Free speech

Monday 12/5/22

I don't think people really understand what free speech means. You can go out into the street and say most things into the air and not go to jail for them. You couldn't yell "fire" or that you were about to blow up that building over there or that you were going to molest that Girl Scout troop walking past. You'll be apprehended. But the rest of it, sure. You can express any dumb, hateful, sick thing you want. And that's pretty much what free speech means.

People like to think it means you can say anything you want and nothing can happen to you. Or that you can go on social media and say that Hitler kicks ass/rocks and that you just get to do this indefinitely or else it's "What about my free speech, bitches!"

Also: People are almost always horrible. They will cheat at anything. Very few people are governed by any real code of morality. Look at what I live and have to deal with. But to see people all surprised that voices were suppressed on Twitter and attempts were made to use the internet to silence people and win an election is almost amusing.

What do you think people do? And they do it up until they're caught, if they ever are. In every walk of life. Most people are bad people. A good person is hard to find. Very few people do the right thing and earn anything they get or want. They don't have consciences. The internet rules all right now. It wields so much influence and is the playing field that most matters at present. To our detriment as a culture, as a society, and as individuals. So that is going to be the place where people want to do the most rigging of a system. And they will. Until they're caught, exposed, and stopped. There should be no surprise in that, unfortunately.

Free speech is really a kind of jail-related thing. You won't go to jail is more or less the meaning of free speech. But that aside, yes, of course things happen based on what you say.

But we must apply nuance, which, sadly, is where just about everything becomes confusing for many people. You shouldn't be stopped from expressing your views, so long as they don't espouse hurting anyone. That's an area though where people try to insert and exploit loopholes. Take the subject of transgenderism, for instance. Democrats want to say that Republicans are hurting children with their views on the issue, and Republicans say the same thing at the same time about Democrats.

That's what everyone tries to do--to take a belief or an opinion held by someone they deem an adversary, and make a case, in their ham-fisted language in which they mostly just say the word "literally" a bunch, and various internet cliches, that the belief or opinion isn't only pernicious, but a kind of call to arms to hurt and even kill.

Both sides try to do that equally, for somewhat different reasons.

You have free speech to tell your spouse you're starting to love her less/bordering on not at all and will perhaps be done loving her by the middle of next week because she's stacking on the pounds. But that is likely to impact you adversely in that she will leave--which is to say, send you packing--because free speech does not translate to, "Eh, I'm sure it will be fine."