What Free Speech is Not

In attending a February 8, 2005, conference at the Gleacher Center in Chicago, I had hoped to hear a thorough philosophical defense of free speech and its true implications for a society that valued individual rights. I had good reason to expect this, given the title of the conference: "Creative and Artistic Subversions of Free Speech Limitations." I instead learned that America violates free speech to a greater extent than does Fidel Castro's dictatorship in Cuba, that films made from the 1930s onward are in fact riddled with covert homosexual symbolism that only the select few initiated in this arcane lore could fathom, that an "avant-garde" artist's free speech consists of taking my tax money and having his degenerate creations funded by it through the government, and that-of course-the primary threats to free speech today are evil fascist corporations with intentions to monopolize the mass media and crowd out the "little guy," i.e., the "avant-garde," licentious, socialist "artist" whose "free speech" consists of using my tax money. Most importantly, however, I learned that the most revered elites of academia, journalism, and government have absolutely no idea what free speech is, why it is significant, what sorts of individuals truly value it, and what sort of society it would bring about.