Is the PC Culture Really “Corrosive?”

I’ve heard lots of people say that political correctness is equivalent to shutting down free speech, but I’ve never understood it.

Take the most offensive and least PC thing you can think of.  Maybe it’s the Proud Boys saying that the U.S. is a nation of, by, and for white people and that people of other races are not welcome here.  Can they openly make comments like this?

Of course!

It won’t happen on a college campus, because colleges have the duty (on top of the right) to ensure that students whose parents are writing big tuition checks aren’t exposed to hateful bull**** being presented as fact.  I haven’t been back to my alma mater in the four years it’s been since my last reunion, but I’m quite confident that the history department isn’t presenting lectures suggesting that the Holocaust was a hoax, the physics department isn’t sponsoring flat-Earthers, and the biology department is not passing out leaflets on White supremacy.

But can the Proud Boys stand on a street corner with a bullhorn and say whatever they please?  Sure (if it’s not illegal, i.e., a solicitation to violence).  Such statements will put a hard limit on how they’re regarded by civil society, but that’s the price anyone can expect to pay for becoming a pariah.

Moreover, private companies have the right to ban whatever speech they choose.  When I formed 2GreenEnergy in 2009, I made a rule that obscenities that are abusive against me or fellow commenters are not permitted; I’m sure there is still language somewhere on this site to that effect.

Likewise, social media platforms like FaceBook and Twitter can refuse to be conduits to transmit incendiary language, like incitement to storm the Capitol.