Rand Paul: ‘The impulse to censor people’s speech is actually illiberal'

FEE’s Brad Polumbo writes, “I spoke with Senator Rand Paul, a libertarian-leaning Kentucky Republican, about why this alarming uptick in Big Tech censorship is so concerning—and why the free market, not Big Government, is the best response.

‘I think they have the right as private property owners to ban me, censor me, do whatever they want,’ the senator said. ‘But I don’t agree with it ideologically; I don’t like the idea of associating with small-minded people who are so close-minded that they want to censor what I have to say.’

Everybody on the Right is complaining about #BigTech but nobodys doing anything about it. They just complain, complain, complain. Their next response is oh the government should break up Big Tech or regulate it. I don't want to do any of that @SenRandPaul https://t.co/DS6P3HNt8G

— XIMENA (@RepublicanChick) January 5, 2022

Paul explained why the idea of banning ‘misinformation’ is actually antithetical to the scientific method properly understood.

‘We only arrive at the truth through disputation, by hearing [more] voices,’ he said. ‘It’s easy enough to say something is ‘misinformation.’ But really, a lot of things are debatable…’

‘The impulse to censor people’s speech is actually illiberal.’

‘They’re coming to this Platonic idea that, basically, it’s too dangerous to let the rabble know things, we need to protect them from certain ideas that might be unsettling,’ he continued. ‘But that’s not a step forward; I think that’s a couple-thousand-year-old step backwards.”

Read the entire column.