I try and stay out of politics when I write. It’s a slippery slope. I am a “free speech” advocate and I wanted to write about why.

In 1976, I was fresh out of high school and I worked for the Winnebago County Library System as a graphic designer. We had our offices in the Oshkosh Public Library. At the time, there was a giant push to have specific books banned from the library and there were daily pickets to have these books removed. I don’t remember the exact context, but it had something to do with gay men. I’ve believe the picketers were faith-based.

I only remember there was a big push to ban the books and the library took a firm stand against it. Various groups were showing up every day outside the library with signs, but the library never caved.

The director of the library called everyone in for a meeting and talked about the importance of free speech, and its role, even when we don’t like the message. He said that whoever controlled free speech could define what is and isn’t acceptable speech and how it could expand into just about anything. He said it was the libraries job to protect it from all sides and to preserve all reading material for the good of society.

He believed that it was critical to give people information and let them decide for themselves. In his view, on one group should ever decided what is and isn’t acceptable knowledge because it would eventually spread like cancer. Where do you draw the line?

If you wanted to control one point of view, you could claim that all disagreement is misinformation because we don’t like the message. His point, all those years ago, was that what is and isn’t acceptable is often up to interpretation, and therefore, we should always lean heavily on the side of not restricting the knowledge that leads to good reason.

We don’t have to look far to see how wrong public opinion has been over the years. What causes it to shift is knowledge. Imagine if we didn’t have that knowledge.

He also pointed out, and it stuck, that those who advocate censorship usually have the weaker argument. The upshot was that there was no time in history when those censoring speech turned out to be the good guys. That point alone also cemented how I think about leading a company and how I care about transparency.

These lessons were such an important point, and if you read my writings, I’ve been saying for years, that no company should ever suppress free speech in any form or that speech is driven underground. This is what some countries don’t get. Just because people don’t say it, doesn’t mean they don’t think it.

The arena of ideas should always be open to debate and criticism. It’s how we get better ideas! It’s never the opposite. Innovation comes from challenging preexisting knowledge and testing assumptions. Furthermore, people always gravitate toward what is most reliable, even when they disagree. I pick the most reliable source of weather. Reliable is also more convenient, and convenience is the direction everything flows.

People have a natural desire to prove what they already believe, and it sometimes takes years to change opinions. You see this with views on medication, public health, etc. Still, we all tend to look for what’s most reliable, and accurate, even when we don’t like the message.

I know when I find out someone intentionally misled me by gaslighting or distorting the facts, I usually become a skeptic of everything they say. I drift towards another source of more accurate information. Consequently, the truth, the debate, all of it, matters to me a lot and I hope it does for everyone else.

As long as we preserve free speech, we will eventually find the right answers, but the second we stop all that, I believe society will be in serious trouble.