Why Free Speech Must Be Absolute

A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same country. The aims can include:

• Control the country
• Achieve independence
• Change policy / government

Britannica is quite a bit more direct in its definition, labeling civil war as a violent conflict. Britannica also states Civil War can be either ideological or ethnic but usually encompasses both.

The word war, in its obvious form, of which many of the readers are familiar with, is absolutely violent. However, the word War is polysemous, even in the midst of an actual war. A war of ideals. A war of competing truths. A propaganda war (IO [Information Operations] campaign) for the hearts and minds…etc.

While not violent, a conflict can exist to wrestle a “thing” from another group.

I believe we are in a modern Civil War. It is being fought on parallel fronts. The two parties in office are waging a war amongst themselves to wrest power from the other group. Each party’s elected officials are also fighting a war against the opposing party’s constituents while also waging an IO campaign against its own constituents to find the leverage they will need to exert control in perpetuity. With the alarming rhetoric of the left and right’s potential inability (or unwillingness) to stop it, I fear we can be headed towards a uniparty system over the next 4-8 years.

Who are the real losers? Us. All of us. Every single legal citizen, regardless of political affiliation.

A former president was shot in the face. A man was killed. Two people were seriously injured. It’s barely been eight weeks and it’s like it never happened. The shooter’s name is out of the news. They’ve disposed of the body with more discretion than Bin Laden being dumped at sea.

The media on both sides and both parties essentially silenced a third and potentially reasonable alternate option. That third party has now endorsed Trump and will potentially join his cabinet if re-elected. As a good friend and retired Green Beret officer often tells me – Coalition wins wars, and we are in a war. We will need the strongest coalition ever assembled to preserve this nation.

The media and the Left gaslit the nation on the mental health of the sitting president for years! By the way, that guy is still allegedly “in charge,” but where is that guy? On a beach apparently. And then when he imploded on national TV, all of the sudden it was so criminally obvious how gross and obscene that gas lighting has been. I’m sure the Parkinson’s doctor who visited the White house something like 8 times in the last year was just talking about furthering research.

Then the same guy who kept screaming into your TV that he wasn’t stepping down, posted a memo on X that he was quitting and didn’t talk to the nation he’s leading for what…almost a week? All other things being equal…that is insane.

Enter Kamala. But let’s go back before we go forward.

Categorically, one of the most disliked and unsuccessful presidential hopefuls in the history of the modern Democratic party. It took one minute in a primary debate to dismantle her candidacy so effectively that she had to withdraw from the race. She carried between 1.9 to possibly 5% of any Democrat support and had to drop out. Keep in mind, when someone drops out, what that really means is that the person is no longer an economic viability (investment) for the set of prospective donors. Neither party is immune to this campaign ROI math problem

Then, as the Left pushed Biden 2020, something that is not acknowledged enough are his two previous presidential runs. So! In order to drag him across the finish line on his third try, what did the left do? They harnessed a woman of color to drag him to the front. This fact alone, in and of itself is so diminutive to people of color. Unsurprisingly this same tactic is being used to have her seize the highest office in the world.

Fast forward: After the media’s continued posture on her lack of popularity and efficacy, Kamala is now somehow the savior of the nation…based on no things. She has been the second most powerful person in the nation for almost 4 years and has not affected a single policy that can right the ship. We are more poor, we are in more wars, we are more fractured and our position in the world has slid down hill at a rate I’ve never seen in my entire life.

Our open border is the greatest risk to our domestic security. A border that she was put in charge of. Yet! The media immediately not only tried to deny her preeminent role in the border debacle but Google and MSM literally tried to erase the proof from the internet so that curious citizens could not ascertain the truth for themselves! This by itself should be the greatest alarm bell to every single citizen in this country.

The government is not just manipulating the truth, they’re re-writing history! And, they’re doing it infront of your face and they don’t even care if you know. The current admin and MSM have such a low opinion of you they do not think or believe the middle 80% has the ability to care about or discern the truth.

I won’t tabulate every violation of free speech and the free press but it is inarguable that there is an attack by the Democratic party on the 1st Amendment. Kamala’s running mate, Tim Walz is on record stating that the government needs to restrict speech. In the last few days Kamala has doubled down that she will weaponize the DoJ against citizens and corporations to “protect” free speech by…censoring it? In the past she has talked about coming into your home regardless of you being law abiding and ensuring that you’re being a responsible gun owner. This is a violation of both the second and the fourth amendment. This is a threat to democracy and personal sovereignty. Everyone’s.

The MSM on both sides is wholly and abjectly complicit in this subterfuge. Journalistic integrity is of a bygone era and those outlets who strive to resurrect one of the most vital institutions of our nation are immediately labeled as conspiracists and radical. Free speech, Journalistic Integrity and free, fair elections are 3 of the 4 institutions that mark the US as the bastion of freedom and truth for the world. All 4 institutions (the 4th being the right to bear arms) are under attack by the Left. Kamala is on record stating that she will (try to) do what the legislative branches lack the courage to do, which is seize your firearms; violating the Constitution while at the same time proving the Second Amendment as a fundamental necessity

I am a free speech and 2A absolutist. You need to be able to say whatever you want. More importantly you have to hear everything you disagree with. We need the 2nd Amendment to protect ourselves from a tyrannical government. As society becomes more easy and comfortable, we continue to fail to see why the right to bear arms is the 2nd article in the constitution. The founding fathers wrote it, not for hunting or 3 gun competitions. It was to create an overt check and balance against a government whose power is derived from the people, yet might forget that or cease to care about that reality. I think we are in the latter stage. Therefore, a people’s last recourse and also its overt reminder to its elected representatives is that no usurpation of power and oppression of its people can be enacted by force. Look at all disarmed societies throughout history and tell me how that’s gone.

I will yet again invoke Neimuller and his seminal poem: First They Came. Every class of people he speaks to in that poem was a disarmed population and what we witnessed as a world was historically, some of the most vile and reprehensible actions carried out against humanity.

The crux of what Martin Neimuller speaks too is a rule, rules or ruling class that biases against a certain group. This might sound great if you aren’t in that group. More accurately if those rules are in your favor… until that rule is turned against you. That is why free speech must be absolute. That is why the second amendment is vital to protect everything up and downstream of the right to bear arms.

To put it politely, ignoring Neimuller is immature. To be more stark, ignoring Neimuller in the US to the degree we are now is the death knell of our nation. We are on the precipice of shifting towards a third world nation. If we continue to ignore Neimuller, we will descend more rapidly into ruin than I think the middle 80% of this nation could ever imagine.

Going back to my statement that you have to be able to hear / have access to everything you don’t agree with: this is a fundamental requirement to a free society. I don’t know who to attribute this statement to but the truth is, we must prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child. The former creates resilience. The latter creates a perpetually moving goal post to which victimhood is dragged along behind…as a benefit! The latter has made victimhood out to be a lucrative outcome. It’s an easy button that cloaks all manner of weakness.

A more direct way to address the above is through this lens: As a human, you are disgustingly entitled to think you have the right to move through life and never be offended. You existing and the preservation of your singular personal sensibilities is no one’s responsibility but yours. No one is required to care about you. Rejecting this truth is how communist and marxist ideals such as equity are pandered to the masses and given a toe hold. This is antithetical to our nation.

Objectively, the  Declaration of Independence details the following:

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

This sacred document immediately follows the above with a word of caution to its citizens that prudence must be exercised before committing to such a drastic, terminal course of action.

Thus, ignoring the why or how for a moment, and only considering the “what,” it could be asserted that the left feels they are justly exercising the above paragraph from the Declaration of Independence. However, once the why and how are pulled back in, it becomes clear the left is attacking our nation and is seeking to overthrow what so many of us have fought for and / or cherish.

This cannot stand. This must not stand. It is imperative we have the most overwhelming turnout of American voters in the history of free elections.

The truth is:

• Kamala has been one of the the least popular and ineffectual appointees to any office until recently with a favorability rating of only 16%. Yet, suddenly she has become the savior of democracy. This false shift in reality is wholly attributable to a subverted and weaponized media generating a fake narrative.
• A former president was shot in the face and almost nothing has come of this. You couldn’t even google the assassination and get a positive search return. I did the screen capture. It literally would not populate.
• Kamala has failed to secure our border since appointed by Former President Biden, resulting in:
  • 9 million or more undocumented, illegal immigrants entering the nation
  • At least 150 to 400 known terrorists on the terrorist watch list entering our nation. Keep in mind, it only took 13 terrorists to pull off 9/11.
  • Over 150bn, up to 400bn in local, state and federal aid to illegal immigrants which is a net fiscal drain on our economies
  • Make America Great Again is considered radical and antithetical to the US. MAGA and now MAHA are classified as bigoted, racist, fascist and extremist.
• Kamala usurped the democratic process by being emplaced as the presumptive democratic nominee while simultaneously stating that Trump is the threat to democracy.
• We have historic inflation
• Kamala has lied about job reporting to the tune of .8m jobs being inflated, in the recent last job report
• We are in an energy crisis
• Record high consumer debt
• Funding the Ukraine-Russian War
• Zero accountability for the Afghan withdrawal that resulted in the death of 13 US Service members and the complicit transfer of 10’s of billions in US military equipment to the Taliban.
  • While touting that her party is for women and bodily autonomy, yet since she’s been  been in office, the Taliban recently emplaced more draconian, medieval and inhumane restrictions against its female population.
  • It was recently disclosed that $10.9m in US taxpayer funds have gone to the Taliban since our failed withdrawal. We have literally been funding terrorism…again.
• Violent crime has skyrocketed
• Record low test scores in K-12 – Re: prepare the child for the road…
• Lied about Joe Biden’s mental capacity since his campaign in 2019
• 80% of all cash circulating in the history of the US was printed in the first 22 months of her administration
  • A dollar in 2020 is now worth 78 cents. Your house isn’t worth more. Your dollar is worth less
  • She is willfully inept at economic policy; failing to understand why giving 25k to homebuyers will solve zero problems (supply/demand + capital…) and how price capping by the government is the surest way to economic collapse
    • Another perspective is that she’s not willfully inept at all..she’s just leveraging that socialist “idea” of equity to convert as many stupid voters as possible who just want something free, for “nothing.” When in fact, all Kamala continues to describe are redistributions of wealth. Also…that’s communist.
• Going back as far as 2019, she has run on policies such as seizing patents from private organizations that used federal funding if those organizations do not then kowtow to the government
• Supported and promoted the bail funds for violent protestors destroying federal buildings during the BLM riots. Meanwhile her running mate, Joe Walz set up an informant line for neighbors to rat on each other to the government. So much for small government and no overreach.
• Kamala was categorized as the most liberal member of the senate… more liberal than Bernie Sanders! But of course, GovTrack who authored that statement, removed it from their website after she became the usurper-nominee on the flimsy justification that they re-labled it “leftmost,” to appeal to I dunno, the left? Also, so as not to alienate centrist moderate leftists. But sure, GovTrack is non-partisan.

In Kamala’s acceptance speech to the DNC, she proclaimed Trump will come after abortion and body autonomy.

Speaking of body autonomy lets not forget the government overreach during her current term as VP, of forcing untested vaccines on people as conditions of employment. Isolating children from each other and forcing families to say goodbye to loved ones behind a sterile plastic screen. Literally think of your mother or father and not even being allowed to hold or touch them as they died.

And who could forget the social revilement rhetoric propagated by the President during his self-proclaimed winter of severe illness and death for the unvaccinated. He also told everyone that boosters prevent against both severe illness and death…which was and is false.

But back to the abortion claim. Neither Trump or Kamala have jurisdiction over this. The Supreme Court made this ruling based on the 10th amendment and gave this power back to the states, where it belongs! So, just like Trump cannot create a federal abortion ban, Kamala cannot make it a federal law. If she could…don’t you think Biden would have done so by now? Seems like a pretty easy win, all things considered. People voting on this as a federal issue need to educate themselves.

The bottom line to all this. We are at a war for the soul of this nation. This applies to both sides. The Declaration of Independence clearly states of its citizens:

            “…it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

Regarding the above statement: it makes a strong argument for the left to embrace the 2A more so than even the right, if in fact the Democratic party is “for America.” It’s been proven quite hard to throw off a government without arms. Good thing Biden hasn’t used the thinly veiled threat of F-15s against its own citizens a few times. To be fair I don’t think he was technically saying he would use advanced weapon systems against the citizens he was elected to lead. More accurately I think he was saying that if you don’t have an F-15 you’re probably not going to win a revolution so don’t bother. Once again! This is an incredible argument for the 2A! Look at the Sino-Afghan conflict and our own GWOT. They didn’t need Migs or A-10s. They simply needed time and fervor.

I’d argue both the right and the left are not convinced the current government is serving at the will of the people. I’d also argue it’s probably hard to effectively represent 330 million citizens, of which a large majority are ruled by emotion coupled with ignorance (all inclusive). Also, ignorance might actually be preferable to willfully discounting the truth. Once again, inclusive.

However, the argument diverges when we talk about dismantling the government versus replacing the founding principles of the nation. As of 23 Sept, the New Yorker posted an Op-Ed on “torching the Constitution.” Opinion…of course. But I’ve made an argument here that opinion based reporting informs uneducated positions. Additionally, the irony in that headline is that the constitution is the greatest protector of their ability to write such click bait.

I believe the left masquerades behind the founding principles while seeking to replace American ideals with socialist ones. The conservative population seemingly still desires the intent behind the original founding principles.

I am optimistic Trump will win but not naive enough to think that four years of Kamala and Tim won’t bring this nation to disaster. I believe based on the public evidence available, that Kamala and Walz, even if objectively well-intentioned, will implement disastrous policies which will destroy our way of life.

In the current two-party system, I am unable to vote on a person or persons based on their perceived perfection. I must choose the side whose collective policies and practices I believe will not only preserve what I fought for, but will help protect our way of life in a manner that ensures my son and his children have a free world to grow up in.

So to me, it is and has never been more clear that our nation is in a civil war yet again. My fervent hope is that believers in this nation will strive to make educated, objective decisions to preserve this nation versus dismantle it and capitulate us further into something from which we cannot recover.

As Patrick Henry so famously said:

• It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

Peyton Knippel is a retired Tactical Air Control Party Specialist (TACP). He spent time as a conventional TACP, TACP Instructor, and 17th Special Tactics Squadron TACP, supporting 2/75 Ranger Regiment. Peyton has eight deployments to Afghanistan going back to Dec 2001 w/ 10th Mountain Division and one deployment to Iraq during the surge. Peyton retired in May of 2020 and lives in Utah with his wife and son. He is involved with veteran transition groups like The Honor Foundation and Elite Meet. One of his primary focus areas in retirement is helping other veterans retire / transition successfully.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.