I wish I could remember where I saw this first, but the message bears repeating. I expect that the concepts expressed here are too liberal (as in freedom) for s

I wish I could remember where I saw this first, but the message bears repeating. I expect that the concepts expressed here are too liberal (as in freedom) for some. That said, I think of this paper as an important pushback on the Republican destruction of civil liberties, corruption of the First Amendment, attacks on universities, and suppression of ideas that don't agree with them. I wonder if David Brin has read this piece because his, for lack of a better term and not to dismiss, rants read like an amped-up version of this paper. https://www.journaloffreespeechlaw.org/franks.pdf https://www.journaloffreespeechlaw.org/franks.pdf FTA: The key to understanding the current legal and cultural landscape of free speech is not some enduring constitutional value or method of interpretation, but rather the ascendance of a very specific political ideology that is best described as neo-Confederate. Neo-Confederate ideology is a constellation of values that includes investment in racial hierarchy, attachment to traditional gender roles and gender conformity, idealization of the pre-Civil War South, belief that the U.S. is a Christian nation, and hostility to democracy. The neo-Confederate agenda renders coherent what otherwise appear to be chaotic free speech positions: the condemnation of “cancel culture” by promoters of censorship; the conflation of speech reactions with speech restrictions; the equation of the right to speak with the right to an audience; alternating invocations and dismissals of the state action doctrine. While these positions are malleable enough to occasionally serve progressive interests, they are most consistently and powerfully deployed to protect the interests of white male supremacy.