‘Office’ Alum: Free Speech Scolds Are Coming from the Left

Conservatives are fighting for free speech across western culture, even if many liberals don’t know it.

It’s why left-leaning podcaster Joe Rogan made news by saying Fox News and Co. had his back during his Cancel Culture crisis.

‘Liberal’ Joe Rogan Praises Fox News for Support During Spotify Controversy https://t.co/zuH5nlIRlI

— Joe Rogan Headquarters (@joeroganhq) June 1, 2022

He’s right, of course.

The Left and mainstream media outlets salivated for Rogan’s podcasting scalp, while conservatives rallied to his side despite his political leanings. Similar results have been seen in attacks on left-leaning comedians Ricky Gervais or Dave Chappelle.

Rogan, an old school liberal, is slowly, but surely, seeing the truth. It’s the modern Right that wants to protect our First Amendment rights. What is the Left? The Left?

Stephen Merchant appears to have gotten the memo.

The British “Office” alum, now in charge of the Amazon series “The Outlaws,” opened up about his fellow “Office” mate, free speech and more during a recent interview with The Independent.

Merchant praised Gervais for being “brave” in battling comedy scolds, something he has less interest in doing on or off social media.

“I don’t want to have to defend a tweet from 10 years ago. It’s not interesting to me to spend time defending a point of view or a glib joke that I made at 2am.”

Merchant observed that those who are trying to silence Gervais and other comics hail now from the Left. That wasn’t always the case.

“This obsession with trying to police what people say, you know? It’s funny [because]Mary Whitehouse, my grandmother’s version was that when I was growing-up. You are uber religious [person]She was seen by many as a right-winger for her efforts to ban TV programs and retract newspaper articles. Now it feels like it’s a lot more coming from the Left, and that suddenly the champions of free speech are Right-wing nutters. What is the secret to this? I don’t want to side with those people!”

“Those people” may help artists like Merchant surviving the woke revolution. Of course, it is dangerous to group all of the Right’s extremist wings together. Much like saying the average liberal, like Merchant, Rogan, Chappelle or Gervais, isn’t ready to defend free speech.

They are. It’s the far Left that applauds Big Tech censorship, sensitivity readers and more.

Still, Merchant’s observations about the Left/Right divide on free speech, combined with Rogan’s comments, are bound to become commonplace moving forward.

Now? It’s still an anomaly.