INTELLECTOPHOBIA & BULVERISM: INTELLECTUALLY DISHONEST THREATS TO FREE DEMOCRACY

The photo to the left demonstrates government Intellectophobia with a sign marking an Intellectophobic "No Free Speech Zone" within blocks of this Human Rights scholar's national Parliament, an undemocratic zone within which he and others can be arrested and jailed just for speaking Science in support of Human Rights Advocacy.

 . . . Instead of engaging in respectful dialogue with those who disagree with them (and wholly contrary to the truly democratic expression, “though I disagree with what you say, I will defend to the death your right to say it”), “Intellectophobes” seek to silence their opponents while hiding the weaknesses of their own opinion. . .

. . . “Intellectophobes” avoid admitting that the most pertinent facts and logic do not support their opinion, by shutting down all intellectually honest dialogue at the outset with the quick and easy but intellectually dishonest and unsubstantiated accusation that their opponents’ position is rooted in some kind of irrational “phobia” or “hate” or “racism,” in the hopes that being so (groundlessly) accused will intimidate their opponents into silence. This is what the Science of Logic calls the logical fallacy of the “argument from intimidation,” which is just one of many fallacies of distraction often used at the same time that dishonestly attempt to win an argument by distracting attention away from the key question and distracting attention away from rational honest assessment of the most pertinent facts and logical arguments. . .

As renowned linguist and insightful public intellectual Noam Chomsky said:

"If you believe in freedom of speech, you believe in freedom of speech for views you don't like. Goebbels was in favor of freedom of speech for views he liked. So was Stalin." [Goebbels was Hitler’s Nazi Propaganda Minister responsible for promoting anti-Semitism against Jewish humans which led to 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis in concentration camps; Stalin was the Atheist Soviet Communist Dictator behind the genocide of 7-10 million Ukrainian humans by forced starvation. Chomsky’s point is that both of these evil men responsible for millions of human deaths were in favor of free speech for views they liked, but supported the violent persecution of views they did not like]. "If you're in favor of freedom of speech, that means you're in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise" . . . [Chomsky said at another time] "If we don't believe in free expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." 

How unconscionable and damning it is for today's officially Pro-Choice political parties in power, that the views they despise so much that they have in some places actually legislated away Free Speech to utter them include the Pro-Life Foundational Principles of Human Rights and Democracy.  (See "The Limits of Freedom," below)

 . . . “Intellectophobes” (including all Pro-Choice abortion supporters and those who unthinkingly embrace new-fangled pseudoscientific ideologies) have strongly-held but ignorant opinions which they cannot back up intelligently with either established Science, sound Logic, nor established facts of History nor any other kind of facts. So, to “win” arguments without facts, or rather, to prevent any intelligent argument from taking place, they frequently rely on logical fallacies to distract attention away from the weakness of their position. Fallacies including (but not limited to) what the Science of Logic calls the ad hominem fallacy, “attacking the man” (instead of his argument); making “straw man” arguments which misrepresent the stronger position of their opponent, making it easier to criticize and “knock down” (without actually refuting the opponent’s actual, stronger position); making weak analogies or hasty generalizations about their opponents or simply calling them intimidating names (the “fallacy of intimidation”) all in intellectually dishonest attempt to associate those who disagree with them, with some more despicable group such as White Supremacist racist bigots, hoping those hearing or reading their “argument” will transfer their negative feelings about racists to their opponents, who usually are not racists nor haters with irrational “phobias,” but often have reasoned opinions supported by facts . . . Note that the suddenly-popular but ill-defined term “White Nationalist” appears to generally serve no purpose other than the intellectually dishonest purpose of intellectophobes getting people to without legitimate cause transfer their negative feelings about racist White Supremacists onto anybody who intellectophobes label a “White Nationalist,” just because “White Nationalist” sounds a lot like “White Supremacist.” When an intellectophobe knows that there is not near enough evidence to legitimately claim those who disagree with them are racist White Supremacist bigots, they instead label them “White Nationalists” hoping that that hearers/readers will (inappropriately) transfer their justly negative feelings about (the relatively few) actual White Supremacists to anyone who disagrees with them, and then dismiss their opponent’s (probably stronger) position and side with the intellectophobe. . .

. . . Intellectophobes use logical fallacies of distraction to dishonestly bolster intellectually indefensible anti-traditional opinions by attempting to intimidate traditional opponents into silence or attempting to convince others to simply dismiss their opponent’s stronger position by simply labelling their traditional opponents “phobes” or “haters” or “Nazis” or “Fascists” or “White Supremacists/White Nationalists/racists” and so on without being able to intelligently back up these intimidating accusations, and usually without even trying to, even though the burden of proof is on them to prove these extreme words apply to their opponents, which they most often do not. In any case, merely calling someone who disagrees any kind of names, especially new non-medical names claiming the opponent is some kind of psychologically irrational “phobe” or “hater,” as is now common from those not trained in honest logical thinking, is merely an intellectually dishonest way of avoiding logical argument they would most likely lose based on objective facts of History and/or Science and/or the rules of sound Logic (rules of Logic which those “intellectophobes” who call their opponents some other kind of “phobes” or “haters” most often know nothing whatsoever about). . .

. . . Note that it is not a case of “intellectophobia” to call people who call their opponents “phobes,” “Intellectophobes,” because the whole point of calling people “Intellectophobes” is to challenge them to actually engage in the respectful intellectually honest debate which they are avoiding by just calling their opponents some other kind of “phobes,” or “haters”. . .