Should the monopolists also have the monopoly on speech? 

Frédéric Bastiat
Complete Works, Volume 7, pages 47 to 50 (in French)
Mémorial bordelais, February 19th, 1846

This article was published in the Mémorial bordelais as a response to the Journal de Lille, which had published an article presenting the project of a free trade association and its ideas under a favourable light but concluded that fighting for freedom was not relevant because they were facing a “confused scrum” in which the advocates of freedom are mixed with their detractors.

Frédéric Bastiat asks, quoting the said article, how is it possible to reach such a conclusion and request the liberals to keep quiet while waiting for freedom to be, which would then give them the right to fight for it. This is absurd indeed and leads to today’s quote.

Beyond the present situation, what is at stake here is to defend freedom of speech. It is similar to what we can observe nowadays when accusations of “conspiracy” and “fake news” are used by governments and their supporters every so often. No, freedom of speech does not consist in letting people talk when they agree, be it to official speech or a widely accepted one, but consists in letting people speak when one disagrees. George Orwell is reminding this to us when he writes: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”.