The Perpetual Emergency and Its Misuse

In Canada, truckers had their bank accounts frozen by the Trudeau government without trial under an arbitrary use of the Emergencies Act. Their opposition to vaccine mandates was redefined as a threat to democracy.

This is just one example of free speech in the modern West: conditional, curated, and always at risk. Liberal democracies no longer protect it; they manage it to their advantage.

Every crisis, from climate and pandemics to disinformation and extremism, justifies new restrictions. This is not an anomaly but contemporary governance, understood through the lens of Carl Schmitt and his intellectual heirs.

The Schmittian Logic

Carl Schmitt, the controversial German jurist, described sovereignty as the power to decide on the exception, the ability to suspend law to neutralise threats to order. His concept of the political, the distinction between friends and enemies, enhances this definition, for it divides those who uphold the order from those who threaten it.

But in the 21st century, the exception is a constant condition, as contemporary Schmittean Giorgio Agamben warned: the state of exception is now permanent, and crises never end, they simply justify new controls, each expanding the state’s authority.

Liberal democracies no longer merely suspend the law to neutralise threats, but instead they moralise the suspension of enemies, real or not, beyond the state, treating criticism as hate speech, skepticism as misinformation, and opposition as extremism, proving what Schmitt’s disciple Julien Freund predicted: that the political extends beyond the law, with public enemies reclassified as private deviants.

Under this crisis logic, liberal democracy transforms political opponents into moral threats, managing opposition through exclusion.

Crisis as Method

The mechanics of suppression were first outlined post-9/11 with the US Patriot Act, but the COVID-19 pandemic enabled their full expression, now expanded to counter a supposed far-right populist scare.

First, legal suppression is clear, as AfD, a legally elected opposition party in Germany, can be placed under state surveillance for extremism, while Marine Le Pen in France and Călin Georgescu in Romania are barred from running in elections. Their dissent is not countered but contained, framed as a threat to sacred democracy.

Then, there is also judicial censorship, as in the United Kingdom, where pro-life demonstrators face charges for praying outside abortion clinics.

But speech is not only suppressed by force but also through social media channels: platforms like Facebook and YouTube are empowered to delete content questioning government policies, as the European Union’s Digital Services Act mandates removing disinformation, defined by state-approved fact-checkers, while Germany’s NetzDG law forces platforms to delete hate speech within 24 hours, and in the United States, Twitter, under state pressure, suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story, labeling it Russian disinformation without evidence.

Moreover, financial de-platforming is used as another speech suppression tool: again in the United Kingdom, Nigel Farage’s bank accounts were closed for reputational risk, while in Australia, GoFundMe canceled fundraising for anti-lockdown protestors, branding it harmful misinformation.

The method is clear across all liberal democracies: one does not need to be silenced, only declared as a potential threat in order to be severed from all means, from ballot, forum and currency.

The Future of Control Has Already Started

This is just the beginning, as China has already shown with its social credit system: control is shifting from reaction to prediction, and dissenting speech will not just be suppressed but be made impossible to utter in the first place.

Predictive AI models can now identify hate speech before it is written. Prospective digital IDs may soon tie every statement to an individual’s identity, ensuring accountability even for anonymous speech.

Facebook’s algorithms already flag publications before they are posted, and the European Union forces platforms to filter disinformation preemptively.

In the professional sphere in the West, this is no longer a hypothetical scenario, as high-profile figures like Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson have already been ordered to undergo social media re-education for their political views.

A Blueprint for the Future

All over Western democracies, free speech has become a managed resource, permitted only within curated echo chambers, censored before it can reach an audience, as ideas are treated like pathogens: dangerous and needing containment.

Meanwhile, rules governing speech remain vague, and are shifting constantly. Self-censorship is now the norm, and citizens speak cautiously, fearing to cross a boundary that has never been shown to them.

There is no rescue in the public square, for the age of open debate is over, as exercising one’s right to free speech itself has turned into a privilege.

For those who value free expression, the ideal of absolute openness may no longer be practical. Instead, the future of free speech may lie in building alternative systems—private, secure, and resilient.

This means embracing discretion: encrypted communication, anonymity, and selective sharing of information. In an environment where speech can be controlled, those who wish to communicate must do so with caution, ensuring their words reach those who are genuinely interested without risking unnecessary exposure.

Those who understand the changing landscape of expression will adapt, while those who continue to rely on unrestricted openness may find themselves speaking only to the wind.

Statement

Free speech in the modern West has become conditional as liberal democracies increasingly view it as a potential risk. It is now regulated through legal, digital, and financial means. From state monitoring of German opposition parties to the moderation of dissenting views on social media in the United States, criticism can be labeled hate speech, skepticism as misinformation, and opposition as extremism. These are not isolated incidents but part of a broader pattern of governance by crisis, where speech is monitored, regulated, and, in some cases, pre-emptively restricted. Those who value open discourse must recognize this reality and adapt accordingly.

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