By Brandon Martinez
Richard Spencer recently held a “free speech” rally to protest the violence of American leftists against right-wingers. He was himself sucker punched in the face by an Antifa terrorist. Spencer and others in the Alt-Right proclaim that they believe in an unfettered “freedom of speech.” But are they consistent?
When it comes to the sacred cow of Putin’s Russia, cucked rightists like Spencer say nothing about the dismal state of free speech in that country, which boasts laws that punish virtually anyone who disagrees with the Russian government on anything. Russia has “hate speech” laws in the form of “extremism” legislation that punishes expressions of ethnic separatism, nationalism, xenophobia, etc., but only for non-Russian ethnics that seek to secede from the Russian Federation. The law has been used against critics of the regime, including relatives of victims of the Beslan massacre for implying Putin was complicit in their relatives’ deaths. In 2014 Putin passed a Holocaust denial law banning opinions on the Second World War that contradict the official Russian/Allied version. Russian punk rock artists were jailed for doing an impromptu protest show in a church. Bloggers have been arrested. Russians have been flung in prison for years simply for reposting memes critical of the Russian state on social media. A Ukrainian library was shut down and its owner arrested for publishing Ukrainian literature deemed “Russophobic.” The Kremlin is even trying to ban Jehovah’s Witnesses as an extremist group. Dozens of opponents and critics of Putin have been murdered in contract killings that have all the hallmarks of KGB targeted assassinations. Media outlets have been shut down, sued and stifled for printing criticism of the Putin regime. Putin has put in place draconian internet censorship laws resembling the great blockade on information implemented by the Chinese communist dictatorship. Protests in Russia are routinely barred and oppositionists thrown in jail on trumped up charges. Even a mock protest with dolls holding signs was shut down by the Russian authorities! Not even 10-year-olds are immune from being arrested for public demonstrations.
And yet you hear nothing about this from the “free speech” warriors of the Alt-Right, many of whom praise Russia and Putin simply because he’s less “liberal” on social issues than some Western states. Spencer in particular is a rabid cuck for Russia. He’s married to a Russian woman who is a strident propagandist for the Kremlin and translates into English the works of Alexander Dugin, the Eurasianist hack who wants Russia to conquer Eastern Europe. Spencer even voiced opposition to commemorating or depicting in film the great Ukrainian famine, the Holodomor, because it makes Russia look bad.
This absurd love-in with Russia and its totalitarian state among some on the Alt-Right must be criticized. They can’t, on the one hand, pay lip service to “free speech” in America where it affects them, but then support a tyrant in Russia who does everything in his power to crush it.
