“Free” Speech is Cheap – “Forbidden” or “Banned” Speech is Expensive, and May Cost You Your Life

by Brian Shilhavy

In an article earlier this month I defined what “free speech” really means legally in the United States, as the American public has increasingly defined “free speech” in political terms, and in relation to social media. See:

Do Big Tech Billionaires Promote “Free Speech” or Child Sex Trafficking? What is “Free Speech”?

And while “free speech” is a term legally defined by the Constitution of the United States in the First Amendment in the “Bill of Rights”, the REAL issues regarding speech have always been between publishing “truth” or publishing “lies”.

A quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson, one of the “founders” of the United States, even exemplifies this:

“The most effectual engines for [pacifying a nation] are the public papers… [A despotic] government always [keeps] a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers.

This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper.” (Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, correspondence and miscellanies from the papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.343)

I have observed this same thing through my own publishing career, especially in regards to government-published facts on the injuries and dangers caused by vaccines that I frequently wrote about BEFORE COVID, where the only narrative allowed by the Government, on BOTH sides of the political divide, was “The science on vaccines is settled. Vaccines are safe and effective.”

Any opposing view was viciously attacked by government sources, using the corporate media to silence them, and then later, also using social media sources to silence dissenters who dared to publish the truth, which included me as they banned me on all the major social media platforms.

In 2013, for example, popular daytime talk show host Katie Couric dared to interview a mother who lost her daughter to the Gardasil HPV vaccine.

Everything that Couric published was TRUE, and protected by the First Amendment.

She even stated publicly that she was pro-vaccine, that her and her daughters were both vaccinated by Gardasil, and she interviewed pro-vaccine doctors who stated that Gardasil was perfectly “safe and effective,” both lies.

But because she dared to interview a mother who was put forth as a tragic case of “very rare” vaccine side effects that took the life of her daughter, Katie Couric was viciously attacked as promoting conspiracy theories, and was forced to bring on to her show the next week the Surgeon General of the United States, dressed in her military uniform, to inform the public that Gardasil was perfectly safe.

Couric was forced to issue an apology, even though she published the truth, and was protected by the First Amendment for publishing that truth.

Her show was canceled the next season, and one could argue her career was never the same after that. See:

Mainstream Media Attacks Katie Couric for Publishing Truth on Gardasil Vaccine

Unfortunately, back in 2013 videos were not disappearing yet from the Internet, and I am unable to find the original videos I used for that article.

One video that is left that I could find from 2014, is one that Barbara Loe Fisher, of the National Vaccine Information Center, published at that time.

See:

Gardasil Vaccine, Katie Couric and Cyber-Lynching

The First Amendment did not protect Katie Couric in 2013 when she dared to publish something that was true, even when packed into the middle of a bunch of government-approved lies.

The battle in public speech always has been, and always will be, a battle between the Truth and Satanic lies.

“Free” speech is “free” for a reason, because it is cheap to publish Satan’s lies. He presents them to you in usually two different flavors, to keep the publishers of lies fighting each other, rather than fighting to defend The Truth.

If one wants to publish the Truth, which is usually forbidden or banned, that is far more costly, and could even cost you your life.

John the Baptist, the forerunner to Jesus Christ who preached to the public the truth in the First Century, was beheaded for daring to publish the truth in public.

King Herod heard of it, for Jesus’ name had become known.

Some said, “John the Baptist has been raised from the dead. That is why these miraculous powers are at work in him.”

But others said, “He is Elijah.”

And others said, “He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.”

But when Herod heard of it, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.”

For it was Herod who had sent and seized John and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because he had married her.

For John had been saying to Herod,

“It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.”

And Herodias had a grudge against him and wanted to put him to death.

But she could not, for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he kept him safe.

When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed, and yet he heard him gladly.

But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his nobles and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee.

For when Herodias’s daughter came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests.

And the king said to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it to you.” And he vowed to her, “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, up to half of my kingdom.”

And she went out and said to her mother, “For what should I ask?”

And she said, “The head of John the Baptist.”

And she came in immediately with haste to the king and asked, saying, “I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.”

And the king was exceedingly sorry, but because of his oaths and his guests he did not want to break his word to her.

And immediately the king sent an executioner with orders to bring John’s head. He went and beheaded him in the prison and brought his head on a platter and gave it to the girl, and the girl gave it to her mother.

When his disciples heard of it, they came and took his body and laid it in a tomb. (Mark 6:14-29)

Jesus Christ, before he himself was executed for speaking the truth, had much to say about how costly it was to speak the truth, as he commissioned his disciples to preach the truth about the Good News concerning him.

He warned that we who take a stand for the truth will usually lose our families, who will become our enemies:

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth.

I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household.

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 10:34-39)

He warned that religious leaders would also try to kill us for speaking the Truth:

They will put you out of the synagogues (churches).

Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.

And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. (John 16:2-3)

And of course, in the end they executed Jesus Christ, because he testified to the truth against them.

So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”

Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?”

Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?”

Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.”

Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?”

Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”

Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”

After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, “I find no guilt in him.”

Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe.

They came up to him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and struck him with their hands.

Pilate went out again and said to them, “See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him.”

So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe.

Pilate said to them, “Behold the man!”

When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him!”

Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.”

The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has made himself the Son of God.”

When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid.

He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, “Where are you from?”

But Jesus gave him no answer.

So Pilate said to him, “You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?”

Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.”

From then on Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.”

So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Stone Pavement, and in Aramaic Gabbatha.

Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour.

He said to the Jews, “Behold your King!”

They cried out, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him!”

Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?”

The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.”

So he delivered him over to them to be crucified. (John Chapters 18 and 19)

“Free” speech given to you by permission of your government is worthless. Satan’s lies are cheap.

Truth speech is expensive, and could cost you your life in this world.

But this entire world, along with all the politicians and businessmen who run it, belong to Satan, as Satan himself told Jesus.

And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will.

If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.”

And Jesus answered him,

“It is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’” (Luke 4:5-8)

Jesus Christ is the Truth, and the only successful way to exit this world, controlled by Satan.

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

Are you willing to give up your career, your family, and even your own physical life to stand for that Truth?