The Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) club on the DU campus brought a guest speaker to discuss “political incorrectness” on Wednesday, April 12.
Matt Rhodes, the president of YAF, introduced Justin Longo as the speaker to provide an “alternative point to [the DU] campus that desperately needs it.” Longo is a dual degree graduate in business management and economics from George Mason University and works at the Independence Institute in Denver. To set the mood, speakers filled Lindsay Auditorium with Eminem, NWA and the Sex Pistols and for eight minutes, the crowd’s whispers words to chants of “this is weird.”
Justifying the music choices, Longo stated that each artist participated in his or her personal form of rebellion against an oppressive system. Just like how NWA’s “F*ck Tha Police” was a rebel yell against police brutality against African Americans, Young Americans for Freedom stated that they promote open dialogue that resists the oppressive PC (political correctness) on [college campuses.]
“We should have tolerance for all kinds of speech even hateful, bigoted speech,” said Longo. “[You] flesh out what ideas are good and what ideas are bad overtime. Then society learns by having the public discussion, and as that society evolves, that creates the conditions of political will to form the legislation that we want.”
Longo argued his reasoning behind free speech through four points in support of practicing political incorrectness: being offended is how we learn, without free speech, ideas cannot be applied to the scientific method, hate speech is a minority’s best friend and limiting free speech would eventually lead to violence.
“Being offended is how we learn,” Longo said. “If we can’t be offended and criticize ideas we cannot figure out what ideas, are good and what ideas are bad. We can’t learn from one another.”
According to Longo, besides religion, everything else must be debated. He says that knowledge and truth break through our mental barriers and that offense should be promoted, for it is how ideas can change. If we stop the conversation when someone is offended, then we stop the pursuit of truth.
While his speaking style was scattered, Longo did articulate why he thought it was safer to not limit free speech, saying that it protects the minority opinion.
“Laws against hate speech keep hate in the shadows,” said Longo. “Let people expose their beliefs. I would like to know if the coffee shop owner is a bigot so I can never go there again.”
He followed that up by saying that moments of conflict between ideologies allow the minority within the discussion to correct flaws in the attacking argument as well as change the opponent’s mindset.
His final argument was that it should be the ideas that are attacked, not the person because ideas should be exposed.
“Let’s kill each other’s hypothesis, not each other,” said Longo.
The lecture ended with a question and answer session that eventually turned into the crowd scolding and laughing during the answer portions. However, Longo did not really answer any of the questions that were directed at him, frequently answering with sarcasm. Rhodes proved to be more successful at responding.
The event ended with a discussion of pasta, individuals yelling at the audience before leaving the auditorium and people throwing and destroying the foam middle fingers that had been provided at the beginning of the event. No future events were mentioned.
A group of student activists held a meeting in Sturm immediately after the YAF event to discuss and debrief.
More information about Young Americans for Freedom is available online.
