Strictly speaking, we haven’t had fully free speech anymore than we’ve had a fully free economy. But that does not follow to say that freedom of speech has been abolished.

The switchover comes when we move from a model of “speak freely, except for these specific restrictions” to a “say nothign except for these permissible examples”. When that happens, we’re done.

Tellingly, the Left already seems to operate on the second model internally, while the Right does not (yet).

You’re right, Madmax and C. August. I don’t think much of the ideas of Miss California or Arlen Spector; I’m just pointing out the difference between disagreement on the right and the left. Free speech is so important now that we must guard against any hint of restricting it from the left. If freedom of speech goes, all hope of turning the direction America is going around vanishes.

This is the major point with regard to the California beauty queen. Her views are religious nonsense but that is irrelevant. What is relevant is that the left is steamrolling ahead with their attempt to outlaw free speech and to eliminate all dissent with intimidation tactics.

Some Objectivists are just looking at this from the perspective that she is a religious conservative and her ideas are wrong. But that’s not the danger here. The danger is that a cultural orthodoxy is being created by leftists. It will be championed by the media and enforced by the government. Free speech will have to go underground if this continues, as will Objectivism.

“you can disagree with the right, but the left demands ideological conformity. If you disagree with the left, you are judged not only as wrong, but as a bad person.”