It’s really funny watching American corporate power fight federal regulation for decades only to immediately line up behind an authoritarian government to obey in advance the whims of a babbling narcissist who is purposely crashing the economy to satisfy his need for egotistical revenge. If all of our speech is tied up in media companies bought and paid for by corporate interests, or social media tech giants that deliver surveillance data to the government at will with our own tax dollars, how can it possibly even approach being “free”? It cannot, and that is pretty much the goal.

Retaliation just for quoting Kirk, a man who built a media and legal influencing juggernaut on his protected speech, is especially ironic given the great efforts made to develop and spread his ideas.