Subject: A speech on Free Speech
By Matt Taibbi.

https://www.racket.news/p/my-s...

The entire thing is an excellent treatise on the topic of free speech, especially now that it's under attack by a collection of wannabe Bond villains:

After that I realized every American has a little bit of asshole in him. William Blake said, “Always be ready to speak your mind and a base man will avoid you.” Some struggle with this concept. Americans are born knowing it.

Incidentally propaganda is the same trick I saw in that restaurant. It’s always someone trying to make you feel bad for their weakness, their mistakes. Don’t be ground down by it. Stand up straight and give it back.

Which is why I say: Kerry, Hayden, Cheney, Adam Schiff, Craig Newmark, Reid Hoffman, Pierre Omidyar, Leon Panetta, and especially that Time editor turned self-appointed censor Rick Stengel should be packed in a rocket and launched into the fucking sun.

Let's be clear about our language. Madison famously eschewed the word toleration or tolerance when it came to religion and insisted on the words freedom or liberty instead. This became the basis for the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which in turn became the basis for the Bill of Rights. That's why we don't have “toleration of religion” or “toleration of speech.” We have freedom of speech. The right word for the right time.

To the people who are suggesting that there are voices who should be ignored because they're encouraging mistrust or skepticism of authority, or obstructing consensus: I'm not encouraging you to be skeptical of authority. I'm encouraging you to DEFY authority. That is the right word for this time.

To all those Snoops and Nosey Parkers sitting in their Homeland Security-funded “Centers of Excellence,” telling us day after day we must think as they say and vote as they say or else we’re traitorous Putin-loving fascists and enablers of “dangerous” disinformation:

Motherfecker, I’m an American. That sh1t does not work on me. And how can you impugn my patriotism, when you’re sitting in Klaus Schwab’s lap, apologizing for the First Amendment to a crowd of Europeans? Look in the mirror.

I’m not the problem. We’re not the problem.

You’re the problem.

YOU SUCK.

Thank you.