“The right to free speech is more important than the content of the speech.” – Voltaire
In 2021, Elon Musk was named Time’s Person of the Year. Unsurprisingly, before he was convicted of the egregious crime of championing free speech, the founder of Tesla was adored by the left and the sycophants in the mainstream media. When he acquired Twitter (now X) in 2022, the left never anticipated that Musk would actually support freedom of speech for all.
How dare he!
To the left, they had social media – and Twitter – exactly where they wanted it. They controlled the narrative, they controlled speech – they were fulfilling their objective to control the masses.
In their narrow view of the world, someone who owned an EV company was certainly one of ‘them’ and they believed that Musk would surely worship at their altar – fully expecting him to subscribe to their myopic worldview. However, much to the shock and dismay of those on the left and to the delight of those of us who are champions of free speech, we were pleasantly surprised to discover that we had an unexpected ally in Elon Musk. And indeed, he has superseded the role of the mainstream media, which can no longer be trusted to defend and uphold the First Amendment in America.
As a radio host, I spend a lot of time reading, listening, and observing people who express their opinions and points of view. What I find particularly troubling about the left is how intensely they defend and justify the censorship of those with whom they disagree, often claiming that free speech is “dangerous” because they lack the ability to present a salient argument in defense of their own point of view. Perhaps it’s because they lack a thoughtful opinion of their own and are only capable of echoing what they’ve been told to believe.
We saw this playing out in real-time during the shamdemic. While many of us were defending the right to rely upon our God-given immune systems, our faith, and our common sense while citing the Hippocratic oath-honoring expert physicians who risked their careers and reputations to defend true science, those on the left were either outright denying science (what did we expect – they’re incapable of defining what a woman is) or instead, they abandoned science altogether and made it up as they went along like the charlatan goalpost-moving Anthony ‘Fraud’ Fauci.
Of course, we conservatives have been aware of this for quite some time, but the bias and control by the left on universities has never been more glaring. We can only hope that more minds and hearts will be persuaded after observing the grotesque and apparent socially acceptable anti-Semitism on college campuses (and beyond) throughout the United States. Shockingly, this 21st-century anti-Semitism isn’t roundly condemned, but embraced by Democrat politicians, university professors, and administrators alike. It’s been made abundantly clear that there is no dissent allowed on college campuses after conservative voices are routinely censored and silenced under the guise of “hate speech.” It only depends on to whom the hate is directed, because for those on the left, their brand of hatred is permissible.
For the left, the end justifies the means.
The left controls Hollywood/Celebrity-dom. No dissent is allowed. Very few conservative voices escape the grip of the celebrity leftists. They don’t dare go off script – or risk losing their careers and livelihoods; their celebrity status. Look no further than some who have been targeted by the intolerant left: Joe Rogan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, actor Christopher Pratt, author JK Rowling – even former Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers went off script. They were guilty of expressing their deeply held personal points of view about topics in which there is only one approved and accepted narrative by the left.
Why does the left need to stifle all dissent? Conservatives do not shut down dissent or debate. We welcome the discourse. But the left fears dissent – and they do so because deep down, they know that they cannot defend their point of view.
Dennis Prager writes: “There is little intellectual substance to leftism. It is a combination of doctrine and emotion. The proof? Those with intellectual depth do not stifle dissent; they welcome it.”
For the past four years, I’ve observed countless conservative voices silenced, censored, and discredited by the left. Many I’ve known personally. Whether it was friends and colleagues on social media, in the workplace, or even those with a larger profile – physicians, community leaders, elected officials, and those with a platform who offered an alternative point of view and spoke out against the government shutdown, mandates and failed protocols (to name a few topics), it happened so frequently, I started to question what country I was living in.
What is the left so afraid of? One articulate conservative can undo years of leftist indoctrination by encouraging critical thinking and independent thought. Leftists do not debate or appear as guests on talk shows and attempt to prevent conservatives from speaking whenever possible because they fear us.
Why? Because they would be revealed for who they really are – intellectually shallow purveyors of hate. And deep down, they know it.
The left suppresses free speech because it has to. If there is free speech, there is dissent. And if there is dissent, there is no more left.
Long live free speech!
-Meg Ellefson’s opinions are her own and don’t represent this publication or any institution where she works.
