Adidas was Right, Candace Owens was Wrong
How the right got Kanye West and free speech wrong.
Why do we value free speech as a society? If you asked that question to well-read Americans, you would likely get various responses. It protects us from tyranny, allows for the free spread of ideas, keeps society from becoming bland, and removes the moral burden of policing speech from elected and unelected government bodies.
However, just because the government has no role in weighing the scales in favor of some speech at the expense of another does not mean society has no part in it.
That brings us to our current moment, a moment no one wanted or asked for but received nonetheless.
Kayne West reemerged into the American consciousness recently, but where previously, it may have been for a new album, questionable comments, or general idiocy in the public eye, not this time. What brings him back into the news this time is open, disgusting antisemitism.
Starting with a late-night tweet on October 8th threatening to go “defcon 3 on the Jews”, Kayne has since then promoted Black Hebrew Israelite dogma, joined up with white nationalist Nick Fuentez and Milo Yiannpoulos, condemned society for not exercising enough nuance in our conversations about a genocidal maniac called Adolf Hitler, and repeatedly decried the Jews pulling the strings of society to terminate his various brand deals, most notably with Adidas.
Now you, dear reader, might say that Kayne deserves the financial repercussions he has received for being a generally reprehensible human being. You might say that the decision to condemn Kayne in the public eye could not be more obvious, and you would be right ever so vigilant reader.
Some cannot seem to grasp this, however. Whether out of political inconvenience or empty-headed contrarianism, they have decided that defending or ignoring Kanye is the appropriate response to his lunacy. The most notable among these people is Daily Wire commentator Candace Owens.
Taking great offense at everyone who dared to call a spade a spade, Owens accused Kayne’s critics of engaging in dishonesty and intentionally misrepresenting what he had said. She has since chosen to remain silent on Kayne’s comments on Alex Jones’ show.
At the root of Owen’s idiocy is a trend that the American right must reject. That trend is defending all free speech in the name of free speech. A hollow reactionism has led broad sections of the right to protect degenerates like Kayne because they own the libs.
If this is the best defense of free speech the right can offer, it will lose the battle for it.
While the deprivation of it is wrong, free speech is not good in itself any more than breathing is good in itself. They both have value because of what may result from both, with breathing it is being alive and free speech maintaining a society where people are free to hear and choose between competing ideas. It is what we choose to do with life or the values we freely choose to support that give each their meaning. A canvas is given beauty because of what it allows an artist to create, not because it is a canvas.
Instead of falling into moral relativism, the right should promote the expression of ideas under the understanding that there is no such thing as a neutral arbiter, as governments are made up of neither angels nor demons but fallible humans.
The radical left may want to use the law to suppress religious freedom or force people to reaffirm transgenderism and personal pronouns. However, that does not give the right cause to embrace insanity. Society will receive no benefit from refusing to call Kayne West what he is because winning the culture wars is more important.
If the battle over free speech becomes a choice between supporting antisemitism or the radical left, the right may not like the American people's decision. To become better advocates of not just what we believe in but why, they should take a page out of Adidas’ book and reject those who would defend or excuse racism in all of its forms, even if it means admitting that we were wrong and the left and Adidas were right.