Live from Music Row Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed official guest host Grant Henry in the studio for another edition of Grant’s Rants.
GRANT HENRY:
Ladies and Gentlemen, Elon Musk just bought Twitter. And as it turns out, all the people losing their minds over this buyout are the same people driving a Tesla. There’s never been a dumber time to be alive. Many have already claimed that this could possibly be the greatest victory for free speech in the 21st century.
And while I’m cautiously optimistic, I also know that we have a long way to go. Now is the time when we do our best to verify before we even begin to trust. Now, the way I see it when it comes to free speech, there are two versions of Elon Musk.
Version one can be seen in Musk restricting speech on his other platforms, such as in section nine of Starlink’s terms of services, where it says, “Using these services in a manner that is obscene, cruel, racist in nature, or incites bigotry and hatred, are examples of conduct which may lead to the termination of your service.”
Or version two can be seen in recent tweets by Elon saying the following, “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.
I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter because that is what free speech means.” We all need to do as much as we possibly can to hold Musk and everyone else, for that matter, accountable to that second version of interpretation.
So the conversation of free speech is no longer relating merely to a legal interpretation of the First Amendment. We are in a time where the underlying precepts of freedom of thought are at risk. We are all afraid to say what we think due to social ostracism, political attack, physical attack, and the loss of our jobs.
Not because of some law restricting what we can and cannot say. I’ll put it this way, why does the First Amendment really even matter if we’re self-censoring? You see, we all have finally entered the times that George Orwell warned us of.
If large numbers of people believe in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech even if the law forbids it. But if public opinion is sluggish and inconvenient, minorities will be persecuted even if laws exist to protect them.
The basic life philosophy is that it is okay to disagree with someone, that is what’s under attack. Without this, we cease to function as a free society. And as the Supreme Court told us years ago, the remedy for free speech that is false is speech that is true.
This is the ordinary course of a free society. The response to the unreasoned is the rational; to the uninformed, the enlightened; to the straight-out lie, the simple truth. Are you starting to get what I’m saying here? This thing that’s going on right now, it’s bigger than just Elon buying Twitter.
Yes, Twitter is a private company and it can do whatever it wants. But this is about what we all collectively believe to be the overarching virtues and values surrounding our First Amendment. Do we really actually believe in an unencumbered exchange of ideas where the truth will out?
If so, we are duty-bound to reinforce those ideas on the largest stage possible. And if there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that we should not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds that idea itself offensive or disagreeable.
Censorship reflects society’s lack of confidence in itself. It’s a hallmark of an authoritarian regime. And if we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, then we don’t believe in it at all. I say Milton was correct.
Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience above all liberties. Elon Musk has merely presented us with an opportunity. A chance to test whether we truly believe that without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom. No such thing as public liberty.
It’s time for all of us to decide if the new motto of Twitter will be the following: I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Listen to Grant’s Rant:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
