First off, I don't think I will ever be convinced by someone calling something "un-American" or "American." That is almost always lazy thinking that tries to wrap up an emotional sentiment into some kind of conclusion. America and what it is to be American has changed and it will continue to change. We'd better hope that change is guided by reasoning about what is good or bad for this country instead of appeals to what is "American" or not.

Second, I'm rather disappointed by the defenses of free speech we see these days. They are flimsy, lack substance, and at times seem unwilling to actually argue for free speech. Is free speech actually good for anything? Is the only reason we attack attempts by people to encroach on it because it is "American"? I, for one, would like an argument for its value.

This piece is flimsy. The discussion is about youtube getting removing election misinformation. Ok, controversial. I get it.

It brings up Hunter Biden's laptop as a case where

> That news was denounced as Russian disinformation by virtually everyone in “reputable” media, who often dismissed the story with an aristocratic snort, a la Christiane Amanpour

with those lovely scare quotes around "reputable". I'm not sure what to say here. Is it better for the media to run around screaming after every single lead? Even the ones that look flimsy to them? Is it better for the US media to be so willing to report and investigate on anything and everything these days when the media making a hubub about anything is enough to have an effect?

Taibbi proceeds to ask us to indulge in a hypothetical, one where

> what would have happened if Facebook and Google had banned 9/11 Truth on the advice of intelligence officials in the Bush years

and the natural result of this is that

> it will start to make sense that Trump voters in Guy Fawkes masks are now roaming the continent like buffalo.

I'm sorry but this is incredibly lazy thinking. I'm going to stop quoting the piece because I'm tired and I have things to say. Things have changed. We've had Trump in office and he was most assuredly different than other presidents -- in good ways and bad. We've had the rise of the internet, of smartphones, of digital technology, and social media. Information flows freely. Nowadays we don't risk not having access to information, we risk being drowned in it. The "echos" in our echo chambers aren't some soft faint whispers we can't see beyond, they are roaring deluges that drown out everything else.

I'm sorry for the longer post, but the truth is that I hate these kinds of articles. They seem to just gawk at the problems we face today and do little to inform or provide perspective or argue. Taibbi in this case seems to think it's enough to post a tweet or some headlines; the reader will draw the right conclusions for themselves. It's obvious after all. Isn't it? But then that's exactly the problem we face, where everything is obvious but somehow the other guy's come to a different conclusion and but it's all wrong!

Offer some damn arguments. Try to convince people. If free speech is worth fighting for it isn't because it's some kind of "American" ideal, it's because its a good thing, a worthwhile ideal to practice, a civic habit that improves our democracy and secures it for the future. People deal with information differently these days; that landscape has most assuredly changed. Is it any surprise that free speech will need to fought for again?