Category: free speech

Speech Control

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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 19th 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.

Freedom and Tolerance

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November 2, 2025

By Stephen Stofka

In 1776, the 13 American colonies declared independence from Britain. The entire first half of that Declaration was very much a proclamation of freedom. The second half was a declaration of grievances against the King of England. Many colonists had grown intolerant of the king’s ‘usurpations,’ an unlawful taking under the cloak of authority (Source). The word is unfamiliar to modern readers, but the protection against the taking of private property is enshrined in the Fifth’s Amendment’s final clause, “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation” (Source). The 56 signers to the Declaration of Independence argued most over this second half of the declaration, for it was their justification for rebellion. They hoped to win the sympathies of European countries, particularly the French in the long feud between England and France.

This week I want to focus on two ideas as axes of analysis, freedom and tolerance. The two seem to have an inverse relationship. As the colonists felt more empowered to claim their freedom, they became less tolerant of the crown’s impositions. It’s not clear to me which is the more powerful force, the intolerance or the thirst for more freedom. The colonists had to pay taxes to support the soldiers and administration that kept them in line. Only in Connecticut and Rhode Island did the colonists elect their governors (Source). Colonial governors appointed by the king often overruled the wishes of popularly elected assemblies. The colonists wanted more autonomy.

In his book Leviathan, the 17th century philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588 – 1679) wrote that we exchange some freedom for security in what would otherwise be a raw state of nature, an “every man for himself” kind of world. The book, published in 1651, justified a monarchy to preserve the peace between members of a civil society. More than a century later, the colonists asked themselves how much freedom they had to give up for that security. They had reached the end of their tolerance.

We speak of the colonists as they shared a single sentiment but that was not the case. Americans have always been divided about important issues. Writing almost 40 years after the Declaration, John Adams (1856), our second President after George Washington, recalled that a third of the people favored independence, a third were more favorable to England and a third were neutral. Robert Calhoon (2000), a scholar of American Loyalists, estimated a smaller percentage, perhaps 15 – 20%, favored the crown.

We are less tolerant of encroachments on our own freedoms than on the freedoms of others. The generation that wrote and ratified the Constitution exemplified that principle. In 1787, thirty-nine delegates to the Constitutional Convention signed the Constitution. As many as half of them had owned slaves during their lifetime, including Washington and Madison. Jefferson praised the sanctity of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration but owned almost 200 slaves which he listed in his Farm Book (Source). A case of ‘liberty for me, not for thee’?

People are less free when they are poor or in a minority with less opportunity. They may sometimes act with an air of intolerance, but their income constrains their freedom. They must navigate many social and economic obstacles that stretch their tolerance capacity. Joanna Burke (2014) recalls the thinking among 18th and 19th century physicians that laborers and colonized people felt less pain than those of more refined socio-economic status. Their bodies were hardened by deprivation and needed less care so that they were able to withstand the harsh working conditions of 19th century industrialization.

People with lots of money can afford to be less tolerant of inconveniences. They enjoy a lot of freedom; some test the tolerance of those around them. Leona Helmsley (1920 – 2007) was a rich real estate and hotel owner who was known as the “Queen of Mean” for her harsh treatment of employees. In 1987, she was convicted of tax fraud but served only 18 months of a four-year sentence (Source). In testimony, she was quoted as saying, “Only the little people pay taxes.” Others with enormous wealth and freedom cannot tolerate the misery that afflicts the less fortunate. Through his foundation, Bill Gates has donated many billions to improve the health of those living in poor countries.

In its 2008 decision District of Columbia v Heller, a divided Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment was an individual right to bear arms. The decision overruled more than a century of jurisprudence that the right to bear arms was circumscribed by an individual’s service in a state militia (Source). In extending a wider range of freedom to some individuals, the court ruled that the burden of tolerance is on the majority of individuals that do not own guns (Source).

Why do we tolerate some actions from one person but not from another person? We tolerate lies from a political candidate we favor but not from a candidate of the other party. Trump is a practiced liar, a smooth operator with little loyalty to any facts. Supporters are accustomed to his exaggerations and fabrications. They tolerate his lies. He has an army of lawyers who protect him from legal responsibility for his actions. His lawyers include the conservatives on the Supreme Court who gave him immunity for “official acts” in the 2024 opinion in Trump v United States (Source).

Donald Trump acknowledges few boundaries to his behavior. His entire goal may be to test the tolerance of the American people and the world. He is truly free. His supporters, many of them bent by the burden of uncomfortable socio-economic truths, cheer Donald Trump on because he has escaped. In Ken Kesey’s novel and movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, we cheer on Chief Bromden, who tosses a piece of equipment through the window of a mental institution and escapes. To some, Trump is the hero who has escaped the bounds of convention. Unlike Icarus of Greek mythology, he has flown close to the sun and not fallen.

In the past sixty years, we have grown to tolerate a 70-fold increase in presidential campaign funding (Badarasan, 2024, p. 114). Why? Over several decades the Supreme Court has curtailed the freedom of the people and the state legislatures to institute guard rails around corporate spending on elections. The court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v Federal Elections Commission ended the last restraints on campaign spending (Source). The Supreme Court has ruled that artificial persons like corporations enjoy the same freedom of speech as natural persons like ordinary people. Now, corporations and wealthy donors enjoy a greater degree of freedom while the broad public must tolerate the power and influence that comes with those freedoms.

The Boston Tea Party was a demonstration against the powerful East India Tea Company that was granted a monopoly on tea imports by the British crown (Source). 250 years later, we have come to tolerate what the Boston colonists could not abide. We have given up some of our freedoms to a new Leviathan, the few unelected elite on the Supreme Court.

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Photo by alexandre alex on Unsplash

Adams, J. (1856). Letter to James Lloyd, January 1815. In C. F. Adams (Ed.), The works of John Adams, second president of the United States (Vol. 10, pp. 172–173). Little, Brown and Company.

Baradaran, M. (2024). The quiet coup: Neoliberalism and the looting of America. W. W. Norton & Company.

Bourke, J. (2014). The Story of Pain: From Prayer to Painkillers. Oxford University Press.

Calhoon, R. (2000). “Loyalism and Neutrality,” in A Companion to the American Revolution, ed. Jack P. Greene & J.R. Pole. Blackwell, p. 235.

The Green Divide

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March 24, 2019

by Steve Stofka

Half of the country’s voters live on 80% of the land, which the political analysts color red. Half of voters live on the remaining 20% of land, which is colored blue. The needs, values and outlooks of those in the red are not the same as those in the blue. As the country’s population continues to migrate from rural to metropolitan areas, the country becomes ever more divided. As economist Paul Krugman wrote this week, no one knows how to fix the continuing economic decline in rural areas (Note #1).

A person’s views on an issue may depend on the state they live in. In the past several decades, immigration has had much more impact on California and the southern states. In 1980, 15% of California’s population was foreign born, almost four times the national average of 4.3%. In 2015, that share had doubled for both California and the nation as a whole. However, the national average is only a third of California’s numbers (Note #2). How does the nation adopt a single policy toward immigration when there are such differences in circumstances?

Regardless of our different experiences and outlooks, we are dependent on each other. 20% of Americans are on the Social Security and Medicare programs (Note #3). 24% are on CHIP and Medicaid (Note #4). 40% of the two million farms in America receive subsidies (Note #5). The transfers of money between Americans has reached 14% of GDP.

TransfersPctGDP

In 1962, Ronald Reagan took a stridently conservative tone when he warned that the Medicare program being developed in the Democratic Congress would lead to socialism and the destruction of American democracy (Note #6). Having married into wealth, he could afford a dramatic interpretation of social policy. Few Americans hold such extreme views today (Note #7).

The reasonable arguments of today might look oppressive to future generations, and progressive ideas seem natural to our descendants. Our ancestors had different views toward slavery, racism, voting rights and social programs than we have today. What has not changed is our distrust of those we regard as “other,” and our desire to make our principles universal for our fellow Americans. We want everyone to play by our rules, or our interpretation of the rules.

In the debates on the ratification of the US Constitution, some asked what the terms “provide for the …general welfare” meant (Note #8). Was the new government to become a national charity? The Federalists argued for the inclusion of the term to give the government a degree of latitude in changing circumstances. The anti-Federalists argued that this new government would eventually become the home of beggars and lobbyists wanting to promote their own welfare as the “general welfare.” In the past century, the phrase has become a constitutional bedrock of Supreme Court precedent underlying social programs. A person could argue that the size of social welfare spending and the extraordinary power of lobbyists in Washington has proven the anti-Federalist’s case.

America is the land of debate because the Constitution was structured to promote debate. While Americans had a platform to argue with each other, it was hoped that there would be less bloodshed, rebellion, and dictatorship (Note #9). Some days we might be less sure of that premise. As the circumstances of urban and rural America diverge further, we will struggle ever more to reach consensus. Each side will feel the need to impose its will on the other.  As we debate these issues, we should be just as careful of our own instincts as we are about the instincts of those on the other side of the debate.

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Notes:

1. Krugman op-ed on lack of solutions for the economic decline in rural America
2. Four decades of immigration numbers – pdf page 6
3. 62 million Americans on Social Security and Medicare – numbers here
4. 74 million Americans on CHIP and Medicaid – numbers here
5. 39% of 2.1 million farms receive agricultural subsidies
6. Reagan warns against Medicare
7. During the debate before the passage of Obamacare, some Tea Party members advocated a return to the days when we just let old people die.
8. U.S. Constitution, Section 8.1 “provide for the common Defence [sic] and general Welfare of the United States” http://constitutionus.com/
9. Former colonies of Great Britain have struggled with free speech issues. South Africans has only had freedom of expression for twenty years . Canada still does not have complete freedom of speech