It’s Not ‘Free Speech,’ It’s Bigotry
If they really believe in free speech, this is how we’ll know
Today there is a great deal of hypocrisy that invokes so-called “free speech.”
Free speech is the right to find your own creative ways to voice your ideas — as long as you aren’t inciting or planning criminality — without having the government shut you down just because they don’t like or understand your philosophy or identity. Free speech is the right to ask around in search of people and institutions who might want to listen to your message or help you get your message out. You still have to find your own friends and colleagues, build your own platform, and piece together your own message, but everyone has the right to make that effort.
Unfortunately, many people who wave a “free speech” banner do not actually care about free speech for everyone. They only care about maintaining their own platforms, audiences, and optics. They want to look good and be rich and famous. Of course, they have no right to that. But these hypocrites misrepresent the right to free speech as their own entitlement to a fawning audience and as their prerogative to harass anyone they perceive as as an ideological opponent or rival.
