Potentially, anyone writing on the Web can reach a global audience. In practice, hardly anyone ever does.

Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen.

Aesthetic freedom is like free speech; it is, indeed, a form of free speech.

We live in a world in which people are censured, demoted, imprisoned, beheaded, simply because they have opened their mouths, flapped their lips, and vibrated some air. Yes, those vibrations can make us feel sad or stupid or alienated. Tough shit. That's the price of admission to the marketplace of ideas. Hateful, blasphemous, prejudiced, vulgar, rude, or ignorant remarks are the music of a free society, and the relentless patter of idiots is how we know we're in one. When all the words in our public conversation are fair, good, and true, it's time to make a run for the fence.

Could you imagine the OUTRAGE that would ensue if an artist thanked Allah or Zeus for their Grammy Award? Well...sure....because we live in a country that protects our right to FREEDOM of religion...You are FREE to be a CHRISTIAN. Thank Zenu for that!

With false names, on the right nets, they could be anybody. Old men, middle-aged women, anybody, as long as they were careful about the way they wrote. All that anyone would see were the words, their ideas. Every citizen started equal, on the nets.