The Steward’s Test of Free Speech
Guarding the Country by Protecting Its Critics
The Mirror We Cannot Smash
The surest test of power is not how it treats its friends, but how it handles its critics. This notion reappears throughout history. These words ring true for individuals, leaders, and nations. A free society depends on the ability of its citizens to speak without fear, especially when their words sting. Without that, freedom is an empty slogan.
A society without critics is like a person who refuses to look in the mirror. They will not see the dirt on their face, the pallid texture of their skin, and the jaundice of their eyes. And when they finally catch a glimpse of their reflection, they may not like what they see. The answer is not to shatter the unflattering mirror. It is to seek change and address the cause of the unhealthy rot that the mirror reveals. Yet in America today, we face a regime, institutions, and voices of power who are reaching for the hammer.
The Crackdown in Context
The signs are multiplying. Comedians lose platforms when their satire cuts too close. Journalist are pressured into silence when their stories lack the “right” editorial angle. Broadcasters face direct threats to their licenses. Citizens are encouraged to report on coworkers and neighbors, with bureaucratic reprisals and doxxing used as weapons of intimidation. The government and its allies have perverted a convenient label for it all: “hate speech”. Any criticism that makes them uncomfortable is recast as dangerous and therefore punishable.
This is not stewardship. It is cowardice disguised as virtue. It is the weaponization of systems meant to protect the vulnerable to suppress dissent. Instead of fixing the flaws in their reflection, those in power seek to banish the mirror altogether.
Why Speech Matters to Stewardship
For stewards, the value of speech is not abstract. It is practical, even urgent. Free expression is the pressure valve of a healthy society. When dissent is aired, it can be answered. When it is silenced, the pressure builds in private conspiratorial spaces until it explodes forth into violence.
Comedy and satire sharpen this pressure-releasing role. A nation without comedians is a nation without self-awareness. Jokes cut through the fog of political theater, exposing absurdity and corruption for what they are. The laughter they provoke is not trivial. It is a form of civic hygiene, clearing away the obfuscation to reveal the rot that official narratives would prefer to hide.
Journalism, too, is not the enemy of patriotism, but one of its highest expressions. To hold government accountable, to reveal uncomfortable truths, to criticize the powerful, is to provide an indisputable service to the people of the country. A society that silences its journalists does not protect itself. It blinds itself.
Stewardship’s Commitments
Stewardship recognizes that free speech must be guarded as a national inheritance and a crucial function of a free and fair democracy. That means:
- Protecting criticism of government and public figures. No democracy survives if its rulers cannot be called to account.
- Preserving satire and comedy. They are not luxuries. They are social correctives.
- Rejecting censorship disguised as safety. The public good is not served by shielding the powerful from discomfort.
These commitments are not about protecting popularity. They are about protecting a fundamental public check on power and society.
The Boundaries Recognized by Stewardship
A steward recognizes a few narrow limitations necessary, not to shield the powerful, but to protect the vulnerable and the public peace.
- Incitement to violence cannot be tolerated. Words that are weapons aimed at unleashing bloodshed in a civil society, where the rule of law is followed and provides remedies to grievances, must be checked.
- Targeted harassment and doxxing corrode civic life, driving fear and silencing ordinary people. Deprivation of rights and freedom through intimidation must never be permitted.
- Denigration of vulnerable groups must be watched carefully, not to police thought, but to guard against the kind of degradation that can prepare the ground for atrocities.
Even here, stewardship errs on the side of preservation. The burden of proof lies with those who would suppress.
The Steward’s Guardrail
The greatest danger is letting an authoritarian regime decide where these lines fall. No unitary government should ever be the arbiter of permissible speech, for the temptation to silence opponents proves irresistible. That responsibility must rest with independent, non-partisan institutions whose loyalty is not to a faction, but to the people of the country.
Stewardship insists on a clear separation between those who govern and those who safeguard the freedoms that hold government accountable. Anything less is authoritarianism with a polite mask.
The Steward’s Test
Free speech is the crucible of freedom. If we cannot tolerate criticism, satire, and dissent, then we have already surrendered. We may still hold elections, wave flags, and sing anthems, but the essence of liberty will have slipped through our fingers.
Stewardship offers another way. It does not declare things as dangerous only to silence them. It invests in truth and reason by allowing speech and criticism to contend in the open. It does not shatter the mirror but insists that we face it.
To guard speech is to guard the freedoms and virtues of the people. The steward’s task is not to ensure that speech is polite, agreeable, or popular. It is to ensure that the nation does not forget how to listen, how to answer, and how to correct itself before collapse. That is the test. And we must not fail it.
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