ur freedom. There's nothing in the Constitution that would require that. Scott, Scott, Scott you low information idiot.

So that's what I've been listening to for the last 48 hours. Let me add a little to that argument. First of all to my critics who explained to me that freedom of speech is a feature of government and not private industry, let me respond to you this way. I knew that. Pretty much most people were smart enough to be in the conversation. They knew it too. So why are you telling me something you know and I know and you should know I know it as an argument? It's not an argument to tell me something I already know. You need to add something to it.

Here's my argument because I'm not pedantic and I live in the real world and it goes like this. If you look at the arc of time from let's say 1770s to today lots has changed. For example the media has consolidated. Back in 1776 freedom of speech, if your newspaper didn't want to print it I suppose you could go to another newspaper or you could write it on a scroll or you could yell it in the town hall. Those are the only tools you had but at least you had options, right? As the media consolidated coming toward 2022 it became certainly your right to have free speech but in a practical sense if you don't have free speech on the dominant speech platforms you don't really have freedom of speech. What you have is a legal right that you can't use.

Let me give you an example. If you were in a coma do you have freedom of speech? The answer is yeah you do. You're in a coma but you have freedom of speech. Does it help you? What are you going to do with your freedom of speech when you're in a coma? You don't have real freedom of speech. Technically you do but in all practical ways do you have freedom of speech when let's say you're in jail and you're not allowed to talk to the outside world and you're in solitary confinement? Do you have freedom of speech? Well legally yeah but in a practical sense do you? Not really. Not in any practical sense.

If the only way that people communicate in any effective way, in other words communicate with lots of people, if the only good way to do that is social media and that's the way it's evolved and you can't use it, do you have freedom of speech? Technically you do. Technically you do. But do you have it in a practical sense? No, not even close.

So here's the question. Do the way we think of freedom of speech or the way we thought of it in 1776, is it the way we should still be thinking of it? Or, and I'll just put this out here, should we take into consideration a changing environment? Is that crazy? Because my critics will say it's not in the Constitution. I know that. I know that. I know it's not in the Constitution but thanks for telling me over and over. I'm telling you that we should adjust so that our rights are compatible with the reality on the ground. And the reality on the ground is if you get kicked off of social media you're effectively closed out from freedom of speech. And so we should consider whether we want that to be the situation or not.

Now I've heard the argument, Scott, Scott, if you don't like these platforms just go start your own. Go over to Parler, Gab, go over to Rumble. You've got options just like these guys. In fact you probably have more options than they had because of all the new social media platforms. But really, really let me tell you what that sounds like to me. It sounds like if I tell you that the local energy company that has a monopoly in your town, if they decide to stop selling you electricity do you have options? You do yeah. You could take a balloon and rub it on your hair and it would create static electricity. So why do you need the electricity from the power company when you could just rub a balloon on your hair? That's the argument that my critics are giving me about social media. Scott you don't have to be on Twitter. You could shout from your porch. You could go on Parler where nobody hears you except the people who already agree with you so there's no point in talking to them. So do you really have options? Technically yes. And if you're really really stupid you think that those options matter. They don't. They don't matter. If you're not on Twitter you just don't exist in our world or the other social media.

So if you think rubbing a balloon on your hair is the same as having electricity then yeah going to Parler is just like being on Twitter. But it's a stupid argument because in the real world these are monopolies. They're good ones. I love Twitter. Twitter is awesome. But they're monopolies for all practical purposes. Again maybe not in a technical sense but in a practical sense. Should we update our school textbooks to reflect the end of free speech that just happened? Don't you believe that we should not be teaching kids that we have freedom of speech in a practical sense? Because we don't as of today. If your kids are taught in school that they have freedom of speech that's not true. They only have freedom until some big company tells them they don't and then they don't.

And by the way do you think that the social media companies would have done what they did without pressure from the government? No way. This was the government suppressing your free speech. You tell me that those social media companies could all make their own private independent decisions. Yes they can. Do you think they did? Not a chance. Not a chance. The government or members of it pressured the social media companies and then the social media companies caved and do what the government wants, the government being Democrats. So when you argue with me that the government is not the one who is suppressing your freedom of speech it's Twitter, you're an idiot. That's not what's happening. It's the government pressuring the companies and the companies being compatible with or agreeing with the government go along with it. Not one of those companies was going to ban Trump because they wanted to. Well maybe. I mean I don't want to be a mind reader so I suppose anything's possible. But if you're telling me that the government is not pressuring, t