We Must Ban Love Speech!
I think it’s only fair, don’t you? If we are to have hate speech laws, we should also outlaw love speech. After all, the funny thing about hate is that often it is really just a love of something else.
The definition of hate speech is tough to pin down in New Zealand. What started as speech by a person who doesn’t like minorities has now morphed into any speech that minorities don’t like. That’s how you know hate speech laws are really about power.
The ability to remove someone’s civic or economic rights because a hypothetical person may have felt offended by a bad word is not an unusual tool of government control, at least in historical terms. All regimes have heresy laws. Ours is no different. Hate speech is simply the new blasphemy.
But in all this kerfuffle, no one is talking about the much bigger problem of love speech.
The only way to understand love speech is to understand propaganda. Once a regime has control of the machinery of propaganda, it can announce which words are “accepted” and which are “inappropriate” by asking: what is good for my friends and bad for my enemies?
Of course, an action can be bad for one’s friends and one’s enemies at the same time, just as an action can be good for both as well. And there are also plenty of examples when an action was so poorly thought-out that it was bad for both one’s friends and enemies alike. Too many of these actions usually lead to civilizational collapse, not regime change. Pray you never live through this.
But, back to love speech.
To choose an action that is good for your friends and bad for your enemies requires first knowing who your friends are. This process is called regime consolidation.
Don’t both getting people to speak the truth. Anyone can say what their eyes see. A far better method of proving allegiance is to demand that people believe in absurdities. Refusing to say what your eye sees is a marker of unmistakable deference to power. A lie is a verbal uniform. And when you have a uniform, you also have an army. This is why political correctness is actually a form of regime consolidation.
An absurdity is anything an authority figure persuades you to believe. Things like global warming, the efficacy of mask-wearing, the Trinity, the Big Bang, karma, Allah or Yahweh. The political utility of these absurdities is to create clear markers for people to self-filter into one (or more) oligarchical factions as an “ally.” You can hedge your bets by being a Christian, vegan, science-believing feminist, but just make sure to pick the most fashionable group when the time comes.
Regime consolidation is not about choosing between truth and lies. Politics is all lies. Rather, the precise mechanism of a particular regime enacting hate speech/blasphemy laws is to avoid people believing in a more-effective lie. And by “more-effective”, I mean: any political formula that draws power away from the current regime and towards its enemies.
Hate speech does not exist. There is only speech that threatens the status quo. Said differently, a hate group is a group you’re allowed to hate. Notice that they don’t just censor content because it’s illegal, they censor it because it’s “harmful.” The question is: harmful for whom?
How does this work in a democracy?
Well, it doesn’t. A democracy is not a true model of government; it is a tool used by oligarchs to rule by proxy. Since there is always someone in charge (sovereignty is conserved), a society is either governed by a single sovereign (a king) or split into factions of local sovereigns (oligarchs) who control portions of society. “Rule by the people” is always and everywhere an illusion.
An election is simply a day when the oligarchs, represented by politicians, count up the heads of their uniformed armies. The oligarchic faction with the most “voters” is then called the winner and gets to rule the country for the next 3-4 years.
And that’s where the problem of love speech comes in.
The victors of an election don’t just get to have fancy dinners and bask in the glory of being top dog. They also get access to the Treasury.
This is important because a country is just a giant business, and we are all worshipping the god known as “GeeDeePee.” The oligarchs can’t just print money for themselves since no one would believe such money is worth anything. Instead, the government prints money and passes it to citizens via the banks in the form of loans. Citizens then use that money to buy and sell goods. But, 100% of the money is eventually laundered back to the Treasury in the clean form of “taxes.”
The worst thing about paying taxes isn’t that you lose money, it’s that your money is used to fund people who are trained to hate you. In a modern “democracy” (aka crypto-oligarchy), the moment taxes land in the Treasury, the money magically becomes war booty ready for distribution to one’s supporters. Even better, controlling the Treasury also means denying funds to rival factions. This makes capturing the Treasury both good for your friends and bad for your enemies.
After all, it is impossible in a crypto-oligarchy to send money directly to supporters. The propaganda in a pseudo-democracy like ours is that direct pay-offs are crossing the line into a nascent monarchy. Oligarchs hate monarchies. And like a crab trying to crawl out of the cage, all the other oligarchs will temporarily unite to pull the errant elite back into place. Oligarchs stay equal by not being unequal, which, bizarrely, is a highly stable equilibrium – for them.
So, how can one’s supporters be paid off? Simple. Treasury funds are distributed to one’s political friends using a form of money laundering called philanthropy. The Indians call this a “votebank” while New Zealanders call it “social welfare.”
Love speech is the mechanism of smuggling patronage. You aren’t helping supporters wearing your absurdity-believing uniform. You are just helping the poor/marginalised/gay/women/immigrants! Hate speech laws are great because they cloak your patronage-smuggling by calling it “anti-racist” or “anti-bigotry.” And because you decide the definition of “racist” and “bigot,” love wins!
For instance, if your ruling faction draws its support from non-Caucasians, then love speech about non-Caucasians is always fine, regardless of how absurd these statements might be. And when Caucasians criticise non-Caucasians, it can be called "hate speech." But when non-Caucasians criticise Caucasians, it can be called "social science.” See how this works?
In this way, love speech about “equality,” “diversity”, and “inclusion” will always get Treasury funding if this propaganda helps the ruling regime’s supporters occupy positions of influence. Equally, anyone fighting “racism” or “bigotry” will also receive funding if their propaganda removes your enemies from positions of influence.
But the trick is to never explicitly discuss love speech out loud because doing so risks introducing the Hegelian dialectic. This would set up love speech (thesis) against hate speech (antithesis) and create a synthesis (a more-effective lie) which can be used as a weapon by a rival faction.
By framing love speech as simply “the right side of history”, the Hegelian dialectic never progresses, and the current oligarchical faction can continue to rule. Any speech that threatens its power (by hurting its friends) is considered “hateful” and should be shut down immediately.
But it’s a fine balance because love speech on its own is simply “privilege.” And naked preference by a ruling faction makes it easy for rival oligarchs to accuse the ruling faction of wanting to be Caesar. Again, oligarchs hate the idea of monarchy.
So, love speech only works by calling the absurd beliefs of one’s enemies “hate speech” if doing so a) creates a clear friend/enemy distinction, b) sets up a Schelling Point for your friends to rally around, c) makes it hard for your enemies to rally at all and d) forces your enemy factions to splinter by arguing which of them is a “true-believer” in their absurd beliefs.
As you can see, love speech is a highly effective weapon. No wonder so few people talk about it. If you want to block hate speech laws, you should also aim to outlaw love speech. Can’t have one without the other. After all, the opposite of hate is not love, it is indifference.
And an indifferent regime is just called a monarchy – a system of government with a single ultimate decision-maker. In a monarchy, society can tolerate all kinds of free speech because a responsible monarch operates on the principle of (this quote is either Bismarck or Frederick the Great, I think) “they say what they want, I do what I want.”
Love speech is integral to the rule of an oligarchy. And the only way to destroy an oligarchy is by imposing a monarchy. You cannot vote out an oligarchy. This absurd belief is what keeps an oligarchy in power. Do you want to get rid of an oligarchy? Do you even know what a responsible monarch would look like? Are you sure the status quo is the best possible form of human government? Think carefully now.
After all, if every single one of your political enemies says they hate monarchy, maybe you should look into it.