IT’S ONLY WORDS

…and words are all I have, to take your hearts away

I knock out my weekly Substacks for two main reasons. First, for my own therapy; to try and order my own muddled thoughts on this strange world in which we find ourselves. Secondly, I do so in a vain attempt to challenge and change - in my own puny way - narratives I find crazy or deleterious (or both). I’m a centrist and believe that the current Western “culture war” – which is indisputably being fought – is less a war between a Left and Right political polarities than between Reason and Unreason, and that the only solution is free expression and debate.

Which is why, before my last Substack, I tried to alter my Substack settings so as to activate the facility for subscribers to my Substack to pay me, while still allowing subscribers to access all my Substack content for free. I intend to donate Substack money I receive to New Zealand’s Free Speech Union. Because, in my view, an organisation exclusively devoted to the promotion of free speech and expression is about as worthy and deserving as it gets.

Wokeistan has tried and resoundingly failed to advance any convincing arguments that free speech is any threat to anything good. Wokesters can’t see, or studiously ignore, the facts that free speech has been integral to all truly progressive advances, from the abolition of slavery to the decriminalization of homosexuality.

Unfortunately, when I turned on my Substack’s “paid” facility, I mucked it up such that non-paying Subscribers didn’t get their customary email. I’ve tried to remedy that. Hopefully this works. Here’s my most recent previous Substack.

Fingers crossed, dear friends.