The following was written as my first speech to the chapter of Toastmasters International which meets in the town of Vernon Hills in Lake County, Illinois. The speech may or may not be delivered.
Thank you very much. Let's keep the applause going for our General Evaluator, come on. Worked his way up, all the way from private first class evaluator, give him a hand. ....But all kidding aside, Mrs. Evaluator must be very proud.
...Am I bombing already? How's this work? What's going on here? Alright-
...Am I bombing already? How's this work? What's going on here? Alright-
Thanks for having me, everyone. And I say "everyone" rather than "ladies and gentlemen", for the sake of being as inclusive and welcoming to new members as possible. I hope that our speakers will address the group with gender-neutral pronouns from now on; these include "everybody", "one and all", "my friends", "all of you", and my personal favorite, "comrades".
My name is Joe Kopsick, I grew up in Lake Bluff and now live in Waukegan. I found out about Toastmasters through a friend at the Lake County chapter of the Libertarian Party, which meets in Libertyville. I'm an avid writer; for the last ten years, I've managed a blog about politics, called the Aquarian Agrarian. And I'm a frequent candidate; I'm currently running for U.S. House for the fourth time.
Since I need to communicate my ideas and my platform - and considering that I've had some difficulties with respecting word limits and time limits, trying to include too much information in speeches, and memorization - I thought I'd reach out to Toastmasters for some assistance becoming a better public speaker. In the spirit of the saying "Good speeches aren't written, they're re-written", I have edited this speech multiple times. And in consideration of Toastmasters's tip to speakers - to "keep it light", I've found a way to talk about America's problems, without talking about them.
I don't expect to convert anyone here to libertarianism today, but I'm going to talk about one of our liberties that I think everyone in this room values: the freedom of speech (which includes the freedom of expression and the right to petition government for a redress of grievances). Without recognition of one another's freedom of speech, a group like Toastmasters could not exist. Toastmasters wants to help people communicate clearly and effectively; while those who wish to silence us want to stifle speech.
Unfortunately, there are more people who want to stifle speech, than we think there are. Too many people say "Don't talk about politics or religion." Well, I guess that explains why so many Americans feel comfortable talking about everybody's race all the time! Is being a race-obsessed culture really better than openly discussing politics and religion?
Ron Paul once said, "We don't have freedom of speech so we can talk about the weather; we have freedom of speech so we can talk about very controversial things." In the preface of Animal Farm, George Orwell wrote, "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."
As someone running for office, I have to be able to talk about problems with the public, if we expect to solve those problems. Chinese general military strategist Sun Tzu said, "Know your enemy". I want you to think of the problem as the enemy. Just like the enemy, we can't solve a problem if we can't understand it, and we can't understand it if we can't talk about it freely. It's only when we talk about problems freely, and maybe even think outside the box to approach a problem in a new way, that we are ever able to fix anything.
Unfortunately, instead of trying to understand our problems by talking about them out in the open, we are attempting to solve our problems by ignoring them and pretending they don't exist. Instead of coming to us as listeners to field our complaints and grievances about society's ills, our politicians come to us to reassure us about how hard they're already working to solve those problems. "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" has practically become the rule for how politicians talk to the public. They treat us like preschoolers who can't handle bad news.
This culture of ignoring problems instead of solving them, has gotten so bad, that it's given us people who are so "politically correct" that they are against talking about problems because it's "negative", it brings "bad vibes", "it's better just to talk about more cheerful things", and "the problem is not the problem, it's in the way you perceive the problem." ...When you say the people criticizing the problem are the problem, you're blaming the victim and shooting the messenger.
So why is this happening? Why are we so afraid to talk about "controversial" ideas that are outside the mainstream, even when they are potential solutions to our problems? It's because the line between what's "controversial", versus what's "offensive" or "upsetting" has been blurred.
I could come out and say "I'm against slavery, and here's why", and someone will interrupt with "You're not allowed to talk about that, because the topic of slavery upsets me." Or I could say "I'd like to talk about how to prevent genocides", and someone could say "A genocide like the Holocaust could never happen again, and the thought that it could, bothers me." So then I'm not allowed to talk about why I oppose slavery or genocide, because it might "offend" some people. Ridiculous!
And then, if I dare criticize the idea of time-and-a-half overtime pay, I'll get attacked for supporting slavery, because I want to cheat people out of money they worked hard for. Nevermind if my criticism of overtime is that it tempts and pressures people into working more than 40 hours a week for the extra money, meaning that they're overworked, and working when they're tired, and then tired at the end of the day when they drive home, putting other drivers in danger). Plus, for every person who works more than 40 hours a week, there's another person who can barely put together 30 hours a week.
So who's the one who wants to stop genocide and slavery, and stop overworking people? The guy criticizing overtime and slavery, or the person shouting me down, saying I'm not allowed to talk about either of those things? There is a saying that goes "The person who says it can't be done, should not interrupt the person doing it." I think there ought to also be a saying: "The person who says it could never happen, should not interrupt the person who's warning that it has already begun."
This prohibition on negativity in politics, has resulted in "confidence men" who reassure us that everything is fine, being the only people in power, and the only people with a national audience.
They tell us that, as long as we believe that change will come through "trusting the process", we will solve America's problems. Essentially, we keep electing politicians who tell us that we can only solve our problems if we do exactly what we did to get into them in the first place (which is the definition of insanity), and then we wonder why our problems keep piling up and not getting solved.
F.D.R.'s famous quote "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" may sound reassuring, but it really just means 'Trust your government to fix your problems; you should be more afraid of disagreement about how to approach the problem - and more afraid of dissent - than the problem itself." Roosevelt's promise of "freedom from fear" was the 1930s equivalent of "hope and change". We should call ignoring problems what it is; ignorance.
This ignorance of political problems is the political equivalent of asking someone how they are, and then tuning them out when they start to talk about their problems, because it's "negative". And not listening to each other, and not caring about each other enough, are societal problems unto themselves as well. According to a recent Gallup poll, 3% of Americans said they consider "lack of respect" the most important issue facing the country. Civility in politics and politeness in public have gone away, and many people don't feel safe to express themselves or speak freely.
If we want a society with fewer problems - and a society that admits that it has problems in the first place, then we have to respect other people's freedom of speech. And that goes whether they're talking about something "negative" or something "positive". The last time I checked, the first step to solving a problem is admitting that you have a problem.
We can't go on pretending that everything's fine, and that "unemployment is the lowest it's ever been, even since slavery, when we forced people to work"... Well if the unemployment rate is the most important thing in the world, then why don't we force everyone to work?
The less free we are to question our government (and the statistics it gives us, like the unemployment figures), the more we will resort to stupid ways to move forward (like pressuring more people to get off unemployment and go back to work before they're ready). We cannot fix America's problems with cognitive dissonance, denial, and silence. Silence is for people who want to live sheltered lives full of running and hiding.
We should not shrink from our responsibilities to make our society better, simply because changing things, and criticizing lawmakers who deserve to be criticized, will require us to deal with a little bit of "negativity". The rewards of solving the problems, will be well worth the negativity we will have gone through in order to solve them. This may all seem obvious, but common sense just isn't common anymore.
Anti-slavery activist Wendell Phillips said "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty". Nobody ever said that a free society would be easy to maintain. In that way, freedom may be somewhat "dangerous", and the cost of preserving our freedom of speech may be high.
But the cost of letting our problems pile up, without anyone being free to talk about new ways we could solve them, is higher. And no rational person should be willing to accept those costs.
To solving problems, and to free speech.
My name is Joe Kopsick, I grew up in Lake Bluff and now live in Waukegan. I found out about Toastmasters through a friend at the Lake County chapter of the Libertarian Party, which meets in Libertyville. I'm an avid writer; for the last ten years, I've managed a blog about politics, called the Aquarian Agrarian. And I'm a frequent candidate; I'm currently running for U.S. House for the fourth time.
Since I need to communicate my ideas and my platform - and considering that I've had some difficulties with respecting word limits and time limits, trying to include too much information in speeches, and memorization - I thought I'd reach out to Toastmasters for some assistance becoming a better public speaker. In the spirit of the saying "Good speeches aren't written, they're re-written", I have edited this speech multiple times. And in consideration of Toastmasters's tip to speakers - to "keep it light", I've found a way to talk about America's problems, without talking about them.
I don't expect to convert anyone here to libertarianism today, but I'm going to talk about one of our liberties that I think everyone in this room values: the freedom of speech (which includes the freedom of expression and the right to petition government for a redress of grievances). Without recognition of one another's freedom of speech, a group like Toastmasters could not exist. Toastmasters wants to help people communicate clearly and effectively; while those who wish to silence us want to stifle speech.
Unfortunately, there are more people who want to stifle speech, than we think there are. Too many people say "Don't talk about politics or religion." Well, I guess that explains why so many Americans feel comfortable talking about everybody's race all the time! Is being a race-obsessed culture really better than openly discussing politics and religion?
Ron Paul once said, "We don't have freedom of speech so we can talk about the weather; we have freedom of speech so we can talk about very controversial things." In the preface of Animal Farm, George Orwell wrote, "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."
As someone running for office, I have to be able to talk about problems with the public, if we expect to solve those problems. Chinese general military strategist Sun Tzu said, "Know your enemy". I want you to think of the problem as the enemy. Just like the enemy, we can't solve a problem if we can't understand it, and we can't understand it if we can't talk about it freely. It's only when we talk about problems freely, and maybe even think outside the box to approach a problem in a new way, that we are ever able to fix anything.
Unfortunately, instead of trying to understand our problems by talking about them out in the open, we are attempting to solve our problems by ignoring them and pretending they don't exist. Instead of coming to us as listeners to field our complaints and grievances about society's ills, our politicians come to us to reassure us about how hard they're already working to solve those problems. "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" has practically become the rule for how politicians talk to the public. They treat us like preschoolers who can't handle bad news.
This culture of ignoring problems instead of solving them, has gotten so bad, that it's given us people who are so "politically correct" that they are against talking about problems because it's "negative", it brings "bad vibes", "it's better just to talk about more cheerful things", and "the problem is not the problem, it's in the way you perceive the problem." ...When you say the people criticizing the problem are the problem, you're blaming the victim and shooting the messenger.
So why is this happening? Why are we so afraid to talk about "controversial" ideas that are outside the mainstream, even when they are potential solutions to our problems? It's because the line between what's "controversial", versus what's "offensive" or "upsetting" has been blurred.
I could come out and say "I'm against slavery, and here's why", and someone will interrupt with "You're not allowed to talk about that, because the topic of slavery upsets me." Or I could say "I'd like to talk about how to prevent genocides", and someone could say "A genocide like the Holocaust could never happen again, and the thought that it could, bothers me." So then I'm not allowed to talk about why I oppose slavery or genocide, because it might "offend" some people. Ridiculous!
And then, if I dare criticize the idea of time-and-a-half overtime pay, I'll get attacked for supporting slavery, because I want to cheat people out of money they worked hard for. Nevermind if my criticism of overtime is that it tempts and pressures people into working more than 40 hours a week for the extra money, meaning that they're overworked, and working when they're tired, and then tired at the end of the day when they drive home, putting other drivers in danger). Plus, for every person who works more than 40 hours a week, there's another person who can barely put together 30 hours a week.
So who's the one who wants to stop genocide and slavery, and stop overworking people? The guy criticizing overtime and slavery, or the person shouting me down, saying I'm not allowed to talk about either of those things? There is a saying that goes "The person who says it can't be done, should not interrupt the person doing it." I think there ought to also be a saying: "The person who says it could never happen, should not interrupt the person who's warning that it has already begun."
This prohibition on negativity in politics, has resulted in "confidence men" who reassure us that everything is fine, being the only people in power, and the only people with a national audience.
They tell us that, as long as we believe that change will come through "trusting the process", we will solve America's problems. Essentially, we keep electing politicians who tell us that we can only solve our problems if we do exactly what we did to get into them in the first place (which is the definition of insanity), and then we wonder why our problems keep piling up and not getting solved.
F.D.R.'s famous quote "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" may sound reassuring, but it really just means 'Trust your government to fix your problems; you should be more afraid of disagreement about how to approach the problem - and more afraid of dissent - than the problem itself." Roosevelt's promise of "freedom from fear" was the 1930s equivalent of "hope and change". We should call ignoring problems what it is; ignorance.
This ignorance of political problems is the political equivalent of asking someone how they are, and then tuning them out when they start to talk about their problems, because it's "negative". And not listening to each other, and not caring about each other enough, are societal problems unto themselves as well. According to a recent Gallup poll, 3% of Americans said they consider "lack of respect" the most important issue facing the country. Civility in politics and politeness in public have gone away, and many people don't feel safe to express themselves or speak freely.
If we want a society with fewer problems - and a society that admits that it has problems in the first place, then we have to respect other people's freedom of speech. And that goes whether they're talking about something "negative" or something "positive". The last time I checked, the first step to solving a problem is admitting that you have a problem.
We can't go on pretending that everything's fine, and that "unemployment is the lowest it's ever been, even since slavery, when we forced people to work"... Well if the unemployment rate is the most important thing in the world, then why don't we force everyone to work?
The less free we are to question our government (and the statistics it gives us, like the unemployment figures), the more we will resort to stupid ways to move forward (like pressuring more people to get off unemployment and go back to work before they're ready). We cannot fix America's problems with cognitive dissonance, denial, and silence. Silence is for people who want to live sheltered lives full of running and hiding.
We should not shrink from our responsibilities to make our society better, simply because changing things, and criticizing lawmakers who deserve to be criticized, will require us to deal with a little bit of "negativity". The rewards of solving the problems, will be well worth the negativity we will have gone through in order to solve them. This may all seem obvious, but common sense just isn't common anymore.
Anti-slavery activist Wendell Phillips said "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty". Nobody ever said that a free society would be easy to maintain. In that way, freedom may be somewhat "dangerous", and the cost of preserving our freedom of speech may be high.
But the cost of letting our problems pile up, without anyone being free to talk about new ways we could solve them, is higher. And no rational person should be willing to accept those costs.
To solving problems, and to free speech.
Written on January 25th, February 19th, and February 24th, 2020
Published on February 24th, 2020
Edited on February 27th and March 7th, 2020
Edited on February 27th and March 7th, 2020
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