Does Donald Trump Deserve Free Speech?

Last week I was reading some alt-right pundit who was beside himself with joy over what he claimed was Elon Musk’s ‘restoration’ of free speech on Twitter by giving a new account to Donald Trump. And in general, Elon Musk is now being promoted by the alt-right as a defender of the Constitution versus the attempt by the woke crowd to censor and prevent good, loyal, God-fearing, and patriotic Americans from saying whatever they want to say.

The idea that who says what on Twitter has anything at all to do with the 1st Amendment is a total load of crap. And yet people fall for such nonsense because of how the concept of ‘free speech’ is misused, particularly these days by the alt-right.

Actually, what we really should be looking at is not ‘free speech,’ so much as ‘free expression,’ because with the internet, so much for what involves the movement of information from one person to another involves pictures rather than words.

In that regard, I’m reminded of what I believe was the best statement ever to come out of the mouth of a member of the Supreme Court. It was said by Associate Justice Potter Stewart who, in an early SCOTUS debate about how to define pornography, said, “I may not know how to define pornography, but I know it when I see it.”