Why I’m Giving Up On Free Speech, In The Wake Of Jimmy Kimmel’s Firing

By Joshua Tyler
| Updated 1 hour ago

The history of humanity is one in which smart people say things that challenge narratives, and then dumb people kill them for it. To stop this from happening, and perhaps also to protect themselves from being murdered, Ancient Greek thinkers developed the idea that people should be free to say what they want. 

In 1791 the United States of America turned those free speech philisophical ideas into the First Amendment. It codified into law that people should be allowed to talk.

Those thinkers and that law, as it turns out, changed nothing. And so now I’m giving up on it, until some better method of keeping the imbeciles away from their pitchforks and torches comes along.

Free Speech Was My North Star

Free speech has always been my North Star. I was born and raised in a restrictive religious cult and got a firsthand look at what happens when people are forced to police their words and thoughts under threat of punishment.

So in my early adulthood, I left that cult at great personal cost. Everyone I’d ever known or loved abandoned and shunned me. I had no one and nothing. Nothing but a newfound freedom to say whatever I want. Or so I thought.

Drunk on freedom, in the late 1990s, I entered the free speech business, working my way into becoming both a writer and a successful publisher. Gradually, over decades of speaking and encouraging others to speak, I realized I hadn’t escaped a cult, I’d just moved into a bigger one. 

The Reality Of The Overton Window

Many claim devotion to freedom of expression, but I’ve learned through experience that they don’t truly believe in free speech; they only believe in the Overton window.

The Overton window is a concept meant to describe the range of ideas that are considered acceptable or mainstream in public discourse at any given time. Where the Overton window is located on the scale of acceptable conversation is fluid, and the Overton window shifts back and forth.

In a world of free speech, the Overton window shouldn’t exist. Anyone who believes in free expression should argue in favor of eliminating the window and removing the guards. That doesn’t happen.

When most people argue in favor of free speech, evidence suggests that what they’re actually doing is trying to gain control of the Overton window. Once they own the tools necessary to move it, they shift the window to their preferred place on the cultural spectrum and destroy anyone who engages in speech that falls outside the window’s range.

Howard Stern’s Free Speech Mirage

There’s no better example of free speech fraud than Howard Stern. 

I grew up listening to Howard Stern in secret, enamored with his raunchy vision of a society where people could say whatever they wanted. In the 1990s, there was no bigger free speech advocate than Stern. In his world, the Overton window did not exist, and he had seemingly dedicated his life to fighting for the human right to say anything.

At the time, Howard was on terrestrial radio, a medium heavily regulated by the FCC and subject to restrictive broadcast regulations, which he railed against. In the 2000s, Stern took a huge payday and moved to Satellite radio, where those restrictions no longer existed.

If you ask him, Stern will probably say he’s still a free speech champion. He’ll say that, and then launch into a screed advocating for the imprisonment of anyone who has negative opinions about the efficacy of vaccinations.

Howard Stern is an admitted germaphobe. So, now that he’s safely protected from censorship by satellite, his once ardent free speech views only apply to his personal Overton Window. 

Howard Stern acted as a free speech advocate while it benefited him. When it no longer got him what he wanted, he stopped.

Censorship Advocates And Free Speech Fighters Are Interchangeable

Stern is not an edge case. Censorship advocates and free speech fighters have now been revealed as totally interchangeable groups.

I’ve used much of my career as a writer and publisher to champion the cause of free speech in entertainment and art. In the early 2000s, during the Bush era, I found myself constantly at odds with Republican Christians intent on silencing anything that wasn’t biblical.

When Barack Obama became president in 2008, Howard Stern and other liberals abandoned their free speech views and seized control of the Overton window. That meant the formerly pro-censorship conservatives were now outside the window and in their crosshairs. So, conservatives flipped and became free speech champions. 

The Shrinking Number Of Genuine Free Speech Absolutists

A few free speech absolutists have, like me, been genuine believers. Radio host and podcasting pioneer Adam Carolla had views similar to Stern’s in the 90s. Conservatives hated him for it and tried to get him thrown off the air. He still has those same views, and now he’s hated and hunted by Liberals.

One of the most genuine guardians of open discussion was a man named Charlie Kirk. He proved it by traveling the country and debating with anyone who was willing. He did so knowing he was at great personal risk.

So a left-wing extremist shot him for talking, and formerly free speech-friendly liberals cheered the bloodletting.

The Overton Window’s New Masters, Same As The Old Ones

Conservatives, having regained power in the wake of Kirk’s killing, are now seizing control of the Overton window again. It’s something they haven’t had since the end of the Bush dynasty, and in the interim, it’s been shifted so far to the left that words like “debanking” have become a common thing.

Newly empowered, Conservatives are copying the tactics they’ve seen used against them since 2008.  Currently in their cancellation crosshairs are the creeps who’ve been advocating for violence, of the type that killed Kirk. And they’ve stopped caring about free speech.

Predictably, having now lost control of the window, Liberals have returned to being free speech’s noble guardians, leaping to the defense of Jimmy Kimmel, a late-night host with failing ratings who used his show to spread false anti-conservative propaganda. Kimmel was trying to regain control of the Overton window for his team, and after a decade as its primary victims, that’s something newly energized Conservatives won’t allow.

The Strategic Failings Of Free Speech

It’s hard to argue that this is the wrong approach for either side. If Conservatives continue shouting free speech while Liberals shoot them for talking, Liberals would retain control of the Overton window and use it to keep killing and canceling them.

On the flipside, if Liberals had never seized control of the Overton window after the election of Barack Obama, and had themselves continued championing free speech, we’d probably still be talking about Janet Jackson’s nip slip at the Super Bowl, and Kirk Cameron would be the biggest producer in Hollywood. That’s not a world I want to live in.

No matter how good the strategic excuses, for my part, I’m tired of being taken for a sucker by advocating for something that can never happen. Free speech may exist as a concept, but it doesn’t exist as a reality, and I doubt it ever has. It’s not viable strategically. The First Amendment is a series of words on a piece of paper, words that will be interpreted to benefit whoever ends up in power.

Safety Comes Through Overton Control, Not Free Speech

I’m raising four brilliant children, and I’ve worked hard to teach them to develop the kind of mental flexibility that allows them to think any thought. But I probably won’t advise them to verbalize those thoughts in public, because the masses are rarely kind to those who think outside the box, and the mechanisms designed to protect such thinkers are broken or never worked at all. 

Free speech is a fantasy of frightened philosophers using rudimentary persuasion tools to keep the close-minded masses from nailing them to a cross. In reality, there is only the Overton window. Until we can destroy the Overton window, which seems unlikely at this point, free speech does not exist.

If you’d like to avoid being lined up against the wall the next time cultural power structures change, free speech is not the answer. Seize the Overton window and place it where you want.

Full Overton Window Timeline