Substack has achieved a rare distinction. Every time some ruling class asshole talks about the need for censorship, they invariably mention Substack as one of the prototypical “threats.” From Margaret Anna Alice at margaretannaalice.substack.com:

Add Your Signature in the Comments to Join Me in Thanking the Founders

“It was the fear of freedom, with all its dangers, that got the Germans into trouble in the first place.… Free inquiry on a free platform is the only practice that distinguishes a free from a slave society.”
—Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45 (Kindle, paperback, audiobook)

“The greatest attack on language is censorship and this must be resisted at every level. You cannot have a free society without free speech, period. Any attempt to argue that others must be protected from offense and hurt feelings should be utterly repudiated. No government, no company, no fact-checkers can ever be the arbiters of truth.”
—Michelle Stiles, One Idea To Rule Them All: Reverse Engineering American Propaganda (Kindle, paperback, audiobook)

Nudging Us to Fear Freedom

If I had been told a decade ago I would be frittering my time arguing with people about why censorship is bad and why free speech must be treasured, I wouldn’t have believed it.

I mean, who objects to freedom? Okay, dictators and their psychophants, yes, but I’m talking about real people, not the uncanny-valley villains trying to rule the world.

And who would be so arrogant as to claim they have the right to silence others? And how could anyone be naïve enough to think that—once empowered to mute citizens—governments, agencies, nonprofits, and corporations would not abuse that power? Have these people never opened a history book?

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