Free Speech Is The Cornerstone Of America.

In 2023 the United States is trapped between tribalism and the fear of retribution from cancel culture. You can be expelled from your social circle for espousing ideas which diverge from the core tenets of your community and you can be expelled entirely for violating whichever key words are banned this week.

Don’t believe: what about the senior executive from AppleAAPL
who was forced to resign his position for quoting a line from Arthur, a movie which gained tremendous popularity when released in 1981 a time when funny had no consequences. This line which was a laugh line in the film was repeated 41 years later to someone with no relationship to Apple. But, once it became known, social media pressure built and the job was gone. Wake and Bake America had shifted to Woke and Broke.

SPIN Magazine and FIRE, a national free speech advocacy group are collaborating to encourage dialogue about how to restore freedom of speech which is a first amendment right in our Constitution. They have begun a video series Free Speech + Other Dirty Words which kicks off today, February 21, 2023 with a video interview of Tom Morello. The series will air exclusively on SPIN.com the FIRE YouTube channel.

Morello, well known from his ongoing position in the band Rage Against The Machine is an articulate advocate of what it was like to grow up half black in white America. He is articulate and poised as he and interviewer Ryan J. Downey discuss the consequences of speech and minority.

This project is jointly supported by Jimmy Hutcheson, publisher of SPIN Magazine and Nico Perrino, Executive Vice President of Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)

The series is the latest way SPIN is sparking important discussions and creating inspiring music-related print and video editorial. Since 1985, the cutting-edge media brand has developed a reputation for award-winning journalism and a willingness to dive into provocative topics. Today, SPIN brings this tradition into the digital age, creating a platform where the old school and new school come together to pave the way for new conversations in our current cultural landscape.

Hutcheson is instrumental in helping line up major artists to participate in this video series. He sees the artists as having a large megaphone, one that can break through the noise. He said “after nearly 40 years, SPIN continues to drive important conversations through projects like this one, and it’s truly exciting to partner with a free speech thought leader like FIRE. It’s thrilling to be able to bring together entertainment and policy for discussions that inspire, compel and lay out the groundwork for change.”

The objective is to put up a new video every month or so. The goal is to open the conversation about why free speech is critical, and to normalize the idea that it is possible to agree to disagree. It seems that Hutcheson’s point might be as simple as right and left are arbitrary. There is an easy proof, look at a map and then spin it 180 degrees. You’ve made left right and right left, but nothing else is different.

Perrino from FIRE wants to remind everyone that artistic freedom and freedom of speech are essential to ensuring that we can hear the music we love. He believes we can’t take the right to listen to music for granted, because history is riddled with those who tried everything they could to inhibit boundary pushing artists from Elvis to Prince. Perrino said “We are thrilled to partner with SPIN to highlight the essential role free expression plays in music through compelling stories from the world’s most talented artists.”

FIRE is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought—the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE educates Americans about the importance of these inalienable rights, promotes a culture of respect for these rights, and provides the means to preserve them.

Chilling speech happens over time, and can lead to once incomprehensible results as an insurrection intended to overthrow an American election aided by a major television news network knowingly lying about “facts.” Only because the American judicial system still remains substantially intact in allowing discovery to compel answers under oath and subpoenas for documents do we now know that Tucker Carlson and the others on air at Fox did not believe that which they were telling to the millions who watched their 24 hour news network.

Woke culture has similarly spread a wide and deep web. The 2023 Grammy awards just took place in Los Angeles. This year they instituted a new award, The Dr. Dre Global Impact Award. The first recipient: Dr. Dre himself. This award will be given annually, which is quite the honor for Dr. Dre (nee Andre Young.) Dre, along with his Beats headphones partner Jimmy Iovine donated $70 million in 2013 for the USC Iovine and Young Academy.

What’s amazing is Dre, this icon of hip-hop first became known as a member of N.W.A., a supergroup known around the world for their 1988 album Straight Outta Compton. Today, 35 years later you cannot say the full name of the band, and many won’t utter out loud the title of their hit song referencing the struggle between those who lived in Compton and the police.

People are social animals. They communicate with words, whether written, sung or spoken in conversation. Wouldn’t it be great if that idea enshrined in the Constitution of the United States way back in 1791 that free speech is a right central to our Republic continue? Maybe, we should think all the way back to elementary school where we all learned this basic idea in the most basic form. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. You only learn by listening. Talk less, listen more, and leave moral superiority for the ignorant.