We are not granted the right to speak freely. That is an integral part of our humanity, a God-given, natural right. The 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution merely restricts the government from attempting to control our free speech.
Except...the inexorable slide into totalitarianism that began with the 28th president, the unrepentant racist and socialist Woodrow Wilson, has accelerated over the past 20+ years, and we are now faced with the total destruction of our freedom. Because without free speech, what do we have?
But there are signs of a revolt against this galloping fascism, and Matt Taibbi has planted his freedom banner firmly in the earth! Sure, he can be a wackadoodle, and I recall at least one of his articles claiming that Donald Trump is "infamously corrupt," without the silly little detail of facts to buttress his claim.
Here is the full text of his recent speech, and it is absolutely worth reading in its entirety.
Matt Taibbi Full Speech at "Rescue the Republic" Event in Washington, DC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTfe8sP-KPM&t=1376s
“Freedom of speech” is a beautiful phrase, strong, optimistic. It has a ring to it. But it’s being replaced in the discourse by “disinformation” and “misinformation,” words that aren’t beautiful but full of the small, pettifogging, bureaucratic anxiety of a familiar American villain: the busybody, the prohibitionist, the Nosey Parker, the snoop.
H.L. Mencken defined Puritanism as the “haunting fear that someone, somewhere is happy.” That streak of our early European settlers unfortunately survives in us and keeps surfacing through moral panics. Four hundred years ago it was witches, then it was Catholic immigrants, then “the devil’s music,” comic books, booze, communists, and now, information.
Because “freedom of speech” is now frequently described as a stalking horse for hate and discrimination — the UN High Commissioner Volker Türk scolded Elon Musk that “free speech is not a free pass” — it’s becoming one of those soon-to-be-extinct terms. Speech is mentioned in “reputable” media only as a possible vector for the informational disease known as misinformation. Soon all that will remain of the issue for most people is a flutter of the nerves, reminding them to avoid thinking about it.
The end game is not controlling speech. They’re already doing that. The endgame is getting us to forget we ever had anything to say.
As we all know, particularly from Orwell, and as Taibbi points out in his speech, the ultimate point of manipulating language is to take away the vernacular of freedom and liberty. If we do not even have the means to express ourselves, then we are merely serfs.
His last few paragraphs make that point quite forcefully, and he expresses it in exactly the way the budding totalitarians in our government/media complex deserve to be spoken to!
We need to take off our oh-so-polite gloves. Speak to the censors as if they are the scum of the earth, because that is exactly who they are. They plot to destroy our freedoms, and they deserve our contempt and hatred and vitriol...loudly, at length, in public! Give them no quarter, push back at every opportunity, and never let them forget that we outnumber them.
https://ace.mu.nu/archives/411799.php
Controlled opposition? Surely you jest... I know, don't call you surely.
ReplyDeleteWell, sometimes I surely do jest. But not about the 1st Amendment.
Delete