Censorship

As an American, I was always taught that censorship was bad, and that banning books was even worse. I was always taught that totalitarians and fascists censor their citizens and ban their books. America was always a bastion of free speech. We were taught that we must always defend free speech even if a person is saying something that we completely disagree with. In 1977, the Supreme Court in the Skokie Decision, ruled that even Nazis were allowed to march in the town of Skokie, Illinois, a town whose population was 50% Jewish and was the home to hundreds of Holocaust survivors. No matter how vile Nazi ideology is, American citizens still have the right to express it. And defending someone’s right to express their beliefs does not mean you are defending those beliefs.

There is a Communist party of the United States. There have been communists who have been on the Presidential ballot. Communist ideology is a direct threat to the United States of America. It is a threat to our democracy. So, the irony of allowing communists to espouse their beliefs on the grounds of free speech is that communists do not believe in free speech. They believe that the state should and must censor its citizens, especially people who speak out against those in power. So, in the past, our country believed so stridently in protecting free speech that we are willing to allow people to voice an ideology which promotes eliminating free speech.

So, the negative backlash that Elon Musk has taken for purchasing Twitter and promising to roll back its censorship of its user, is antithetical to one of the founding principles of the United States. Late Night host Stephen Colbert called Elon Musk, “unhinged,” and “nuts,” and “a tool of Russian” for promoting free speech on Twitter. I can barely believe my ears when I hear people openly argue for censoring other voices. And they’re not talking solely about censoring threats or pornography or vulgar language, they are talking about censoring political opinions that they disagree with. There is nothing that is more of a threat to our country, to our democracy then the calls and the implementation of censorship. But it is happening all over our country, and from places you would least expect.