Just Say “No” to Cancel Culture!
Just say “Yes” to Free Speech!
This is the Wisdom the Wise Guy offers freely to American Catholics and their timid leaders.
Americans have always valued free speech – even if our practice has sometimes fallen short. Free speech is embedded in the first amendment of our constitution, which reads, “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press….”
Pretty clear.
And Catholics, steeped in the Gospel, confident in our beliefs and values, support free speech. We encourage intellectual debate because the Church has prevailed over 2,000 years of arguments, challenge, schism, heresy, war, and more than a few bad apples in our own house.
We love a fair and open dialogue. We have the Truth – our Lord is “the Truth,” and He established His Church to proclaim truth to the world until His return. He knew we would be fumblers and bumblers but gave us the ball anyway. We’re still lugging it.
We agree with Voltaire, no friend of Catholics, who said, “I disapprove of what you say but I defend to the death your right to say it.”
The Wise Guy thinks supporters of free speech are confident in the truth of what they assert while the opponents – such as the Cancel Culture (CC) Crowd – are either infected with major self-doubt or a dangerous blind self-righteousness. They do not want to hear – they cannot stand to hear – what the other guy has to say.
The Wise Guy does not consider it a stretch of the imagination to assert that the CC Crowd is stomping in the same footsteps as the book-burning Nazis as they censor, delete, tear down and deface the words and images of others.
What is the make-up of the Cancel Culture Crowd? There are the usual suspects – socialists, communists, fascists, anarchists, and “progressives,” – Authoritarians from all sides of the aisle. We expect them to suppress speech – it’s part of their history, part of their Credo. Armed with dangerous half-truths, they consider dialogue an obstacle to progress.
What’s troubling in this Year of the Virus and our Politically Correct Riots is that “normal” people, including Catholics, are manning the fire hoses of speech suppression. Fierce flowing water from the hoses is knocking down statutes and anyone trying to defend them. It is hosing down and washing away our history. It is also dousing our culture in non-potable water.
Some celebrate “cancel culture” as a much-needed cleansing. We are washing away the dirt and cobwebs of our racist past and laying a clean foundation for the future.
But remember this: the “clean” foundation excludes Jesus and his saintly followers who planted the faith in the New World. And the new builders of this “clean” foundation have never built a clean foundation in their lives.
If only perfect people can be honored, then no one can be honored – except perhaps the Lord. However, even the Lord is not safe – at least one CC group wants to remove any statutes and images of Him because He is not represented with the correct ethnicity.
So, my fellow Catholics, let us humbly proclaim the truth of the Gospel. Let us set a good example and allow others to speak and write the truth as they see it.
Our Lord was always ready for a good chat. And so are we.