At first, it may seem that speech codes reveal a certain power possessed by leftist academia. After all, the Left controls the administration of many public and private institutions of higher education throughout the country. Those who violate speech codes are severely reprimanded at least. More damagingly, they can be failed in their classes, expelled, or even sued in court. The tremendous amounts of resources and activism devoted to supporting the speech codes seem to suggest that the Left at universities wields vast power, and a Draconian kind of power at that.

            But this is only a first impression. In fact, the Left only has a semblance of power, a veneer beneath which is concealed the most significant weakness. Indeed, leftist ideas are intellectually indefensible. They have been debunked time and again through theory and practice alike.

            The colossal failures of communist states wherever they have sprung up, as well as the morass into which the more heavily regulated economies of Europe have entered, show with stunning clarity the utter failures of government economic regulation. America’s greatest statesmen, many Classical, Neoclassical, and Austrian economists, and the record of history have been demolishing the case for government interventionism for centuries. Scientists are increasingly recognizing the unjustifiable nature of attributing global warming to manmade causes – as other environmentalist myths like the harmful nature of the pesticide DDT are steadily becoming diffused. The “Sexual Revolution” – more accurately, devolution – has been shown time and again to lead to broken families, ruined health, frustrated dreams, and a large segment of society for which nothing matters but sheer hedonistic indulgence. Intellectually, the Left has failed on all counts; the entirety of its agenda has been shown in every possible way to be nothing short of catastrophic.

            Yet when anybody presents a civil, rational argument showing in one of a myriad ways the deficiencies of leftist ideas, the Left most typically does not respond with a civil, rational argument in return. Some leftists, like Lord John Maynard Keynes, used to do so over sixty years ago – but even Keynes only wanted government spending to occupy about 25% of the Gross Domestic Product. Even Keynes would not have been able to make a persuasive case for defending the gargantuan government advocated by the Left today; indeed, he would have been horrified by it.

            Instead, when faced with an argument against their beliefs, many leftists at universities launch into ad hominem attacks or try to use the administrative powers at their disposal to silence dissenters through speech codes. If the leftists were confident in the strength of their ideas, would they need to resort to censorship in order to defend them? Obviously not! They could simply make their case civilly and non-coercively, showing what they considered to be the weaknesses of their opponents’ ideas. They might end up in the wrong anyway (and I am sure they would), but civil, tolerant argumentation would at least demonstrate that they thought they had a fighting chance.

            What speech codes demonstrate above all is the great insecurity which pervades the Left today. Many leftists recognize that if their ideas were openly challenged on fair terms, they would lose. So they seek to supplant the power of truth with the power of compulsion and punishment. These speech code advocates fear that numerous others might actually be persuaded by opposing views and thus seek as far as possible to prevent those views from even being voiced.

            But this tactic of cowering behind the walls of censorship only delays the inevitable. Intellectually, the Left is dying; it is steadily spiraling downward into advocacy of ever more bizarre ideas and lifestyles, none of which are sustainable in the long term – as they are in direct opposition to the kinds of beliefs and actions needed to sustain prosperous lives and an advancing society. Ever more individuals can express their displeasure with the Left’s ideas and practices using the Internet, and many college and university alumni throughout the country are rebelling against speech codes and threatening to withdraw support from schools that impose them.

            The weakness of the ideas that speech codes “protect” will soon be too glaring to be overlooked by any sane individual. At that point, not even all the censorship in the world would be able to save the Left from utter collapse.

G. Stolyarov II is a science fiction novelist, independent philosophical essayist, poet, amateur mathematician, composer, contributor to Enter Stage Right, Le Quebecois Libre,  Rebirth of Reason, and the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Senior Writer for The Liberal Institute, weekly columnist for GrasstopsUSA.com, and Editor-in-Chief of The Rational Argumentator, a magazine championing the principles of reason, rights, and progress. Mr. Stolyarov also publishes his articles on Helium.com and Associated Content to assist the spread of rational ideas. His newest science fiction novel is Eden against the Colossus. His latest non-fiction treatise is A Rational Cosmology. His most recent play is Implied Consent. Mr. Stolyarov can be contacted at gennadystolyarovii@yahoo.com.

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