Donald Trump’s obscene efforts to shut up the speech of people he disagrees with have a lot of people talking about free speech. Democrats are acting angry and sanctimonious about the issue. Republicans are mostly defending their Dear Leader.
But it wasn’t that long ago when the roles were reversed. During the Biden administration, Democrats put pressure on tech companies to shut up speech they didn’t like. Because they went about it in a more pragmatic way — by putting behind-the-scenes pressure on companies such as Meta and Google to remove speech they didn’t like from Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and more, they were more successful than Trump has been.
The left wingers of the Biden administration and the right wing populists of the Trump administration share this in common. They both want to shut up speech that offends them — for one reason or another — and they want to complain when speech from their own allies is shut down.
In other words, they’re both hypocrites, even though each side pretends the other is the anti-speech monster. They’ve been lying to themselves for so long that they believe this. And they can’t see that they are mirror images of one another on this issue.
But let’s put aside their partisan idiocy for now and look at the broader issue of free speech. There are some things that every rational person should understand about free speech — no matter which side of the political mainstream you love and which side you hate.
So here are 11 quick points about freedom of speech, in no particular order:
1) Government has no moral right to control or punish speech of any kind, either overtly or through implied threats. Governments have always infringed on the rights of individuals to speak freely, but it was wrong hundreds of years ago and it’s wrong today.
2) Private actors — individuals, companies, organizations, whatever — have every right to disassociate from people whose speech they don’t like. What we call “freedom of speech” doesn’t apply in private relationships. You can legally say whatever you want, but private parties are free to imposes consequences on the relationships they have with you.
3) Government doesn’t have the right to control broadcast speech any more than printed speech. Because the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution specifically mentions “freedom of the press,” U.S. courts eventually took the position that governments can’t control printed matter. But politicians argued that broadcast was different. They argued that they ought to control broadcast speech, because that was in the “public interest.” That was never a valid moral argument, but it doesn’t affect the natural right each of us has to speak without political control.
4) Privately owned platforms — such as social media, for instance — don’t have any responsibility to allow speech they don’t want to allow. You don’t have any right to say what you want on Facebook or YouTube or any other platform that’s owned by anyone else, but you have every right to leave that platform if you disapprove of a company’s rules. (This is why I prefer to have my own site on the open web, because nobody can impose rules on what I can say here.)
5) Contrary to what you have been taught — and what most lawyers seem to assume — free speech is not a right that is granted by the First Amendment or by any government document. Politicians do not grant you any rights. They can choose to recognize a right or they can violate your right, but it’s your natural right regardless. Freedom to speak without government control is a natural human right, whether politicians recognize that or use their monopoly on violence to cheat you of your right.
6) You have the right to say whatever you want to say on your own dime, but nobody else is required to pay for your speech or tolerate your speech on their own property. If you want to say something — whether it’s religious preaching or vile hatred of others — you have the legal right to spread your words and ideas, but you don’t have the right to do that on someone else’s property. If a store has conduct rules, you have to obey its rules or else be forced out. If a newspaper doesn’t want to print your point of view, you can go start your own — if anybody will still read it — but you can’t force anybody to represent what you want said.
7) If you lie or mislead other people, you might very well be responsible for fraud against those people. They should be able to sue in a court for whatever damages occur as a direct result of your lies. (I’m inclined to treat all political promises as fraud, but that’s a cynical side point based on my time working as a political consultant years ago.) You can say things that aren’t true, but that won’t necessarily protect you from the consequences of your fraud. For instance, if you’re selling a car, you can express the opinion that somebody ought to buy the car, but you’ve committed fraud if you lie about specific facts about the fact — and someone relies on those facts in a way that leaves him damaged.
8) If you’re a decent human being, you will use your freedom to speak your mind in a responsible way, because civil society depends on voluntary cooperation by responsible individuals, even when idiots, con men and narcissists are misusing their right to speak freely. I don’t say things to people that are intended to hurt them unnecessarily. I sometimes will hurt people by telling the truth when it’s necessary, but I’m not going to intentionally insult and anger people just because I think they’re wrong. Just because you have the right to say almost anything doesn’t mean that a decent person doesn’t watch his words instead of insulting people for fun.
9) Contrary to what the political left has preached for decades now, speech is not violence. Even when you don’t like what’s being said and even if that speech is offensive to listeners, it’s just speech. Even if you hate the person you’re talking about, it’s not violence. And it’s sheer idiocy to pretend that speech you don’t like is violence.
10) The notion of “hate speech” is just an opinion. It has no rational legal meaning, any more than law can determine what is “funny speech” or “loving speech.” Calling something “hate speech” doesn’t mean you don’t still have the right to speak it. Carving out an area of public discourse and calling it “hate” doesn’t mean politicians have any moral right to punish you. Hateful speech might be impolite or mean, but that doesn’t stop your natural right to say it.
11) If you’re offended by someone’s speech, don’t listen to it. Don’t read it. Disassociate yourself from that person. Ask other people to shun him or her. Organize a boycott if you want. Argue with the person through your own speech if you think it’s worth it. But don’t pretend you have any right to make the person stop speaking the things that offend you.
Free speech is a natural right. Politicians have been trying to shut up the things they don’t like ever since the dawn of time.
This principle of natural rights applies far beyond speech. One of the most glaring historical violations was the vile human institution of slavery. This was a violation of the natural rights of many millions of people throughout the course of history. It didn’t become immoral just because governments started saying so. Politicians were slowly shamed into recognizing the basic right to self-ownership, at least to some extent. (I argue that every individual has the right to full self-ownership, but politicians still use force and threat of force to control us.)
We have a long way to go before all of us have our natural rights recognized by governments, but unless we can start with an understanding of what our rights are regarding speech, we can’t make any progress toward claiming all of the rights that are ours simply because we are human beings.
Right now, Democrats are acting as though free speech is their issue. A few years ago, Republicans acted as though it was their issue.
The truth is that free speech is everybody’s issue. You and I are born with natural rights — and insisting on those rights shouldn’t have anything to do with which political party you might (unwisely) support.
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