Free Speech Either is – or it Isn’t

Guest Post by Eric Peters

Rand Paul has been defending free speech again – the bastard.

He says Americans – everyone – ought to be worried about their freedom to speak (more finely, to read and hear about things the government and corporations don’t want them to read and hear about) being arbitrated by government – and corporations.

But, the Chinese!

They own Tik Tok! Even though – as the senator has had to explain to those who already know better – the “Chinese” do not own Tik Tok. There are Chinese people who own part of it. As well as Americans. All of which is completely beside the point that Paul has been trying to make. Which is that it ought not to matter who owns Tik Tok if you are opposed to the government and corporations owning what you are allowed to read and hear and also to where and how you’re allowed to say what you think.

That is the danger. This “bipartisan” (naturally; when it comes to important things, the Uniparty is always bipartisan) effort to ban Tik Tok or place Tik Tok under a regime of official supervision has nothing to do with protecting Americans from the wily Chinese. It has everything to do with placing what Americans are allowed to say and read and hear under the supervision of the corrupt authorities in Washington. The same horrible people who framed people who questioned whether a “pandemic” was afoot when the facts (such as case fatality rates) indicated otherwise as “superspreaders” of “misinformation” are itching to frame anyone who disagrees with any of their narratives as even worse than that.

This talk of “threats to our democracy” being no small threat to those who resent being told what they must pretend to believe and what they are allowed and not allowed to say, hear or read.

Make no mistake, they are going for broke. Because they have no choice. Free speech and authoritarianism cannot co-exist. You can have one – or the other. You cannot have both at the same time – and the authoritarians know it.

It’s why they began – decades ago – to frame obviously odious speech as a threat, implicitly (and, inevitably, explicitly) warranting that it be suppressed. So as to set the precedent for general suppression of speech the authorities find odious.

For example, it is already a criminal act in several Western (sic) countries to “question” what the official history narratives say the National Socialist regime that ruled Germany in the ’30s and early ’40s of the last century did to Jews and other unfavored people in what was then the Reich.

Obviously, the National Socialist were horrible people.

Authoritarian socialism is always horrible because authoritarianism is always horrible. What was done to the Jews and other unfavorable people – including people the National Socialists interestingly referred to as “asocial” people, by which was meant people who resented the regimentation of authoritarian socialism – was horrible. But it is horrible to adopt the tactics of the National Socialists to suppress the speech of those whose speech makes some uncomfortable.

However in error – or obnoxious – a person’s speech may be, it is a much greater error (and far worse than merely obnoxious) to tell a person he is not free to speak; that others are not free to hear or read. Indeed, the doing so makes people suspect there may be something to what is being said; else why the heavy-handed efforts to suppress it?

See that business about “misinformation” regarding what wasn’t a “pandemic.” Keep in mind the dirty business – regarding the regime’s collusion with corporate media to keep people in the dark about the truth. Think about how eager they are to criminalize the telling of it – as has already undergone Beta Testing in California, where doctors who spoke freely – and honestly – with their patients about the drugs that were neither necessary nor “safe and effective” were subject to punishment for so doing.

The truth being no defense.

Is it offensive to “deny” the Holocaust? Many think so. Many also think it is offensive – and ought to be a punishable offense – to “deny” that the “climate” is “changing” and that a man who dresses like and pretends he is a woman actually is one.

This “China” thing is just another ought-to-be-obvious excuse, like the one about “terrorism” that was used as the excuse to terrorize Americans, who after nearly a quarter-century of it have mostly gotten used to it.

Which, of course, was always the point of it.

Just as the point of this effort to place Tik Tok under government-corporate supervision has never been about who owns Tik Tok nor what is beign purveyed by Tik Tok – which people aren’t being forced to view or listen to, it bears pointing out. It is about owning what Americans are allowed to think and say by turning over to government arbitrage what they are allowed to hear and see.

The fact that some of the very worst  people – e.g., Nancy Pelosi – are the people most strenuously in favor while some of the best – e.g., Rand Paul – are opposed ought to tell you everything you need to know.

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