Maybe We Don't Understand Free Speech

 I watched an interview of Glenn Greenwald on Tucker Carlson the other night. Greenwald made a powerful point about Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter as a real threat to the Deep State. Their ability to censor the internet is an awesome weapon. Why would the Deep State allow anybody to tinker with it?

Greenwald went on to say that they will try to "destroy" Musk because of this. He said no more on the interview, and he didn't imply that "destroy" meant physical destruction.

But why shouldn't it include physical destruction? Presumably Musk flies on private jets -- they can be made to fall out of the sky. Then the FAA comes to look for the 'black box' for some clue as to what caused the crash.

And when they do, what if an official from the CIA or FBI has already been there first? Don't such organizations have the capability to fake a black box?

If somebody raises questions about irregularities in the crash-investigation, the awesome power of internet censorship can come crashing down on their head. What I am suggesting sounds crazy but there is nothing anymore that is too crazy to happen.

Until recently we considered free speech sacred and fundamental. How can European or Western Civilization be so close to being overthrown by censorship? 

The explanation might lie in our misunderstanding of the Enlightenment's embrace of Free Speech. It is flattering to think of our ancestors as noble-minded heroes who overcame ignorance, cruelty, superstition, torture, and censorship. That might not be an accurate picture.

What if the fine ideals of the 18th Century were just a continuation of religious tolerance that grew up in the 17th century, after a century of Protestant and Catholics slaughtering each other. Nobody managed to win. It was a bloody stalemate. It discredited religion. People became skeptical about religious "truth". So why not leave it to the private individual? It wasn't seen as something worth fighting for, anymore.

But what if one side had managed to win. Wouldn't history have turned out differently?

In general religious minorities tend to embrace Tolerance when they are under the boot of a cruel Majority. But if the minority manages to become the majority -- the Establishment -- won't they reverse their assessment of Tolerance?

Perhaps Western Civilization's loyalty to free speech has always been broad and paper-thin. And whenever people think that censorship is a game that they can actually win, their noble ideals disappear.