I "get" that you don't "get" the idea underlying the First Amendment

[alcibiades_mystery]

208. All true, but with the consequence excluded

The historical consequence of the great contribution of unfettered speech is simple: it doesn't matter what you say anymore. What makes power today different from the old power - which sought to silence dissent (or speech is disagreed with) - is that it power has discovered ways to let speech flow while maintaining itself. Now, anyone can say anything. There is unfettered speech, but no more "dangerous" nor subversive speech. The free speech people have still yet to realize this: they hold a romantic version of "speaking truth to power" as if that does something. Speech was the last great colonization of contemporary power. Where once you had to "watch what you say," now you can, well, say anything.




It doesn't matter a whit. There is no more subversive speech, despite the pretensions of the free speechers. They've been circumnavigated - victims of their own success.

Of course, it couldn't have been any other way. But this is the world we live in today: not a world in which power seeks to limit your speech, but in which power simply allows you to say anything - the more the merrier in fact. All of which makes the "righteous rant" in favor of free speech a kind of silly and obsolete operation. The forces you're fighting against have long ago outflanked and bypassed you.

Wait, wait. Let me guess. I "don't get it." Right.