Originally published via Armageddon Prose:
Ben Shapiro, for years, has made advocating free speech a cornerstone of his routine. Many conservatives were, and are, apparently impressed by Shapiro’s fast-talking debate nerd schtick.
“Anti-discrimination laws are going to be used as an excuse to crack down on… people who disagree,” Shapiro said in his signature rapid-fire-nerd blitzkrieg-speak fashion in 2018 in the context of Canadian crackdowns on “anti-LGBTQ” speech for “human rights.”
But that was then and this is now.
Here’s his new 2023 standard on speech suppression:
“If you work in the media and uncritically and reflexively parrot the genocidal Jew-hating terrorist liars Hamas you should be fired.”
Principles? Ideals? What name so?
What a difference a few short years and a brand-new war to promote for Israel makes!
Here’s an excellent montage summarizing Ben Now and Ben Then. Ben Then goes balls-to-the-wall over free speech. “Toughen up, sweetheart. Bottom line is that it’s time for you to learn that there are lots of differing opinions,” he admonishes college students ensconced in their “safe spaces.”
Ben Now, by contrast, wants to deport any university student whom he arbitrarily deems a “Hamas supporter.”
If Words Were Violence: Ben Shapiro vs Ben Shapiro. pic.twitter.com/XiN41oPp7F
— Turncoat Don (@TurncoatD) November 27, 2023
(Ben, a shameless peddler of sophistry, thinks so little of his audience’s capacity for critical thinking that he casually conflates any criticism of Israel’s activities in Gaza with something called “antisemitism,” a disgusting lie and cynical weaponization of the Holocaust that I have previously painstakingly debunked.)
Related: The Conflation of Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism Is a Propagandistic Lie
To all of which, I say: toughen up, Mossad bitch. Here in the United States of America we have something called the First Amendment.
Related: Former Breitbart Colleague: ‘I Saw Ben Shapiro Receive Tasking From Israeli Intelligence’
If you ever found yourself listening to the Daily Wire, nodding along to the Boy Wonder and his amazing rhetorical prowess and fidelity to bedrock American principles, you must at some point acknowledge to yourself that you were taken for a long ride.
It’s alright; we all make mistakes. I’ve placed my confidence in error in many a political figure, and I’ve learned lessons each time so as not to repeat my mistakes.
It must be clear by now that, when Shapiro said “I like free speech,” it was code all along for “I want my viewpoint promulgated and all opposing viewpoints silenced.”
The former is a lofty principle worthy of praise — one that I hold and Shapiro does not. The other, Shapiro’s true disposition, is a self-serving menopausal Karen “let me talk to your manager” routine.
Ben Shapiro and I are not equals. We are not peers.
One of us believes in the Western birthright of the Renaissance and Enlightenment and would like to see that birthright protected in perpetuity while the other parasitically drapes himself in the auspices of free speech while he abuses it as a punchline and a marketing gimmick.
One of us is a tried-and-true (check the record) proponent of free speech. The other is a fair-weather grifter.
One of us is truly independent and serves no one and nothing but the truth. The other has the backing of ultra-wealthy billionaire donors to pump out sleazy ruling-class propaganda disguised as conservatism and is credibly accused of being an Israeli intelligence asset by his former colleague.
My advice is to choose whom you support with your eyeballs and your wallet accordingly.
Ben Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile, is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.
Follow his stuff Substack if you are inclined to support independent journalism free of corporate slant. Also, keep tabs via Twitter.
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