Are newly legislated rights stemming from Social Justice activism real rights -- or real restrictions?
Beware the Faux Rights Movement. Elected officials hire staff specifically to monitor public opinion. Politicians gauge the feelings of their "base", re-election being their top priority. That's not new, there's always been a "loudest voice gets heard" syndrome -- it's part of democracy -- but it's amplified by the ubiquity of social media. Now, politicians re-frame waffling as "pivoting", and assure us they're "listening", especially to anything demanded by any group called "marginal".
So the new (2020's) loud voices that demand and accuse are the self-identified stigmatized, victimized, racialized, ethnicized identity groups who want recognition (preferably in the form of financial compensation) plus lots of new legislation meant to criminalize other people's attitudes toward them.
As commentator Matthew Crawford puts it, victim dramas conjure up a "permanent moral emergency" which justifies deepening penetration of society by bureaucratic authority. The authorities hasten to pass laws which limit speech and any expression of dissent about popular victim-narratives. In the rush to limit rights of any group considered "privileged", ever more laws and restrictions are fashioned to re-shape society from above. Yet, in practice the leaders are following the popular movements of the day; they don't risk leading.
Thus, a prime minister can, with a straight face, pronounce that the desire of parents to know what gender ideologies their children are being taught at school, is an expression of "hate". And hate, of course, must be outlawed -- 'though that's a hopeless cause because no one can outlaw emotion. Hate is an emotion, and repressive bureaucracies only stoke it.
Only guard rails protecting the freedom to speak, to air and compare attitudes out in the open, can disperse the build-up of tension and resentment against other identity groups.
An obligatory "rights" movement is the friend of no group. Repeating the slogans of the grievance industry is necessary for officials, to avoid being fired. Many bureacrats, media commentators, and chairpersons have been; so it's a survival tactic. Sincerity however does not survive. Faux allegiance to grievance-groups by politicians and bureaucrats naturally wanting to keep their jobs, is not true help for anyone.
