Pro-liberty folks have been aware of this for centuries, but perhaps now, after years of seeing supposedly “peace-loving” leftists use lies, character assassination, violence, and threats of violence to shut down non-collectivist speech and dissent, the so-called “moderates” out there are starting to wake up to the fact that collectivism requires and condones the suppression of individual speech and thought.
Nowhere has this been more apparent than in Canada, where University of Toronto Psychology Professor Jordan Peterson’s name became known far and wide because he would not conform to the government’s 2016 “C-16” statute, which mandated that any state employee or person working for any business “regulated” by the government describe others with the pronouns those others demanded.
Standing firm for individual choice, the truth about sex, gender, and biological science, and freedom of speech, Peterson took the leftist, social justice warrior abuse and vindictive, and garnered praise from around the world. In fact, his courage and ability to articulate timeless principles of ethics and classical liberalism (proto-libertarianism) has been so tremendous, filmmakers Patricia Marcoccia and Maziar Ghaderi recently completed a documentary about him, and have arranged a number of screenings across North America.
But guess what? As if to prove Peterson’s point about collectivism being based on force and threats of force, many of those venues have received from leftists complaints and literal threats of violence should they show the film.
As Katie Herzog writes for Seattle's The Stranger:
About halfway through my conversation with filmmakers Patricia Marcoccia and Maziar Ghaderi, they got two pieces of bad news. First, they found out from their tour manager that a planned screening of their film, The Rise of Jordan Peterson, had just been canceled by a theatre in Toronto… Another venue in Toronto recently canceled a week-long run of the film, as did a theatre in Brooklyn, citing complaints by the staff… A moment later, Ghaderi received a text message from a pastor outside of Portland. The pastor had agreed to screen the film at his church and had been getting complaints—and threats. He forwarded one of these messages to Ghaderi.
And what did this loving leftist write?
‘Fair warning,’ it read, ‘several community organizations are planning to shut down your showing of the Jordan Peterson propaganda film. While many of us aren't Christian and some even flat-out condemn the religion, we do not want any harm to come to your place of worship or those within. However, we cannot allow fascism to continue to rise and will not tolerate its presence in our city, whether it is on the streets or on the waterfront or in a church. Read some history books, read about eugenics, read about sex and gender and then compare it to Peterson. Pray on it if you must. Do the right thing. As much as we joke about it, we really don't want to have to bring out the guillotine to fix society.’
Lovely.
Translation: “We say we’re peaceful and in favor of free expression. But not really. First, we’re going to portray a man who has repeatedly, explicitly deplored fascism and Nazism in writing, on his personal YouTube videos, and in his lectures and interviews, a man who has explained that Nazism is national socialism – which is what Antifa promotes when its not promoting world socialism, aka Marxism – as a fascist. We’re ALSO going to falsely claim he’s a eugenicist (eugenics was the offspring of collectivists like Plato, Margaret Sanger, Marx, H.G. Wells, Hitler, and others of their statist ilk) and THEN we’ll threaten physical violence and death for the folks who dare think about seeing this film.”
It’s telling that the weapon of choice the texter mentions is the guillotine, prominently tied to the leftist takeover of France in the 19th Century after the French Revolution, where collectivist followers of Jean Jacques Rousseau employed virtually every aspect of Antifa ideology to take private property, shut down dissent, control the so-called “justice” system, and exterminate those who believed in individual ethics and freedom.
For decades, the pop media have tried to lump liberty-minded people with Nazis, racists, and people who condone violence. Yet it has been the collectivist left that has seen huge portions of its population start the continuing violence we see around college campuses and at events like these for Jordon Peterson. Yet it was an appearance at Berkeley by conservative, gay, Jewish Milo Yiannopoulos in early 2017 that saw the first violence – and it was brought by leftists.
Perhaps so-called “middle-of-the-road” Americans and Canadians can begin to wake up to the truth:
Collectivism is so weak an ideology, so counter to individual morals and Western ethics, so counter to economic growth and voluntary association, its adherents and proponents can’t even allow images of someone who opposes collectivism to be projected on a screen.
And in the process of trying to shut down speech, they expose themselves as the proponents for authoritarian thuggery at core of their deadly ideology.