{"id":65869,"date":"2023-10-06T06:33:28","date_gmt":"2023-10-06T11:33:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=65869"},"modified":"2023-10-06T06:33:28","modified_gmt":"2023-10-06T11:33:28","slug":"the-costs-and-casualties-of-governments-information-total-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=65869","title":{"rendered":"The Costs and Casualties of Government\u2019s Information Total War"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"entry-header \">\n<div class=\"post-thumb-img-content post-thumb\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" src=\"https:\/\/brownstone.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Shutterstock_246689152-800x469.jpg\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/brownstone.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Shutterstock_246689152-800x469.jpg 800w, https:\/\/brownstone.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Shutterstock_246689152-400x234.jpg 400w, https:\/\/brownstone.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Shutterstock_246689152-768x450.jpg 768w, https:\/\/brownstone.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Shutterstock_246689152-1536x900.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/brownstone.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Shutterstock_246689152-600x352.jpg 600w, https:\/\/brownstone.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Shutterstock_246689152.jpg 2048w\" alt=\"censorship of the people\" width=\"800\" height=\"469\" data-perfmatters-preload=\"\" \/><\/div>\n<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/brownstone.org\/articles\/the-costs-and-casualties-of-governments-information-total-war\/\">The Costs and Casualties of Government\u2019s Information Total War<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"entry-content clear\">\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap\"><em><strong>\u201cI\u00a0disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>This phrase, misattributed to Voltaire, has largely come to dominate\u2014and confuse\u2014our understanding of the importance of free speech in a free society. That misunderstanding seems to be at the heart of the very lukewarm response elicited by the exposure of \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/white-houses-misinformation-pressure-campaign-was-unconstitutional-opinion-1829955\">the most massive attack against free speech in United States\u2019 history<\/a>\u201d unearthed through discovery in\u00a0<em>Missouri v. Biden<\/em>\u00a0now before the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n<p>The trouble with this framing of free speech is that it focuses on hateful speech, framing the imperative to defend the utterance of hateful speech as a form of polite, reciprocal tolerance, necessary for the smooth functioning of a liberal society. If ever there were a framing that caused one to miss the forest for the trees, this is it.<\/p>\n<p>The primacy free speech enjoys here in the US has nothing whatever to do with some dewy-eyed ideal of tolerance. Rather, it owes its primacy to pragmatism. Freedom of speech is the best tool we have to ascertain the truth of any given matter. Like a sculptor transforming a shapeless piece of marble into a work of art, free and open debate chisels away at the falsehoods and misapprehensions in which the truth lays embedded. Restrict debate, and the gradual emergence of that truth will be delayed or deformed, with the result imperfect at times to the point of monstrosity.<\/p>\n<p>The reason we must \u201cdefend to the death\u201d the right to utter \u201cintolerable speech,\u201d is that failure to do so results in the swift and certain condemnation as \u201cintolerable\u201d\u00a0<em>all<\/em> speech that diminishes the power or legitimacy of those in power&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Costs and Casualties of Government\u2019s Information Total War \u201cI\u00a0disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,\u201d This phrase, misattributed to Voltaire, has largely come to dominate\u2014and confuse\u2014our understanding of the importance of free speech in a free society. That misunderstanding seems to be at the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[120,33962,2542,379,32732],"class_list":["post-65869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-censorship","tag-emily-burns","tag-freedom-of-speech","tag-government","tag-the-brownstone-institute"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65869"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65871,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65869\/revisions\/65871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}