation, it’s a style suited for my work, and different from FREE WHITEWATER. When I speak to people, it’s in a style suited for conversation, and different from FREE WHITEWATER. The content, however, would be the same when discussing matters in our town — just the same.)
This website is nowhere so critical as many pamphlets and newspapers that formed the robust commentary in the America’s first century, for example. It’s not even close to that vigorous tradition. If anything, I have been restrained, and have exercised considerable forbearance. We were, and are, a rough-hewn people. We have always left the fancy, and superficially polite, to England and other embarrassing places. I would always prefer an ill-tailored president over a well-manicured king, and a messy republic over an orderly kingdom.
We are this way because we were, and yet remain, a people that loves liberty and free expression. There are, however, two groups who argue against truly free speech, for different reasons. The first group comprises those in this town who like the position that they have, and feel that they’re entitled to special consideration. There’s a belief some people have here, that position justifies, excuses, and entitles. They think and act situationally — if they are so-and-so, then they should be trusted, and they are entitled. I reject this view. They are justified, excused, and entitled only through law and morality, not based on an appeal to their status. When the town faction acts, they act first and foremost based on status — they ask and expect trust based on who they are, or what they claim to be.
Their status is unimpressive to me. It should be unimpressive to any resident and citizen: they are just people, neither more nor less. I can be neither smooth-talked nor cajoled into support for what I oppose. I could never be co-opted onto a board, commission, etc. I lack for nothing that those I criticize could give me; the tradition of which I am a grateful inheritor gives me more than they could take. They ask that speech be curbed, but they would never curb their actions in return. In any event, my speech — and yours — is a right, yet their actions are often in disregard of others’ rights. We could never have a fair trade: some would sacrifice what liberty allows in exchange for others’ ceasing a disregard of their fellow residents’ rights. That’s the worst possible bargain.
They stand on local status as entitlement, and that’s why the exercise of speech rights is so disturbing to them. One would think that Whitewater were a small, corrupt island in the middle of nowhere, for all the difference it makes to those who oppose mere speech on the basis of their inflated sense of local self-importance. They don’t have a meritorious position; they have a mistaken view of themselves and of the rights of others in our city.
There is a second group, though, that deserves more careful consideration. It includes those progressives who would like a different tone so that society, in their view, could be a better place. They’re not self-interested; they seek social justice. I am not unsympathetic to them: like all who share my support for “free markets, individual liberty, and peace,” I want a better world. The search for social justice is a noble end. It should never be easily dismissed.
I am convinced and confirmed in the view that greater liberty and expression, and not limitation in speech or action, will bring about that better world. I wish we had a world where we could be softer; I am convinced it only invites a few to misuse public authority to bully others, all the while that few tells the community that we should be grateful for what they’ve done.
Through the full exercise of speech rights, and the liberating, empowering operation of free markets in labor and capital, I believe that we will have that better world. I am no less a true believer than those who seek a ‘progressive’ solution. On the contrary, we libertarians believe that our liberty-based views are the true ‘progressive’ solution, making life easier for more people than any other project, plan, or scheme.
For those who merely seek to defend their distorted notions and status while disregarding others, I am unsympathetic. For those, though, who in their own way, seek a better community through promoting social justice, I have considerable sympathy. It is, merely, that I doubt their preferred means will achieve those noble ends.