December 4, 2022

The Armageddon of Free Speech



My latest on American Thinker.

Let's hope Elon Musk at Twitter is prepared for an onslaught from the world's biggest players against freedom of speech.

Just a few days ago, as many will remember, Elon Musk trolled CNN by posting on Twitter a meme with a fake headline attributed to the the cable news network.  The image included a screenshot of anchor Don Lemon next to a stock photo of Musk.  The headline read, "CNN: Elon Musk could threaten free speech on Twitter by literally allowing people to speak freely."  Needless to say, CNN's public relations department quickly posted a screenshot of Musk's tweet, which included a disclaimer saying that the tweet was in violation of Twitter's rules.  In response, Musk brushed off CNN's response, tweeting: "Lmaoooo."  Those are the initials for "laughing my a-- off."

In addition to being funny, the episode was also in some ways incredibly meaningful and emblematic.  In other words, the "fake headline" was not so fake.  On the contrary, it was a brutal and effective synthesis of the way liberals, leftists, and progressives approach the issue of freedom of speech.  They put things less crudely; they are so often sophisticated intellectuals who speak elegantly and like to dance around things instead of getting straight to the point.  But the final result is always the same.  Their reproach for the supporters of freedom of speech — or what they call "free speech absolutists" —  is that "free speech is not simply about saying whatever you want, unchecked, but about negotiating complicated compromises."  According to the critics of Elon Musk, the "rhetoric of free speech absolutists" fails to understand that "for some speech to be free, other speech has to be limited."

It's curious that most of the time, their arguments are self-referential and self-assertive statements and propositions: "Like Trump, Musk has become the tribune of fascists and racists by way of adolescent contrarianism, an insatiable need to flaunt his control and a radicalising inability to cope with being told he's wrong on the internet.  For him, 'free speech' seems merely a vehicle for his delusional plan to make Twitter into a fawning 'digital town square' that he presides over."

Do you remember the medieval ipse dixit argument?  "He (Aristotle) said it himself," serving as a phrase capable of ending arguments.  Now it has become, "We (liberals, progressives, etc) say so."  It's true because we say it's true, and if you don't agree with us, you are a fascist/racist/homophobe, etc., and we don't want your kind here.  It's the contrary — o tempora, o mores! — of the answer Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis gave in 1927 to the question, "When someone says something we disagree with, should we shut them up?"  "The remedy to be applied," he said, "is more speech, not enforced silence." [...]