Free Speech

All of Us Are in Danger

by John W. Whitehead October 7, 2022

“If you can’t say ‘F@#k’ you can’t say, ‘F@#k’ the government.’”— Lenny Bruce, comedian Anti-government speech has become a four-letter word. In more and more cases, the government is declaring war on what should be protected political speech whenever it challenges the government’s power, reveals the government’s corruption, exposes the government’s lies, and encourages the citizenry to push back against the ...

Get Ready to Be Muzzled: The Coming War on So-Called Hate Speech

by John W. Whitehead May 19, 2022

“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freedom of speech.”—Benjamin Franklin Beware of those who want to monitor, muzzle, catalogue and censor speech. Especially be on your guard when the reasons given for limiting your freedoms end up expanding the government’s powers. In the wake of a mass shooting in Buffalo, NY, carried out by an ...

Elon Musk, Twitter, and Freedom of Speech

by Laurence M. Vance May 2, 2022

By now, the whole world knows that Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX—and the richest man in the world—is buying Twitter for $44 billion and taking the publicly traded company private. Musk, who has called himself a “free speech absolutist,” said in a press release: Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, ...

Cancel Culture’s War on Free Speech

by John W. Whitehead January 19, 2022

“Political correctness is fascism pretending to be manners.” — George Carlin Cancel culture—political correctness amped up on steroids, the self-righteousness of a narcissistic age, and a mass-marketed pseudo-morality that is little more than fascism disguised as tolerance—has shifted us into an Age of Intolerance, policed by techno-censors, social media bullies, and government watchdogs. Everything is now fair game for censorship if ...

The Government’s War on Free Speech

by John W. Whitehead March 10, 2021

“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” — George Washington It’s a given that the government is corrupt, unaccountable, and has exceeded its authority. So what can we do about it? The first remedy involves speech (protest, assembly, speech, prayer, and publicity), and lots of it, in order to ...

The Right to Refuse Service Should Be Universal and Absolute

by Laurence M. Vance January 27, 2021

From New York to Florida, businesses are asserting what they believe is their right to refuse service. It brings up a number of questions. Do these businesses have such a right? Should they have such a right? Should such a right be universal? Should such a right be absolute? What about discrimination? What about fairness? What about equality? What about ...

Federal Censorship Protects Leviathan’s Crimes

by James Bovard December 1, 2020

Ever since the 9/11 attacks, Republicans and Democrats have conspired to keep Americans increasingly ignorant of what the federal government does. The number of secret federal documents skyrocketed, and any information that was classified supposedly cannot be exposed without dooming the nation. Politicians and federal agencies recognize that “what people don’t know won’t hurt the government.” James Madison, the father ...

Donald Trump, Flag Burning, and the First Amendment

by Laurence M. Vance October 1, 2020

Earlier this year, Germany’s Parliament passed an amendment to outlaw the burning of foreign flags, including the flag of the European Union. The vote was in response to an anti-Israel rally held on the streets of Berlin in which protesters burned Israeli flags. The penalty is a maximum of three years in prison. Burning the German flag is already ...

Self-Censorship and Despotism Over the Mind

by Richard M. Ebeling August 12, 2020

The political atmosphere in the United States today is one of the most divisive and polarized in a very long time. In my lifetime, the only period with which I can compare it is the 1960s and early 1970s during the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement, when there were demonstrations on the streets of many cities throughout ...

A New Kind of Tyranny

by John W. Whitehead November 7, 2019

What happens to Julian Assange and to Chelsea Manning is meant to intimidate us, to frighten us into silence. By defending Julian Assange, we defend our most sacred rights. Speak up now or wake up one morning to the silence of a new kind of tyranny. The choice is ours. — John Pilger, investigative journalist All ...

How the Police State Muzzles Our Right to Speak Truth to Power

by John W. Whitehead June 6, 2019

“History shows that governments sometimes seek to regulate our lives finely, acutely, thoroughly, and exhaustively. In our own time and place, criminal laws have grown so exuberantly and come to cover so much previously innocent conduct that almost anyone can be arrested for something. If the state could use these laws not for their intended purposes but to silence ...