How to Stop China: The Free Speech Doctrine

Free Speech Doctrine: Stop China from World Supremacy

Hi, I'm Anthony Galli and RBG said, “The right to speak my mind out, that’s America!” Her frenemy Anton Scalia agreed, “If you had to pick one freedom that is the most essential to the functioning of a democracy it has to be freedom of speech.”

You are fat, stup*d, and lazy. You are too handsome, smart, and humble. You see WE MUST protect each other’s right to call each other names, but globalization could strip us of this first amendment right because free speech threatened anywhere is threatened everywhere.

This is because corporations are competing with each other to make money. For example, if Apple can make their smartphones in China for 50% less money and then more importantly sell those smartphones to China’s massive consumer market without having to pay a tariff then what choice will Google have but to relocate there too in order to stay price competitive with Apple? This gives enormous power to the Chinese government. The Chinese Communist Party can then tell these big tech giants that if they want to continue to have access to their consumer workers then they need to play by their totalitarian rules.

Free speech lovers should find this graph horrifying…

Most sources, however, point to the U.S. as having a bigger economy, but no matter how we slice it, the U.S. and China are neck-in-neck…

As China’s market continues to grow in size, its ability to pressure global corporations to relocate within their borders will also grow. Once these tech giants are within arms reach of the Chinese Communist Party then how much freedom will the rest of us have on these platforms? What influencers and stories will they ban for spreading Anti-Chinese conspiracy theories and “hate speech” while boosting content that puts China in the most positive light? The mechanisms are already in place to make this a reality.

To prevent this global dystopia the President of the United States should commit to what I call: The Free Speech Doctrine.

How it works is we’d categorize countries based on three tiers of free speech: free, restricted, suppressed. We could use the 2020 World Press Freedom Index as a guide…

Tier 1 (yellow) countries would face a 0% tariff.
Tier 2 (orange-red) countries would face a 5% tariff.
Tier 3 (black) countries would face a 10% tariff.

This free speech tariff would be in addition to existing tariffs. We would also work closely with other free speech countries to encourage them to implement the Free Speech Doctrine so we can leverage our combined economies for maximum pressure.

Once it becomes more profitable to be free then these totalitarian states will be in a conundrum: watch their economy shrink or expand free speech rights. Some nations as evidenced by North Korea will double-down on their censorship as they’re slowly forced out of the global economy and some nations will expand free speech rights as evidenced by the Soviet Union when General Secretary Gorbachev implemented Glasnot (“openness”).

Free speech is the ultimate despotic wrecking ball.

You see tyrants and elitists believe “the masses” are too stupid to tell fact from fiction or reach correct conclusions after weighing all the evidence, which admittedly isn’t always easy to tell or do, so therefore they take it upon themselves to suppress information that may lead us to what they deem is the wrong conclusion. Now even if these tyrants’ and elitists’ logic was well-supported because, after all, some populations are less educated and therefore more prone to conspiracy theories then these elites would now be in control of an information system where they hold all the keys. How long is it before suppressing information isn’t so much about guiding the herd to greener pastures and its instead about guiding them to the slaughterhouse, especially when the latter could make the shepherd more money? Always remember the proverb, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Democracy and free speech are messy. Evolution and innovation are messy. Just because they’re messy doesn’t mean they need to be cleaned up. It’s because of their messiness that humanity has progressed from “the swamp to the stars.”

Free speech permits people to complain. By complaining, we pressure those in power to fix it. Take any community, protect their speech, and overtime the community will improve. After all, we've seen this in our global community where as free speech has expanded so has the global economy via unprecedented rises in global wealth, human longevity, and peace.

Suppressed speech rewards obedient citizens therefore slowing progress WHEREAS free speech rewards smart, hard-working, problem-solving citizens therefore speeding progress. Each type of speech has its pros and cons, but what type of world would you rather live in?