January 18, 2026

By Stephen Stofka

This week, as I was waiting in a checkout line at the store, a couple a few lines away pushed a grocery cart with a toddler sitting inside. The toddler screamed uncontrollably, and the sound killed several of my brain cells, I was sure. I glanced their way, wanting to see if the child was hurt. She wanted her mother’s keys. When the mother relented and gave her toddler the keys, the child immediately grew quiet. What I thought was the uncontrollable anguish and rage of a toddler was a controlled performance designed to achieve a specific goal.

This week I want to take a look at the topic of control. Human beings are engineers by nature. We domesticate animals to serve our needs. We cultivate crops to produce a more pleasing taste and higher yields. We control the actions of other people to serve our wants. In his book The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage, Jonathan Turley examines the history of speech control from ancient Greece to the present. America was the first country to stipulate a right to free speech in the First Amendment to its Constitution. In 1798, several years after the Constitution’s ratification, the passage of the Sedition Act tossed aside the First Amendment. The act prohibited newspapers from publishing anything critical of the administration of President John Adams, the successor to George Washington (Source).

The Constitution had recognized the danger of regional factions but not the formation of political parties. Alexander Hamilton and John Adams were the leaders of the Federalists, advocating a strong central government. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison represented the Democratic-Republicans, an opposition party that supported state and local control. For Adams, it was especially inconvenient that his Vice-President, Thomas Jefferson, actively opposed many of his policies. The Sedition Act was an attempt to quell criticism from media outlets owned by people who were sympathetic to the ideas of the Democratic-Republicans.

Three decades earlier, when the American colonies were under British rule, John Adams had been an outspoken rebel against the British monarch, the Parliament and the colonial governors. Now that Adams was the leader of the new nation, he regarded any criticism of his policies as outright sedition. When we are in control, challenges to our rule come from those who are out of control. When we are not in control, we may regard the actions of those who are in control as  uncontrollable. This duality of control makes the formation of at least two political parties inevitable. That is the second topic I want to look at this week, inevitability.

Whenever there is a disaster, an investigation often uncovers a chain of events that gives us the impression that the disaster was inevitable. No one can predict the likelihood of a severe hurricane like Katrina, but the consequences of Katrina seem inevitable in retrospect. In 1968, the Army Corp of Engineers built the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet through residential neighborhoods, particularly the lower ninth ward where 15,000 African Americans lived (Source). The outlet made it easier for ships to transition from the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico but put many people at risk. In those decades following WW2, urban planners often constructed highways and other thoroughfares through poorer neighborhoods with little political power.

It is inevitable that rulers want only consensus from those they rule. A political leader fancies himself as the captain of a large ship. Any criticism of the captain’s direction is a threat of mutiny and must be suppressed for the safety of all, the captain reasons. Any crew members who are not willing to take orders from the captain are dismissed or thrown overboard. Disagreements are not tolerated. That is the policy of the current administration.

For several decades, the governors of the Federal Reserve have demonstrated an independence that is unique among federal agencies. The governors are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate but often express views that are contrary to those of the President and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. During the 1960s and 1970s, the Federal Reserve conducted monetary policy that was compliant with the President’s wishes. The result was soaring inflation. Lesson learned. Congress has given the Fed a dual mandate to promote two policies that are at odds with each other, full employment and moderate inflation. Helping the President’s reelection chances or popularity is not one of those goals. To accomplish those goals, the Fed must conduct unpopular policies like higher interest rates. More demand for labor tends to create inflation. Higher inflation creates less demand for labor. Balancing these two objectives is a difficult task. Some governors give a priority to employment and favor what is called a dovish monetary policy. Others prefer a hawkish monetary policy that chokes off any signs of inflation even if that lowers employment. Again we see a conflict of two perspectives.

Multiple perspectives are inevitable. Suppressing speech aims to suppress the voices of those who are not in control of policy at a particular moment. We are aware that China, Russia and N. Korea control their media and actively prosecute dissidents. That’s bad. When college campuses block controversial speakers, that is also a form of speech suppression on a reduced scale. Advocates for such policies claim that suppressing harmful speech is itself a form of free speech.

Turley reminds us of John Stuart Mill, the 19^th century author of On Liberty who argued against this very practice in his time (p. 260). Mill advocated a harm principle that limited government action to protecting us from harm by others while allowing us to exercise our rights (p. 256). In a complex society, we are connected to and affected by the actions of others. A controversial speaker appearing on campus may cause me some anxiety. That level of harm does not meet Mill’s threshold to justify me organizing a campaign to pressure the administration to ban the speaker from appearing on campus.

Governments invoke their own expansive definition of harm to prohibit free speech. They are acting in the cause of public safety, promoting social harmony, and reducing conflict and controversy that might upset some people. China has a centuries long history of civil war. They justify one party rule and media control as a way to avoid another civil war. Just the possibility of harm becomes a basis for speech suppression. That reminds me of the 2002 film Minority Report where police act on the advice of psychics to interrupt and prosecute crimes before they are committed.

Given our nature as engineers who want to control our environment, it is inevitable that leaders want to control unwanted speech while allowing and promoting favorable speech. Few of us, however, want to live in a leashed society where information is fed to us like dog food. We cherish our autonomy and do not want to be treated like pets. We do not want to be caged by government police because we expressed an unfavorable opinion. The desire to control and the resistance to control will continue to create conflict in human societies for centuries to come. That much is inevitable.

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Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Keywords: free speech

Blurb: Few of us want to live in a leashed society where information is fed to us like dog food.