By Nathan Barton

The Blaze reports “Facebook bans quotation by St. Augustine of Hippo and calls it ‘hate speech,’ Catholic writer says”

What was this awful quote that Facebook says “goes against our community standards on hate speech.”?

Let us never assume that if we live good lives we will be without sin; our lives should be praised only when we continue to beg for pardon. But men are hopeless creatures, and the less they concentrate on their own sins, the more interested they become in the sins of others. They seek to criticize, not to correct. Unable to excuse themselves, they are ready to accuse others.

Oh, dear. In this text, Augustine (a 5th Century religious philosopher) is paraphrasing Jesus Christ’s words in Matthew 7:3 – ‘Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye?’

That, of course, is definitely hateful, isn’t it?

Most of us see it as the opposite of hate speech – it is to do with love for one another.

Perhaps it is because this quote says that men are sinful, thereby lumping “Progressives” (Digressives) and “women of color” and border jumpers and antifa right there with Trump, Libertarians, Conservatives, and all of the rest of poor, imperfect, sinful humanity.

Maybe it is because he says that “men are hopeless creatures” since that is exactly the opposite of neo-liberal, socialist, communist, tranzi concepts that man will evolve and is evolving into something that is perfect and glorious (as they define those).

Or perhaps it is because of the last couple of sentences: “They seek to criticize, not to correct. Unable to excuse themselves, they are ready to accuse others.” After all, are we not seeing on the national headlines how much both Trump and the never-Trumpers (especially the Democrats in Congress) love to criticize and accuse each other? (Do you think any of them can quote Matthew 7:3 AND actually apply it to their own lives, actions and attitudes?)

Or is it just because the quote is by an old dead white man (or so they assume), promotes a religion that is anathema to Facebook and its kind, and offers a philosophy that is opposite of the narcissistic foundation on which Facebook is built?

Or just plain hating the idea that someone, somewhere, might be living freely? Enjoying the liberty that God gave to all humans?

Whatever the reason, it reminds us that private tyranny is no more endurable than “public” (governmental) tyranny. And encourages us to drop any use, much less dependence, on such top-down communities as Facebook.

It doesn’t hurt to remember that the speech which most needs protection as “free speech” are those very words that offend us the most. That is a concept that both sides of the usual political battles too often forget (As do sometimes even those of us offering the alternative of liberty and living in freedom, peace, and prosperity.)

But for those of us who love liberty and try to live free AND let others (even HELP others) to live free, this should remind us also that such hubris and inabililty to take an honest look at ourselves in the mirror is bad.  And that we can fall into that error easily, when we seek to defend ourselves and point out the shortcomings (and even the outright evil) that we see in government, politicians, and our political opponents. We can fight against that without becoming like those people and their behavior.