March 18: When Free Speech Stands Trial

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Liberal: A supporter of a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy and free enterprise.

There you have the dictionary’s liberal, Mr. Webster’s liberal.

This liberal is a spacious and tolerant fellow. This fellow is all right.

His liberalism is… if we can say it for ourself… the liberalism of The Daily Reckoning.

We are with Mr. Jefferson:

“It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”

Nor does it pick our pocket — or break our leg — if a man believes the United States is the greatest nation of Earth or the least nation of Earth…

Or if he lists politically to starboard or politically to port…

Or if he believes Donald John Trump is an angel of God or an angel of Satan…

Or if he believes Joseph Robinette Biden is a sharp tack or a dull, dull blade.

It is all one to us — so long as he respects our pocket — and our leg.

Yet we fear today’s “liberalism” is not Webster’s liberalism. We fear pirates have hijacked liberalism.

And they steam under false colors.

Consider, for example, free speech. Pew Research reports:

The share of U.S. adults who say the federal government should restrict false information has risen from 39% in 2018 to 55% in 2023…

Democrats are more supportive than Republicans of tech companies and the U.S. government restricting extremely violent content and false information online. The partisan gap in support for restricting false information has grown substantially since 2018.

“False information” according to whom?

Recall the great plague of 2020. Government — in active conspiracy with “social” media outlets — taped the mouths of authentic experts who flouted the government position…

On facial masking, on medications, on vaccines.

Subsequent evidence has validated and vindicated many of the muted.

Whose information, then, has proven false? And why should you trust them?

The only forbidden opinion — in our opinion — is the opinion that forbidden opinions exist.

If an opinion is horrifically toxic, take it outside.

Expose the thing to the light of day. Let the sunlight disinfect it — if solar disinfection it requires.

If it withstands trial by solar radiation, then it withstands trial by solar radiation… whomever it offends.

And if it fails the solar trial, it fails before the world’s judging and knowing eyes.

Keep it dark and the thing spreads and spreads… like mushrooms in a dank cave.

Yet many of today’s “liberals” — by no means all, in fairness — would keep it dark.

But why? What happened to the customary liberal of open mind and spacious spirit?

We believe we harbor the answer. We further believe the answer reduces to one word: Power.

In the 1960s “liberals” decried and denounced “the man” — the oppressive man. Yet they have since taken their long march through the institutions…

Goose-stepping through the professors’ lounges of the universities… through the halls of bureaucracy… through the newsrooms… through the production studios… through the human resources departments of corporations.

Once safely inside, they raised the drawbridges and pulled up the ladders. Society’s commanding heights were theirs.

Thus yesterday’s dissenting liberals have become today’s conformist authority. They have become… in brief… the very man they once opposed.

And the man does not abide dissent — be he left, be he right.

To him, dissent is of the devil. As are the dissenters themselves.

That is, today’s liberal is often a theist out to scotch sin rather than a detective out to hunt truth.

Is it any wonder that trust in the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation is presently greatest among liberals?

The Daily Reckoning is not merely bipartisan. It is anti-partisan — and fiercely anti-partisan.

Why then are we training our cannons on liberals today?

It is because we have something to say and we like to say it. We like to hear ourself chirp.

We merchant opinion — often disreputable opinion.

This sets us crosswise with today’s mouth-tapers.

Ours is a tiny, tiny voice. We are but a minnow among whales.

Yet we will not be told what we can say… and what we cannot say.

If the censor’s tape comes out, our blood goes up, our back goes up — and our dukes go up.

And as we see it, the principal threat to speech springs primarily from one side of the political divide — at least today.

If the other side comes for speech, you can just bet we will have something to say about that too.

Here is our eternal bellow:

Free speech yesterday, free speech today, free speech tomorrow, free speech forever and ever… world without end.

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