The Chief Twit and the Other Side of Free Speech

A lot of people are upset with Elon Musk lately.  It seems that way anyway.  But like anything else, it’s just the loud people who get attention.  There might be a thousand times more people who think Elon’s pretty cool but you can’t hear them over the screaming about how much he sucks.  I try not to pay much attention to the loud folks, but how can you help it?  They’re so loud!  So here I am, quietly voicing my defense of Elon Musk.

What did he do that has so many celebrities and liberals in a huff?  He bought a social media company and declared free speech on it.  He’s in favor of absolute freedom to post what you want on Twitter regardless of the offense it may cause among the rest of Twitter users.  He freed the tweets!  You evil sonuvabitch!

I’d like to think he read my post Free Speech and the Social Media Contract in which I suggested “all these folks suing Facebook could put their legal fees together and start their own social media platforms instead,” and ran with the idea.  But he knew it would be much quicker to buy one rather than start a new one.

Look, I could go on for days about the evils of censorship as well as the evils of racism, the immorality of misinformation, the virtue of truth, the ignorance of the “woke” mob.  I could…and so I will.  Quickly though, ‘cause it’s kind of boring.

We all know racism is bad, right?  Does that need to be explained?  No, in today’s outspoken society we all know about racism.  Hell, if Adolf Hitler spent a few weeks in our culture, he’d be appalled at himself.  Still, racism exists and in some places it still runs rampant.  We know this.  Should we hide it from the sensitive folk, or should we drag it out in the sunshine where it will wither and die?

Misinformation grates at my soul sometimes.  Or it used to.  I think 2020 desensitized me to the bullshit we all encounter in everyday life and social media.  A lie is one thing…that’s intentional and is generally aimed at achieving personal gain or averting a threat.  That’s human nature.  I don’t like it, but I understand it.  But when someone posts misinformation, it’s just a case of someone believing something they were told because it’s what they want to believe.  I call it “intentional stupidity.”  It’s as intentional as an outright lie because you purposely did not set your bias aside and consider the information objectively.  It’s just bias and again, its human nature.  Eh, can’t be helped.  Again, should we hide it?  Or should we expose it with objective evidence?

Why is truth so virtuous?  Because the Bible tells me so?  Or the Quran, the Torah, or any other holy texts?  Even in the absence of religion, truth has a certain virtue.  I assume it has something to do with selflessness. After all, white lies for the benefit of others rather than for the self are considered harmless.  In any case, most people want to be righteous (and not necessarily in the religious sense).  They want others to look at them as the beacon for truth.  “I am correct, so you should listen to me.  Hear me, all, and bask in my knowledge!”  Except most of it these days is opinion which rarely resembles anything near the truth.  If you’ve ever heard me say, “The truth is just a matter of opinion,” that’s (partly) sarcasm…I’m making fun of someone who thinks they are righteous.

What’s next?  Ah, “woke” folk (speaking of righteousness).  Wokeism is a prime example of righteousness run amok.  Woke people have opened their eyes to the truth.  They are awake, aware, and all-knowing.  These are people who believe in their own righteousness to such a degree that they cannot be disputed…anyone who does is a fascist and must be eliminated.  This is the foundation of “cancel culture” which seeks to discredit, discourage, and destroy anyone who speaks contrary to their beliefs. 

I understand, people as a whole are stupid and tend to be influenced by certain things that get in their heads and turn them into assholes…kind of like an infection.  Call it “influence-a” (okay, bad pun).  There’s no vaccine for this one.  Maybe natural immunity is the way to go in this case.  Expose yourself to it and fight it with your logic skills. Just remember to set your bias aside. You’re a veteran of the Misinformation Age…you have the antibodies!

And we need champions of truth…I’m looking at you, celebrities.  https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-lists/elon-musk-twitter-celebrities-quit-1234634670/shonda-rhimes-1234634695/ People look up to you (for some reason) and follow your ideals.  Don’t take your ball and go home!  Leaving Twitter is just code for “I’m too weak-minded to fight the hate and misinformation.”  The peons need you to stick around and set the world to right!

Whether you like Elon or loath him, he has nine-tenths of the law on his side…he owns the platform.  He can allow any form of speech he wants on his platform (except no “Fire!” in a crowded theater and similar).  I defended Zuckerberg and his censors for the same reason.  That one went against my grain, but I set my bias aside to write it.

But there’s one more thing I didn’t mention with regard to Zuckerberg…we need to hear the lies.  We need to hear them whether we want to or not.  If the interwebs was completely free of misinformation, would you then believe everything you read without question?  You would have no reason to question anything.  Your brain would wither on the vine…dry up, fall to the ground, and rot.  Eventually we’d be a nation of rotten tomatoes stinking up the joint.  Without Elon Musk and champions of free-speech like him, you’d simply have one source of all truth all the time…like Facebook and their fact-checkers which have been wrong in several cases.  Isn’t that exactly what Orwell warned us about?

True, private companies like Twitter and Facebook have no obligation to adhere to the First Amendment.  But fair and free debate was a founding principle of our nation.  That’s why they put it first in our Bill of Rights.  Seems like an admirable standard for all of us to follow.

I like Elon.  He’s got a big brain, big ambitions, with an ego and bank account to match.  He’s a modern Howard Hughes. He’s literally building his own spaceship and flying to Mars.  He’s everything I wanted to be growing up, but he has the brains and balls to pull it off.  And he doesn’t apologize for the things he says or does…doesn’t need anyone’s approval.  Blaze another doobie on camera, Elon!  Woohoo!

It always come down to freedom versus order in America.  All our conflicts have been about freedom, and freedom has (almost) always won.  Freedom from tyranny, freedom from slavery, freedom from oppression.  Maybe the next civil war will be for freedom of thought.  I’ll always fall on the side of freedom, but with a good healthy dose of personal responsibility (which deserves its own post).

It’s just an opinion.  You’re certainly free to express yours as well.

-Big Steve