To frame freedom of speech as the wealthy person’s right not to have to run against publicly financed opponents goes beyond mockery to insult. If we do not immediately see this oligarchical nonsense for what it is, this is perhaps because we have been trained to think of freedom of speech as negative, as only a matter of preventing the government from doing something, rather than as positive, as protecting human beings who take risks by speaking truth to power and as creating settings in which people can listen to one another.
