Author: The DM

‘Free Speech’

The DM 0 Comments

(This is a companion post to that about censorship below.)

The idea and right of ‘free speech’, like the related notion of censorship, is bound to the relationship of the citizen to the state, and concerns the citizens’ ability to speak or otherwise express opinions and positions freely, without prohibition, restriction or modification by the state or other citizens in public forums and physical spaces, with ‘public’ in this context meaning either the non-privately owned ‘commons’ or publicly funded and provided specific places, like state universities’ grounds, municipal parks, city plazas, etc., and not to guests in privately controlled or owned places merely open to the public.

In such rightly termed ‘public’ places, funded by taxes (not to be confused or conflated with privately held or provided places and forums open to the public), the right of free speech is rational, needful, and is rightly deemed paramount, as they are genuinely public, and, so long as automatic association of every person everywhere to at least one state or another remains non-optional, free speech will remain necessary to any nominal notion of the maintenance of free societies.

The principle and right of free speech necessarily and specifically applies where the above conditions exist (and even then, rules and bounds apply, and always would, even if only courtesy based). It does not apply, however, between private citizens in non-public forums or physical spaces, and one cannot be said to have been ‘censored’ should one’s person, presence or speech be removed from a privately owned or created space or forum, whether physical or digital. One can be said to have been restricted or disassociated from in such a circumstance, but not censored. States censor. *

A non-owning or controlling party has no right of free speech in such a setting, where his presence is not likewise a right, his affiliation non-obligatory. Where removal or restriction exists in such a setting, the operative principles and rights in play are those of association and property. One cannot demand or cite a right to free speech in or on another’s privately held space or property, whether social media chat board or someone else’s living room.

These realms can overlap in privately owned settings open to the public, like in a tavern, but being open to the public does not make the setting a publicly provided one that citizens have a right or obligation to access. In that space, Patron A (PA) cannot legitimately demand that Patron B (PB) cease speaking aloud about what PA considers an unwelcome topic, and can overhear. Unless the tavern owner gets involved, both patrons are in the commons, in a place neither of them own or control, and voluntarily, and so PA’s recourse is either to disassociate, i.e., move away from PB or leave the tavern entirely, or to involve the tavern owner. If that happens, should the owner take PA’s side, the owner (or his proxy, a manager, e.g.) may, exercising his rights of property and association, ask PB to, either: cease discussion of the controversial topic entirely in his tavern; lower his voice or change his location in the tavern to get away from PA; or quit the premises.

PB does not have any ‘right’ to free speech in this latter context, with the owner now involved and taking a position, as the state isn’t involved and neither patron has any right of place to be in the tavern, nor any requirement to be there.

This same issue comes up increasingly now in social media forums, with people complaining routinely that they have been ‘censored’ by and in forums created by other private citizens, while incorrectly referring to forums (the particular chat boards – the tenants) and their platform (say, Telegram – the landlord) as ‘public’ ones, implying them to be publicly provided services and spaces, something they have a right to be in and post on. They are not that.

Some social media platforms are plausibly, maybe even verifiably, said to receive funding from the state, to be arms of state intelligence services, and where true, then it could be rightly argued that citizens are funding the platform, and thus do have a right to be on the platform. But a right to be on the platform and create a channel or chat group of one’s own is not at all the same as demanding access to a channel or board created and controlled by someone else and then further demand an unhindered right to post, regardless of any rules or goals the board might have. That would be like being a tenant of public housing, paid for with tax money, and then demanding a right to enter any and every other unit in the complex, in addition to your own, and do what you would while there. Whoever paid for the building, if not your own apartment (or board) you’ve no right even of access to it, much less speech while in it. If you’re there at all, you’re a guest, and the rules of the house apply.

A privately created and controlled forum (channel or chat board), whether on a privately held or publicly provided platform, is merely open to the public, at the pleasure and discretion of the forum’s creator. It is not a ‘public service’. No different than a tavern or someone’s house, which no guest can claim any right to access, much less cite an add’l right to speak in without hindrance about whatever they might care to, in whatever way, and at whatever length they would.

The right of free speech, while a legitimate, necessary and coherent one in officially public settings, is not relevant or rational in privately held ones. Even if it rationally could be said to exist in that context – it cannot – it would not be the paramount right then as it is between the state and citizen (disassociation not being an option there), being eclipsed by the rights of both association and property in that context.

People of the libertarian/freedom community ought contemplate and reconcile this overly connected, broad and significantly misapplied concept of the ‘right’ of free speech, and the related notion of censorship, because the lack of clarity surrounding both is causing a lot of freedom advocates to be ironically advocating directly against the rational and always relevant rights of association and property on a regular basis.

The right of free speech, or even the need for one, might be entirely subsumed in a voluntarist world by those other even more fundamental natural law rights, which are always relevant and logical aside from any relationship to a state. If necessary to claim or assert it at all – perhaps in the informal ‘commons’ it would still be relevant – it would not carry the same weight of importance, as there would be no state to officially curtail it, and no common pool of treasure to quarrel over. Disputes would be managed and bounded by rights of property and association, by codes of conduct, reason and courtesy, and by the consequences of direct trespass.

In the meantime, and regardless, there is no right of free speech for guests in private settings.

* A new word needs coining to describe the limiting of speech where the state is not involved.

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Civility As A Filter

The DM 0 Comments

I long ago determined that civility, or its absence, was the quickest and most accurate gauge of a person’s character, and that it’s probably an umbrella category, under which are usually also found; courtesy (a more proactive expression of good will than mere civility) and thoughtful consideration, nuanced and good humor, empathy and compassion, and a generally reasonable disposition, and will commonly also be accompanied by an open mind, curiosity, and critical thinking. People displaying civility very often turn out to be people I want to know and associate with, be around.

Where civility is absent, I have found that many of those other traits will also be absent, and most relevant with respect to the line in the sand that western human society already crossed over many years ago, and as a result is now facing a profound schism, I believe it’s accurate to say that there is no chance at all that someone displaying routine intentional incivility will be an ally or someone I’d want to live in voluntary community with, the kind of communities that are likely needing to form now, of necessity.

Intentional incivility (I’m not talking about someone having a bad day and being momentarily angry or hostile, and apologizing for it later) is mean-spirited and miserly of spirit, very small, very low. It is not an enlightened state, and those expressing it are not, in my experience, trying to attain one. Such people are not inclined to remedy, goodwill, concord, reason, humor, or harmony.

Often also humorless and snide, sometimes shrill or strident, sometimes just conspicuously withholding or absent where engagement is obviously appropriate, required or requested, people who display routine incivility are drawn to contention, conflict and discord, and would immediately undercut and destroy such places of voluntary community with acrimony, controversy and pointless adversarial debate for the purposes of creating a recreational backdrop of drama which makes their life feel interesting and meaningful, and are also very likely to be controlling, as intentional acrimony and/or passive-aggression are usually obvious in such people, and are inherently controlling in spirit, and nothing to do with a pursuit of freedom or enlightenment or a ‘live and let live’ outlook.

Such people are meddlesome and quarrelsome, pull rugs, and rain on parades. They are the crabs in the pot preventing others from crawling out. It’s as clear as that for me.

Where I confront this now, I disassociate, as that trait does not alter. Such people will never be actual allies, assets, friends or good neighbors. I’m sure of it.

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‘Censorship’

The DM 0 Comments

The word ‘censorship’ is used incorrectly regularly, getting invoked routinely in reference to the interactions of private citizens, often when, say, one private party decides to end an association with another, and in so doing removes that now unwelcome party from their space, whether virtual or physical, which necessarily ends the removed party’s ability to ‘speak’ in that setting, the remover then getting deemed a ‘censor’ by the removed.

That’s not censorship, and isn’t about free speech. That’s an exercise of the rights of association and property. The removed party having no ‘right’ to be in the other’s private space, he was there by the owner’s leave, and the curtailment of his speech in that setting as a byproduct of his removal from that setting, a non-public space, is not a free speech issue, and has nothing to do with the reasons for that aspect of the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Censorship is state restriction of citizen speech. That’s all.

This, however, is censorship, or will be, if and when enacted: https://boingboing.net/2025/09/15/danish-justice-minister-we-must-break-perception-of-right-to-private-messaging.html

This will be the state, whatever state that adopts this, and whatever the justifications offered, proscribing how private conversations may be conducted between private parties. If states can proscribe truly private electronic messaging (if that even exists or even could – which I doubt), and demand to be able to proactively eavesdrop on all electronic messaging in real time or be able to review any of it later, then they can demand to do the same to private verbal or written communications, and by this reasoning, could forbid also the how of those exchanges, as well, whether verbal conversations in unsurveilled settings (say a swept and secured Faraday room in a house or office), or the writing and passing of private unreviewed or unreviewable (by the state) physical documents.

Like an inmate at a prison, one could write a letter, but it will be read and discarded if the content is deemed unacceptable by the warden. In curtailing the how, the state is also thus curtailing the what, the content of what would have been conveyed, but possibly no longer will be, the privacy of the communication being eliminated or the communication just being prevented by the state in the first place.

That rationale is the same, and that’s the state restricting – while also violating, in the U.S., property rights and the 4th Amendment – the speech of private citizens aka: censorship.

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The Staggering Gaslighting Contrast: Perhaps Enough to Awaken Some People Formerly Unreachable?

The DM 0 Comments

I wonder if the extremity of the contrasts we’re all now confronted with between the huge and ongoing federal benefits given to illegal immigrants under the Biden administration, a bunch being from FEMA, and the almost $200 billion given to Ukraine and Israel the past two years, versus the head of FEMA stating publicly this week that the agency doesn’t have enough money for this hurricane season, and the American, taxpaying, and now destroyed citizen victims of Helene being set to receive an embarrassing $750, along with many and increasing citizen accounts of the agency actively hindering the assistance efforts of citizens, its staff idling in hotels waiting for deployment orders (and taking up rooms that the locals need themselves), I wonder if the brazen gaslighting obscenity of those two colliding realities might finally pierce the veil over the minds of at least some members of the thundering herd, whatever team they normally view themselves as being on?

That Mayorkas (FEMA’s head) made that statement was not a slip of the tongue or an ill-advised or badly timed announcement, it was, precisely in light of its timing, likely meant to be crazy making, because it’s preposterous on its face in view of the vast and endless amount of money the government has spent and will continue to spend, and create add’l debt for, on whatever recipients and categories of expense it cares to fund, cares to convene Congress to authorize means for. Its hands are never tied.

What it also does, though, besides providing yet another and increased test of how much cognitive dissonance the citizenry will absorb, tolerate and accomodate, is to, for those that can and will see it, make it clear beyond dispute that we live in a failed state with a wholly illegitimate and unrestrainedly corrupt government that absolutely means to create chaos in the physical world and in the minds of the citizenry. That is clearly an aim which it demonstrably has.

Centralized political authority is the most significant menace to human society and all that it touches. I hope a tipping % of people will soon and finally realize this. Now, perhaps. The amount of money sent to just Ukraine to futiley fight the largest country on Earth, with never any hope of victory, on behalf of U.S. foreign policy objectives, could rebuild every home in the affected Southeast many times over. It’s such a grotesque comparison of results that I think it might possibly reach some people, in spite of themselves.

Nick shirley on X (formerly Twitter): “Illegal immigrants in NYC admit to receiving 7 months free rent, free meals, free insurance, and more…Meanwhile Americans affected from Hurricane Helene receive $750…Make it make sense. pic.twitter.com/31ANFUBavn / X”

Illegal immigrants in NYC admit to receiving 7 months free rent, free meals, free insurance, and more…Meanwhile Americans affected from Hurricane Helene receive $750…Make it make sense. pic.twitter.com/31ANFUBavn

The immigrant women in the video clip above are receiving at least $3,000 in value a month just for their Manhattan hotel rent ($100 a night x 30 nights – a price that probably does not exist in Manhattan), then also receive food, child assistance, medical care, and maid service, so call it about 5-6x in a single month what a Helene displaced American citizen in North Carolina stands to receive in total, and these women to that point had already had 7 months of benefits, so about $27,000 in value each, and possibly a low estimate.

It’s completely outrageous, of course. I’ve nothing against the particular immigrants, but it’s a grotesque irrational absurdity, and one, I think, which may finally be just too much for a mind capable of any critical thought to bear.

Support for the beast will have to be withdrawn by those that see this. It can never be repaired, and it was never meant to be able to be.

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Rejecting the Tsunami

The DM 0 Comments

Going through just one Telegram thread this morning, a tsunami of evidence for encroaching and enveloping tyranny across the world, the most basic rights people in western nations thought to be unassailable not very long ago rapidly coming to an end, I am reminded of the overwhelming obviousness that we are way, WAY past the point of needing any new information to act, and reminded also that ‘acting’, almost anything and everything that that would entail, is just too daunting and fearsome for people to contemplate doing, so the amassing and sharing of evidence just goes on and on and on….

We are there, at a major societal crossroads, and have been for years, and this is how it always happens, as almost no one can ever handle this crossroads, knows how to proceed once reaching it, the one involving the complete corruption and abuse of one’s own state. Or, more likely, they know, but just can’t face the prospects, and are hoping for a miracle that doesn’t involve major risk and life disruption. I suppose this is what drives support for Donald Trump.

In any case, it’s way too much info and way too many fronts to fight. Too much and too many by orders of magnitude. Those who see this will finally, if anything is EVER to change for the better, or have any chance to, have to simply reject EVERYTHING they have not actively agreed to engage with, support, associate with. Everything. No different than any other private engagement. Non-association as the default and assumed state of being.

I’m pretty sure life isn’t meant to consist of the endless and pointless tracking of super-bad and ominous news while watching all fundamental rights gradually evaporate. If the system worked, then people should have been in jail and executed now for the endless crimes of the state and the private institutions with which the state is enmeshed and owned by. They aren’t, never will be, and we now overtly see the opposite result, with routine citizen dissent and journalism being rapidly criminalized without any due process, and so it comes back hard to the regular person’s doorstep to remedy, to take some action other than endlessly tracking the tsunami.

The only remedy I see, at least the only one that has not been tried, and the one never widely discussed, and the only likely peaceful possibility, is that of the combination of active non-compliance and disassociation.

We will have to move on from this perpetual tracking of the latest, now hourly, waves of corruption, controversy, drama, and hyper-harm we are relentlessly inundated with and agreeing to engage with. Our lives can’t reasonably be thought to be spent properly or happily this way. I believe those who see the problem will have to start tangibly acting in non-compliance and disassociation. How bad is it going to have to get before that might become common thinking? Would it ever, I wonder?

If there’s another way, I’d love to hear it. I don’t see one.

Graham Phillips Journalist

Hello and welcome!

Here is just one gallon I came across today from the 100 foot wall of water bearing down on us all. He’s just the latest of the writers, webloggers and journalists now being criminalized and persecuted in Europe, a practice rapidly going mainstream, even now in England.

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