Truly free speech is equally imperiled at different times and in different ways because both the Left and the Right hate it when it assails their goals and ideologies.

On balance, I think the Right is worse — as is typical — but pretending the Left isn’t often just as eager to ban speech that displeases them doesn’t stand up to historical scrutiny.

Free speech is more often now constrained by corporate action than by the government directly, and this is something we are told we should not be concerned with.

“It has nothing to do with free speech if the First Amendment wasn’t violated!” as it is usually said.

I hear this from people on the Left more often than the Right, but it is widespread across the political spectrum.

But tell the worker fired for attempting to organize a union that their right to free speech was not violated. Or tell it to someone who gets canned for a mere blog post.

It’s a-ok, apparently, if a corporation does it according to most people.

I’m always a bit shocked at how willing people are to accept authoritarianism and neo-fascism as long as it is couched in the right language, framed by the right key words.