People who are supposed to be against handouts are excitedly waiting for some rich dude to give them a handout in the form of freedom to say what they think. And as they wait, they ridicule those who await a handout in the form of college loan forgiveness.
The person I admire in all this is Alex Berenson who is suing Twitter instead of relying on the whims of a kindly benefactor.
This is a great observation. We need political solutions. It should not be possible for Twitter and other digital giants to censor speech irrespective of who owns them. Maybe there should be legislation. Maybe even a constitutional amendment that clarifies the meaning of freedom of speech in the digital era.
“Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech” – it can be argued that when Congress allows Twitter and Co to abridge freedom of speech through the legislation that gives social media an XYZ status, that is unconstitutional. There is a lot that can be done here. Let’s not sit there like passive children, waiting for a savior to materialize and deliver us from censorship.
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Exactly. I think people are setting themselves up for a huge disappointment when Musk remembers his past as a passionate Obama supporter and will find a woke belief he approves of. He’s just one person. Like Trump was one person. It’s good he’s for free speech but why should my rights depend on a single individual, no matter how well-meaning?
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I have great respect for what Alex Berenson is doing, and agree that we need much more of it.
But I think it’s worth pointing out that Berenson’s lawsuit is only able to happen because he happens to have (unnamed) wealthy supporters who are subsidizing the lawsuit [*]. He couldn’t do it without at least one “rich dude” on his side.
Not an ideal situation — and I very much hope to live to see a reformed U.S. nation-state, in which this will not be necessary — but this is where we are now.
[*] Berenson’s been completely open about this. Until very recently, he politely refrained from soliciting contributions of non-rich donors because he didn’t want to take money from people who needed it for a mortgage or rent or food or fuel. Last week, when his lawsuit survived a motion to dismiss by Twitter’s lawyers, he wrote that the lawsuit was likely to get seriously more expensive and that he was going to start accepting donations from the general public to help counteract that.
This is an excellent point. What we need to do is have clarity on what’s happening and vote accordingly. Forget whoever trolls the left most deliciously and concentrate on who’s delivering results for the task of strengthening the nation-state.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
Clarissa's Blog 
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