Dr. Brown is not an authoritarian. This much is abundantly clear within a minute or two of hearing him speak, but no more obviously than when he advocates freedom of speech in his video “If You Silence Others One Day They Will Silence You”.
Brown states outright:
“You know, when I’m invited to speak on a college campus I always ask if we can have a debate if I’m asked to come in to address a controversial subject, be it a religious subject or a cultural subject or whatever. I ask, ‘can we get someone from the other side to debate me so they can give their best shot?’ I want there to be an exchange. I want people to be challenged, I want my views to be challenged, I want to be able to challenge the views of others. And if we can’t find someone to debate, which is unfortunately quite common, then I’ll say I want there to be open mic Q&A afterwards. Because I want people to be able to raise objections and raise their issues. And if someone dissents and they’re arguing with me or something and I don’t have time to interact, I say call my radio show! One reason that we’re on talk radio is so we can get people to call in who differ, and this way we can have an open and honest exchange of ideas. And if your views are heinous and ugly, I’ll expose them! And if you feel that my views are heinous and ugly, then you get to expose them! Let us interact! Let us have freedom of speech, let us have exchange of ideas!”
As a cultural conservative, Brown does not endorse many of the changes within the country that have become normalized in recent years. He is a love the sinner, hate the sin kind of Christian who is absolutely sincere in his compassion and warmth even toward those he may not approve of. He refers to trans individuals by their biological sex and considers homosexuality deviance from God’s will. Simultaneously, he also recognizes that these subjects are sources of struggle or even pain for many (not the petty annoyance of “I’m not getting external validation”) then responds with kindness. Brown is also the kind of man who actively seeks to understand belief systems he finds uncomfortable. Where Islam is concerned this might mean examining texts and historical accounts, seeking interviews, or asking questions. For the radical Right it means being open to discussion with the current pastor of a historic black church, former KKK Grand Dragon Richard Harris. It means asking questions about belief systems within the klan and motivations for joining as well as what prompted the critical decision to leave.
Brown is not the ignorant, hateful, bible-thumping bigot of Leftist folklore. He does not try to pressure or intimidate dissenters, only to seek truth and positive outcomes through conversation as best he can.
Dr. Brown’s initial suspicion when his account was demonetized on Tuesday was that his interview with Harris prompted an objection given the presence of “KKK” in the title. He couldn’t understand why the content of the story itself would be considered offensive since it was an example of redemption and turning away from something morally reprehensible. With the high degree of respect Brown displays as general policy, it hardly seems reasonable to demonetize his other videos either.
But the regressive Left and their corporate allies are not reasonable. SJWs despise more than almost anything stories of redemption. They live in black and white fantasies that neither mix nor change, where giving offense is an unforgivable sin. To SJWs the only way to be worthwhile is to be “pure”, and to enforce that supposed moral purity as much as possible.
The truth is people are permanently stained by their bad actions, but also by their good ones. Everything counts, everything comes in degrees, everything contributes to the grand sum of identity. The idea that a person could be composed of complications and contradictions from those inevitable, messy parts of life is deeply disturbing to regressives. The idea that a conservative religious man who doesn’t endorse some of their favorite demographic categories can still be intelligent, polite, and empathetic is beyond their comprehension. Regressives equate disagreement with hatred and they equate hatred with violence.
Youtube is much the same.
In The Christian Post, Dr. Brown explains:
“For months now, we had noticed that almost any video we had with “Islam” in the title would get demonetized. But when we would request a review from YouTube, some of the videos would get reinstated.
Still, we had seen a drop of more than 65% in our AskDrBrown YouTube income, despite producing more, not less videos. What was causing this to happen?
We are a non-profit ministry, and every dime that comes in goes back into ministry work. Why the precipitous decline?
Well, no sooner did I see that the Grand Dragon video had been flagged than I spotted a note on our channel from YouTube. It explained that, if we had seen a drop in video income, it could be that our videos had been marked as not suitable for all advertisers.
That’s when the shocking reality began to unfold.
It wasn’t just a few videos here and there that were flagged. It was dozens of them. No, wait, it was pages of them. No wait, pages and pages of them.
Literally, in front of my eyes, I watched the pages grow – from 2 pages, to 5, to 7, to 10, to 15, to 20, to, 32 pages, each with 30 videos — so, more than 900 videos.
It wasn’t individual videos being flagged. It was our account that was flagged.
Suddenly, the vast majority of our videos had been demonetized since the content was ostensibly too controversial.”
Someone does not want Dr. Brown or people like him to make a living holding non-PC compliant discussions, whether it involves debate or fan outreach or academic study. These things are, in the eyes of the Left, solely their privilege. But the Left is not God and does not get exclusive rights to defining what is right or wrong.
By making increasingly arbitrary restrictions on social media, it is becoming ever more likely those of us who fall right of Marx will simply find alternative platforms. The schism between Americans is growing and, if Dr. Brown’s experience is any indication, it’s going to get worse before it gets better.
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