"How much “free speech” do I have if my ability to speak freely is cut short because I’ve died from preventable disease? How much “free speech” do I have if I’m imprisoned by a racist criminal justice system that criminalizes poverty? How much “free speech” do I have if I can’t lobby my co-workers to unionize without getting fired and potentially facing homelessness as a result?"
"... the unchecked, buzzy sanctity of liberal negative rights absent any consideration for how positive rights enhance people’s ability to live free is an inherently bourgeois moral framework, and one shouldn’t fall for the trap of only debating the scope and criteria of this one half of the rights equation. It’s this negative-rights-only framework that dominates these “debates” on both the Trumpist, Muskian, Trigger The Libs right and on the side occupied by mainstream liberal critics. But it’s an incomplete framework designed to uphold the hierarchical societal arrangements that make human rights conditional on one’s place within the hierarchy..."
"A more substantive and holistic argument is needed, based on discussions
about how we can broaden and make more meaningful “free speech” rights
by empowering and platforming marginalized voices, providing people with
basic needs, and democratizing media control out of the hands of
unaccountable corporations and capricious billionaires. Only then can the cycle of endless “free speech” gotchas move beyond the
predictable back and forth and address much more urgent and relevant
questions about who owns the platforms people speak on, who has access
to them, and who is silenced not only by Twitter shadowbans or FBI
content moderators, but also by poverty, racism, incarceration, and
preventable death."
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