If so, then likely the biggest difference between you and Tulsi Gabbard is that we can trace the actual damages that she suffered as a result of the truths that were agreed upon as the premises.
Tulsi Gabbard was the most searched candidate after the first presidential debate. However, she said that her Google ad account was mysteriously suspended and later reinstated without explanation as to why either thing happened. In her recent statement to the House weaponization committee, she cited that as having limited her opportunity to interact with people who were interested in her candidacy. So, if Google did restrict her ad account in search results, I think it is reasonable to assume that they influenced those who searched for her and found other people's opinions of her but not her statements about her candidacy.
She then talked about how much influence the media has when she talked about the claim of Russian grooming by Hillary Clinton, and the claim that she was treasonous asserted by Mitt Romney. Both were met with legal challenges to provide evidence of their claims. Whatever else was agreed upon, both Hillary and Mitt agreed to shut up as part of their deals. The problem was that search engines produced results of articles referencing the allegations. It was not so easy for readers to find out that those who made the allegations had decided to shut up rather than face the consequences of slandering the military officer.
The consequential fallout from those claims have not been upon the slanderous villains who spoke the lies. The fallout has been on Tulsi, who, if she is incorrect about Google, Hillary Clinton, or Mitt Romney, has left the congressional record to fall upon as proof that she is the person making the false accusations. Apparently, all the entities she is making claims against are shutting up rather than defending themselves against her allegations.
The reason that Gabbard was able to tell Clinton and Romney to put up or shut up is because they had no evidence for their claims. The reason they don't tell her to shut up when she calls them liars who started propaganda against her is that she can defend her claim that they are liars who started propaganda against her as the truth. That should be the logical conclusion if things like facts mattered to most people.
However, I am often referred to other people's unsupported opinions about Gabbard when I challenge people to find where she said what someone is accusing her of saying. Often, these opinions are based on popularity rather than evidence. There is an old statement that is paraphrased to this: if a million people say something stupid, it is still something stupid to say.
She also talked about the danger of making some speech illegal because it is deemed untrue, while also putting those same people in charge of determining what is true and what is not true. Do you disagree with that sentiment? If so, we disagree about the morality of policing morality. To me, if it does not damage you, either shut up about what other people think or argue with them about it.
When thoughts and statements without victims are themselves crimes, we have reached a dangerous point in the rights to free speech. While the Tea Party RINOs are running House committees more out of vengeance than justice and fair representation, it is not a preposterous notion that an agency like the FBI could be run as a political influencer. After all, it has people like J. Edgar Hoover and James Comey as directors who used their positions to seemingly influence popular opinion. Hoover had something on any politician who might try to oppose him, and Comey released the infamous letter just days before the 2016 election announcing that the FBI was looking into Hillary's email situation further.
Ike warned us about the military industrial complex more than sixty years ago. Tulsi is warning us about it today. She points at the politicians who support regime-change wars who then change the rules such that she can no longer play in their game. She was silenced despite meeting the criteria to be on the debate stage in 2019, while the Republican mayor who was most famous for losing his stop and frisk arguments in court was allowed to buy his way onto the stage.
She knocked Harris over the hypocrisy of her "fun comment" about being Jamaican and smoking weed, and her actions as the top enforcement official in California who was responsible for putting many people, mostly Black men, in prison for drug offenses. She criticized Buttigieg for not understanding what he is talking about but being able to make it sound convincing unless it is scrutinized. I believe it is wrong to punish her for criticizing party loyalists when her biggest flaw in their opinion was her passing on the opportunity to get rich as the next face of the party when she resigned as vice-chair of the party to support Bernie Sanders. She was now coupling that perceived flaw with becoming really popular among voters.
I am including her entire 17-minute testimony before the House committee. I find everything she says is credible, and I agree with her on everything she says including that we can't really support free speech if we don't support speech that bothers us. That concept has been supported by the likes of Voltaire, Thomas Paine, and even the ACLU when it defended the KKK's right to assemble.
Even if we don't agree with what somebody or a group says, they have the right to say it. People are not free from consequences for what they say if there are actual damages suffered or crimes committed because of what was said. I think that Tulsi Gabbard makes that clear in her statement.
