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Yes, I know. It should be the Three R’s. And that apostrophe shouldn’t be there – but it does make the phrase more easily recognised.

I’ve nothing against Arithmetic, in fact I enjoy it, but here I’m only referring to Reading and Writing. And this short blog entry is in honour of them, because without them where would we all be?

The development of language and writing is one of the essential ingredients of civilization. Reading and writing skills are essential in order to take part in even the simplest activities, and it is through them that we are able to articulate our thoughts and ideas.

I love reading and writing and couldn’t live without either. I’m thankful that I received a good education, especially in the subject of English. It has not only made my life so much more enjoyable but has enabled me to practise as a lawyer and, later on, run a business providing writing services to others.

Armed with these two skills, any one of us can find out almost anything we want. In earlier times we had public libraries where we could research on almost any subject under the sun. Now we have the internet, so we don’t even have to leave our homes, as long as we have a computer and an internet connection. And if we don’t, there are internet cafes.

It’s easy to take reading and writing for granted, but we must never forget the incredible advantage in life that anyone has once they have mastered these skills in their own language (and even more so if they learn other languages as well). But so many people stop improving their skills once they leave school (or even before).

They go through life with only the most basic ability in reading, writing and communicating generally. Often their vocabulary is limited to just a couple of hundred words, and the only reading they do is restricted to the tabloid press, with more pictures than words, and the TV listings.

This is a great pity. I know we can’t all love the same things (or, as my old headmaster used to say, we’d all want the same wife), but if the standard falls below a certain point, and if the standard in various other essential ingredients of civilization falls similarly, then we’re in the same situation the Romans were in around the year 400 AD.

So I urge everyone to keep reading and keep writing, because what you don’t use nature has a tendency to take away from you. And certain sinister forces are at work to take your freedoms away, as I said in my two previous blog posts, so be vigilant. Let’s keep our ten billion words plus one.

Beware of anyone who wants “hate sites” or anything of a similar nature to be “closed down in the interests of good community relations”. They want to abolish (even more of) your hard-won freedoms and entrench their own power over you. And the ability of ordinary folk to read and write are in their way.

So in the interests of freedom – long live the two R’s – the widespread ability to read and write exactly what we like.

Philip Gegan

How many words have been published on the internet?

Impossible to say, of course, and more words are being added every second at such a rate that it would be impossible to keep count. And it doesn’t matter anyway. But something else does matter.

And that is that all those billions of words are in exercise of the basic freedom of speech that most of us in the West take for granted. A freedom which our fathers and grandfathers marched off to war to defend. But that freedom is again under attack and we must defend it at all costs.

The diabolical Hidden Hand that would deprive us of this right uses the pretexts of pornography and so-called “hate sites” as an excuse to call for “control” (i.e. censorship) of the internet. But if they were genuinely concerned about pornography they could make it a crime and use the powers of governments to smash the criminal syndicates that run this ugly industry.

And as for “hate sites”, like “hate crimes” they exist only in the hidden agendas of these evil people, who will pin the “hate” label on anyone they disagree with but are afraid to engage in open debate (because they know they would lose).

If the Hidden Hand had their way, all the billions of words uploaded onto the internet would be worth nothing, for they would all have been written with an eye to keeping within the limits imposed by the thought police.

Only one word is worth anything, and that word is . . .

Freedom.

Let’s make sure we don’t lose it.

Philip Gegan

When I was a small boy and my mother read me the story about the Emperor’s new clothes I was intriegued by the notion that so many people could be made to see something that wasn’t there just because they would otherwise be made to look foolish.

Whenever I heard mention of the story later in life I regarded it as just another silly children’s fable that wasn’t meant to be taken seriously, that it didn’t matter if it made no sense.

But in recent years I’ve changed my mind. I believe Hans Christian Andersen, who
wrote that story, was making at least one profound statement. Apart from exposing the hypocracy of many sections of the aristocracy in his own country (Denmark) at the time, he was mocking the conceit of most people, and their acceptance of popular falacies in order to boost their own social standing.

Hence the readiness of everyone (except the child, who had no social ambitions or restraints) to pretend to see clothes that weren’t really there.

It’s the same with the cult of “political correctness”. How many people who regard themselves as politically correct, and who go out of their way to ensure others in their social group know of their conformity, really believe in the things they’re supposed to believe in? And how many just go along with these usually stupid beliefs for the sake of blending in with everyone else and preserving their careers and pensions?

This is one of the things the internet is helping to break down, but there is only limited time to do it. The enemies of freedom of speech and expression are working hard day and night to censor the internet and prevent any kind of dissident expression.

So whatever you write on your web site or in your blog, or in forums or on notice boards, write what you really think is right, what you really believe in. Exercise your freedom to express yourself as you want. Don’t allow yourself to be bullied into conformity.

Talking about producing work that we can be proud of and that enhances the experience of everyone else who comes across it led me to thinking about the creative urge in general and freedom of expression in particular.

Here in the West we like to think that we have true freedom of expression, but that is an illusion. We have had imposed on us restrictions on what we can say and write, at least in public. Years ago I wrote an article about this in New Law Journal called “Publish and Be Not Damned”, so I won’t go over this ground again.

But today we have fresh challenges to our freedom of speech, or expression. The culture of “political correctness” has frightened many people away from expressing their true opinions, in case they are immediately pounced on by politically motivated critics accusing them of various thought crimes in true Orwellian fashion.

The risk is extremely high when expressing opinions about equality, whether based on race, sex or age (unless, of course, your opinions accord with those who tend to occupy positions of power in publishing and the media). Also at high risk are opinions about crime and punishment (or the lack of it), various economic fallacies such as free trade, the desirability or otherwise of “multiculturalism”, and various events of recent history, all of which are surrounded by a virtual “electric wire”.

In many countries, for example, merely to question whether millions of Jews and others really were gassed in gas chambers by the Germans in the years 1941 to 1945 is a criminal offence, and there are many people serving prison sentences for transgressing this law. This is in spite of increasing evidence that much of the evidence used to support the “holocaust” story is in fact deeply flawed.

There is obviously something really wrong here, when just questioning orthodox history can bring such drastic results. The advent of the internet has initially been extremely beneficial for freedom of speech, because anyone can now publish their thoughts online at very little cost, without having to get their content past an editor.

But there are now well funded organisations working day and night to bring this to an end, to bring about the death of freedom of expression online. Certain organisations have the nerve to appoint themselves as self-styled “internet police”, and are pressing to have the power to issue “licences” to anyone who runs a web site or blog.

In other words, they want to restrict freedom of speech online, so that no opinions or research material that runs contrary to their own peculiar views escapes into the public domain.

This would be tyranny on a world-wide scale. We must all work to expose, whenever possible, those who would shackle freedom of expression on the internet.

Philip Gegan