Guess who Puts their Pants on One Leg at a Time and is an Advocate of Free Speech until it Costs Money: You, Me and Elon Musk

This month Elon Musk decided it was time to give @realDonaldTrump his tweet back.  In order to do so, Mr. Musk first had to buy Twitter.  That’s not a problem when you are the richest person in the world and have 44 billion dollars parked in some offshore bank account.  Mr. Musk was motivated to buy Twitter because, as he views the world, there’s not enough free speech. Mr. Musk explained his reasons for purchasing Twitter in a Tweet as follows: “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital …

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Lenny Bruce and Dave Chappelle Are Right, Of Course, and Justice Harlan Concurs

In case I am so old that I know stuff you don’t know, Lenny Bruce was a ground-breaking comedian in the 1950s and 1960s. One of his themes was this. Words themselves contain nothing wrong. There are no bad words; just bad people, bad connotations. Words acquire bad connotations through censorship; eliminate censorship and you eliminate the state of mind that says words have to be censored. Remove the taboo and no one will care. Then the word will lose its harmful potency.  Click: Dustin Hoffman channels Lenny Bruce.   It is not very difficult to connect Lenny Bruce to …

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