3 ms·
It’s incredible that supporting free speech is considered to be only important enough to the “far right” now to be worth marketing to. Free speech used to be so
by joe_the_user 6y ago
It’s incredible that supporting free speech is considered to be only important enough to the “far right” now to be worth marketing to. Free speech used to be something all Americans supported and defended.
America once had a very finite number of publishers who were the primary gate keepers for what published. America suppressed the works of Wilhelm Reich and Henry Miller. America once arrested members of the IWW for engaging in street corner soapbox speak-outs [1]. America engaged in anti-socialist repression on a fairly large scale.[2] It's common to reference an imaginary free speech fundamentalist era somewhere in the US past but, sorry, it's not there.
And, of course, the extreme right only pretend to be true free speech fundamentalists - Note how the dropped Milo Yiannopoulos when his speech offended them.
[1] https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/industrial-workers-world-campaigns-free-speech-spokane-washington-usa-1908-1910 https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/industrial-workers...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Raids https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Raids