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nathanology - a history of free speech lyrics

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let’s talk free speech –

the concept is that all who seek

to speak their mind can talk in peace

and not get shot or fined or beat

or worse. the first amendment says

that we got free speech, free religion and press
so the sh+t that you wish to get off your chest

can get expressed and not get repressed

but on the tiktok and on youtube too

i’ve been known to get muted and to not get viewed

and to not get seen — not because i’ve gone nude

but bеcause google says what i said’s too crude

– truе

but it’s open to question

and some have opined

that there might be times

when we gotta draw a line –

with the misinformation that’s spreading online
speech may be free, but it can cost lives

…right? it’s sure complex —

pure free speech can sure cause a mess;

and yet we want more free speech not less —

that’s common sense. – so we need context

to see what comes next. …so are we not free?

what must the limits of our free speech be?

that’s a big question. – lemme just teach:

this is a history of free speech

ancient, medieval and islamic civilizations
so+called free speech

in the thought of the west can be traced to greece:

the athenian concept of speech+equality
for all in the polity: they called it democracy

…so speak as you want to speak

but not if you’re not a he, and not if you’re socrates

speaking on unorthodox topics. – we’ve all agreed

to make you drink hemlock: stop the philosophy!

– ah, gee. …and in ancient rome too

there was “liberty” of speech, but it was freedom for few

and this was even more true in the age of the caesars

depending who you were the caesar could seize your words

yes sir. …i guess this is justice…

and then there was jesus, in the age of augustus

he died for his truth. but he vibed with his crew

and they made it go viral — the idea grew

they tried for a few

centuries to suppress

the little movement till soon

with the rest of the west

they said, the word is flesh –

as history attests

sometimes the oppressor becomes the oppressed

and vice versa. — so free speech waned

and took a back seat in the european brain

behind the refrain that all there’s to see

is the gospel — so don’t hear or say heresy

meanwhile in the ancient islamic state

free speech thronged in the abbasid caliphate:

al+rawandi, al+razi and avicenna could calibrate

classical thought with the qu’ran and contemplate –

and that was all great — but that shangri+la

of free thought got stopped by the shari+ah law:

it’s all a see+saw — all in, or allah –

and in between, no free+speech law free of flaw

reformation and revolutions
and so in went in the west –

and yet free speech didn’t rest in the breast;

and in the 15th century it did spread

when gutenburg hit with the printing press

luther pinned his words

upon the church in wittenberg

and ripped a schism in the church

and then within the western world

and revolution then emerged

with the question getting heard

as to which of several versions of religion one should serve

word — reformation –

your profession of faith

is sure a personal expression

but you better be safe:

for the church and the state

still determined the stakes

and it wasn’t that rare

to get burnt at the stake

for giordano bruno

it sure was brutal –

literally burned

for serving his truth; though

galileo had to lie to live

he hid a truth:

‘sure the earth’s static’ –

then he added ‘yet it moves’

from the mid+16th

to the mid+17th

many more europeans

would die for their beliefs –

and while some died for science

other europeans silenced

the speech of other people

through conquest and violence

meanwhile on a another continent

the colonists were confident

their conscience said

free speech for all —

by ‘all’ they meant

caucasian men

but the concept spread, and olympe de gouges

pled the cause of the enslaved and for feminism too

in the french revolution — till she who had reached

far ahead of her time lost her head for free speech

the modern age
but what they could not k!ll

was a thought from the quill of a john stuart mill:

though all humankind all minus one are not chill

with a thought, that one’s got a right to talk still

and none is free till

everyone is –

you can read it in the narrative of fredrick douglas

who freed himself, and freed his own mind

by the writing and the reading by which freedom’s defined

and in time it was news fit to print –

when ida b. wells tells the truths of the lynched

when the leaders out in selma went and used the bridge

when mandela said he’s sooner serve truth than to live

when the truth hurts big, then let it be uttered –

free speech one martin luther to another –

never let em vet what you’re permitted to preach –

‘somewhere i read of the freedom of speech.’

a century ago

a demagogue scoffed

at the ‘marxist press’

and their ‘news that was false’ –

does that bring anyone to mind? — +light cough+

the guy wrote a book by the name of mein kampf

oh my god!

the weimar republic –

why didn’t they prohibit it from ever being published?

it was hot off the presses — some bestseller sh+t —

would hitler not have hit if it hadn’t been a hit?

that hits different. — and then when they did

try to censor them is when the n+z+s really got big

as martyrs for a cause — and a precedent was further

then set for the censorship they met with him as fuhrer

it’s enough to make you furious

censorship and murder –

silence all objectors

recondition all deserters –

“perverters of the workers must be purged from the state” –

that or the reverse: “the commie perps are at your gate!”

and now our language of alert

has been subverted by the urgent

overstatement every side has made against its other version:

insurrection, treason and sedition by the arch+

and utter enemies of freedom

either way we choose to march

and in the too much information on this internet of ours

now the office of the censor is the autocratic powers

of the platforms driven by their profit as they scour

while we post our speech and wile away our hours

…if things seem freer than when all were accosted

you can still get shot up for drawing mohammed

you can still scroll a phone that was made in a spot that

has a government that doesn’t let you scroll where ya wanted

is your own mind free?

can they tell you what to do?

there’s no vaccine

for the fact that ever+new

enemies of what’s true

speak louder than you

…why can’t she speak

with her nipples out too?

conclusion
and so to conclude

no freedom of speech has been true absolute

all we can do is judiciously choose

to whom we will listen when seeking the truth

and when fools speak

and single out groups

the best way to silence them

and clip their roots

isn’t to refuse their right to speak

but critique ‘em even louder

than you used

even when the speeches are evil we cope

leaning on the note that if we don’t

let the evil be spoken

then when we speak

we too will be choked –

it’s a slippery slope

but we roll with hope. – and this sound

whether it’s suppressed or spreads around

whether it’s viral or never gets found

whether any platform takes it down

is a speech

dedicated to the peeps

who were dedicated each

to what must get said –

for the many that have bled

and as many get bleeped –

this has been a history of free speech

- nathanology lyrics

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