Free Speech Is More than the First Amendment

 

There is a lot of talk about free speech these days and rightly so.  The squelching of the ideological right had been a covert process for many years but now is overt and transparent to see.

This great silencing is not the direct result of a first amendment violation, as the government is not the guilty party to date.  If it were, it would at least be much easier to identify and develop a strategy to stop it.

Instead, we see the titans of private industry and cultural trend leading the way.  For decades a mainstream media created public narratives through entertainment and news.  Now, the internet age has produced companies which control the primary avenues of communication and free expression.  While these are free market enterprises, the sheer size and power they wield is enormous.

It’s the kind of power that begins when a company like Twitter arbitrarily bans opposing viewpoints, only to have other like-minded tech giants (Apple, Google) prohibit the download of a competing app (Parler).  If that’s not enough, another link in that chain (Amazon) then cuts off server hosting for the app.  This kind of monopolistic bullying will only set a precedent for more blatant attempts to shut down opposing viewpoints.

These manifestations can be difficult to isolate and engage because they are often veiled under guise of private business or a floating standard of morality.  No one should be arguing that a private company cannot implement policies as it sees fit, but we should be resisting the impulse to shut up those we disagree with.  It’s simply destructive to society.

I’m not putting forth a conspiracy theory where all of the biggest companies are working together in coordinated fashion nor am I implying that we have a full-blown oligarchy.  This is actually something far worse.  It is the result of like-minded people who gain any sort of majority (economic or political) and become content to silence opposition. That is mob-rule.

The populist passions of mob-rule is nothing new.  In Federalist Paper No. 10, James Madison eloquently noted how natural “factions” will occur but they are best balanced when opposing factions both have voices.

“There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by
destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving
to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.”   

Madison goes on to say;

                 “But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life,”

The dangers of mob-rule mentality are often evidenced by the elevation of one group’s intelligence and morality to be superior to that of another.  This is not the mere dissemination of religious orthodoxy or secular worldview.  Of course, there will be debate on such issues.  It is however an attempt by one side to portray the other as ignorant, unintelligent, dangerous, bigoted, uncaring, and immoral, all for the purposes of marginalizing them and increasing one’s own power.  If you gleefully celebrate the silencing of someone else, that should be a huge warning flag that you are open to authoritarian tendencies.  If you support privatized methods to silence others, what will stop you from using political power to do the same?