Free-Dumb of Speech?

I was first introduced to the nuances of Free Speech in high school History. Teach played footage of a deranged group of religious folk infamous for stalking military funerals with signs touting cheery chant-alongs like “Pray for More Dead Soldiers” and “God Hates Fags”.  

To my adolescent surprise, all of it was legal. 

Sure, I believed people generally had the right to say what they want -- but at a funeral for the recently deceased with direct intent to mortify and antagonize the mourning?  

If there was a legal line to be drawn anywhere this had to cross it. 

But it didn’t, and as the lecture rolled on I came to agree with the rationale set forth by the Founders for why it is best that way.  

Thankfully, we don’t see much of the Westboro Baptist Church anymore. Yet controversies surrounding the First Amendment have heated in recent years and its boundaries have closed in from both political sides like we're trapped in that Star Wars trash compactor scene.  

In this blog, I make the argument that Free speech is the glue that holds this country together, with all our fragmenting differences, and if we let it slip one governmental power grab or hive-minded cultural taboo at a time, America itself will soon follow. 

This isn’t a partisan problem; it’s a power and precedents problem. 

Especially in recent decades, administrations on the left and right have encroached on the First Amendment and our general freedoms, usually after a national tragedy.

To keep this as bipartisan as possible, here is a mixed platter of examples from both sides. 

After 9/11, Bush enacted the Patriot Act to mitigate dissent for an ill-conceived war and force your shoeless kickers to stink up TSA lines across the nation. I’d hate to see what fetishes the Dubya has developed on OnlyFans since. 

Obama used the War on Terror as justification to heighten surveillance of American citizens and prosecute oftentimes righteous whistleblowers under the Espionage Act. 

Trump continues to deploy the national guard to (mostly) peaceful protests, fulfilling his authoritarian Xmas list and opportunistically using the murder of a supposed friend to censor political enemies and fire federal employees for voicing the ‘wrong’ opinions. 

Biden harnessed chaos in the COVID era to pressure social media companies to censor what it deemed to be misinformation (some of which later revealed to be true) but also of unfavorable political controversies such as that dreaded, cursed laptop. 

Censorship exists not only at the Federal level, but in culture too. 

For a time, the left was seen as the singular party of ‘cancelers’. It’s no secret several liberal universities expelled students for things they Tweeted in high school, and fired professors for beliefs that didn’t line up with progressive narratives. 

But now we see the tables flipped with many on the right demanding cancellation of leftwing talkshow hosts --- something made reality (almost) twice at the time of writing this, and directly at the whim of the President. 

Rightwing cancel culture has even extended to the workplace with folks fired for posting opinions on social media in the wake of the tragic and horrifying murder of Charlie Kirk. 

My point with this is not to rile everyone up...no, wait a sec...that’s exactly the point. 

Where we decide to draw lines for free speech versus hate speech is SUBJECTIVE and likely ever-changing as our perspectives develop with time.  

That’s the problem with all of this, when we defend the speech we agree with or find tolerable yet support consequences (politically & culturally) for anything that crosses our personal boundaries we pave the way for authoritarianism and a Big Brother state.  

THIS is why the First Amendment and the philosophy behind it are so important. We must allow free speech lines to be as wide as possible, to hold back our fears and furies, because if we don’t then we give power to current and future forces that can wield it for AND against us, depending on the administration, shifts in cultural tide, and insecurities of corporate elites.  

Cancellation of enemies may feel good in the present, but it’s cancer in the long-term. 

Now, to rub my rebutt on a few rebuttals...as I like to do on Sunday nights. 

Firstly, if your response to free speech and privacy encroachments has been “Yeah but the last administration did it, so we can too!” then I must ask... 

Are you a 6-year-old caught shoving your younger sister to the floor and crying “She started it!”?

Stick to your principles dammit -- we oughtta be ashamed of whataboutisms and hypocrisy, not promoting them. They are how the world burns. 

Now, the Paradox of Tolerance. 

There’s a common argument against wide-bound Free Speech called the Paradox of Tolerance.

Brainfarted by philosopher Karl Popper in 1945, the basic premise is that if we allow intolerant beliefs to enter the marketplace of ideas they will spread over time and melt away all the snowflakey tolerant ideas like a scalding sun over the glaciers of Everest. 

In other words, tolerance of intolerance => society of intolerance. 

To be frank, I’m not a fan. Not only for reasons listed earlier regarding the subjectivity of what one deems intolerant, but also...it’s such a cynical, pessimistic view. 

Do you really think intolerant ideas have that much inherent sway over human minds? Do you really believe folks must be coerced, even forced, into moral belief systems in order to maintain them? 

That sounds like authoritarianism with a cutesie wig on to me. 

Plus, and here’s a real brain-twister, isn’t being intolerant of intolerance an act of intolerance? The concept defeats itself with its own definition rofl #PopThePopper. 

Next up, the prerogative of corporations to fire employees over beliefs they espouse.  

In theory this makes sense. If a politically aroused employee vomits outrage-laden controversial opinions at staggering frequencies they could (depending on their role) have a direct impact on customers, the stock, and fellow employees. 

Where it becomes grey is...who sets the boundary for what is considered controversial? 

For this, I believe lawful terminations must be based around whether there is proof voiced opinions caused a tangible negative impact to the company (or promoted violence) -- focusing on economic outcomes rather than the arbitrary condemnation of ideas. 

[Not in scope: the President of the United States leveraging FCC authority to force a company to fire a political enemy. That is real, real bad and must be made illegal.] 

A more important question is...should employees be held accountable for what they say outside of work on personal social media platforms? 

My opinion? ABSOLUTELY NOT. 

Private corporations are not humans, we can regulate them, we do regulate them, and allowing employees to be canned on the basis of their personal beliefs is total lunacy. 

Think about it, to do otherwise is to open the floodgates for fearmongering, to force silence and obeisance on the masses to never speak out against political and cultural mainstays or else risk losing their means to livelihood. 

I don’t know about you, but that sounds like authoritarianism with a suit on to me. 

Maybe, like, with a briefcase full of rocks too. 

Finally, regulation of social media companies.  

This one is tough.  

On one hand, social media platforms should be able to police their content and user base since there are so many bots, maligned foreign actors, and trolls purposefully stirring the pot. And if someone doesn’t like the way one platform manages ‘misinformation’ --- whatever the hell that means – well they can simply join another. 

But on the other hand, social media has -- to great extents -- become the modern community. To segment ourselves into confirmationally biased silos is to essentially cut off communication and the osmosis of ideas from one camp to the other. 

That is a dangerous direction given where we are as a country. 

I’m not sure what the solution is. Maybe moving towards paid models to mitigate bots, dissuade trolls, and remove algorithms that incentivize and proliferate outrage-bait. We could also all spend more time outdoors and in our actual communities, as mentioned in my last political blog. 

Regardless of where we go, the important thing is to recognize that promoting differences in opinions and honest conversations within communities (online or otherwise) is healthy for you and your society and should be mindfully sought out in your online cravings. 

[Not in scope: the President of the United States directly pressuring social media CEO’s to censor specific, politically unfavorable misinformation. That is bad + should be illegal.] 

What happens if we lose it? 

Most countries don’t have what we have. 

In some countries, journalists and civilians are killed for voicing their opinions. 

In some countries, surveillance systems and Big Brother socio-economic environments prevent citizens from forming their own opinions in the first place. 

Unfortunately, there is now a trend against free speech norms in democracies too. 

In September of this year, Irish comedian Graham Lineham was arrested for dumb but harmless Tweets he posted 5 months prior. As part of his bail, he is now restricted from posting opinions online. He has been effectively silenced. 

This sort of thing is growing globally. 

The Irish government can get away Scot-free because they don’t have Free Speech built into their Constitution. And that’s why it’s so damn important we keep ours alive and culturally healthy. Countries that don’t allow totalitarian trends like this to manifest. 

Yes, there are boundaries to set—inciting violence, targeted harassment, defamation, true threats, etc—and our laws already do a decent job covering them. 

But words are not the same as violence. They never will be. Any faction or community who says otherwise is full of dangerous bollocks. In fact, words are what keep us from violence—it's when words disappear that you'll know we're past a point of no civil return. 

Disagreement is both the jet fuel and the failsafe of a healthy democracy. 

Truth emerges from the clash of ideas. Bad ideas are defeated by better ones, and the arc of socio-moral progress hikes towards the sun. 

Despite what your friend's recent half-baked Instagram story may be positing, there will be no permanent defeat of the opposing party. And if there is, trust me, you won’t want to live in the world that emerges from that rubble. 

Until then we have to find a way to co-exist—not to get along, not to like each other, not to agree on everything or anything—but to respect the right of our neighbors to voice their opinions, watching actively yet patiently as ideas fight our existential battles so we don’t have to. 

It’s not a perfect system, but it’s so much better than the alternative. 

Much love y’all and keep fighting the good, peaceful fight.