Leadership Quote by Stockwell Day

There’s a politician’s two-step baked into Stockwell Day’s line: pledge allegiance to a sacred liberal principle, then immediately attach conditions that feel reasonable in the moment. “I believe in freedom of speech” is the required opening genuflection in any democracy that still wants to call itself one. The pivot - “but” - is where the real work happens, because it subtly shifts the argument from rights to refereeing.

On its face, the claim is banal: of course people can comment on speech; speech about speech is still speech. That obviousness is the point. By framing commentary as an additional “right,” Day quietly normalizes the idea that backlash, condemnation, or even punitive social pressure is not a threat to free expression but an extension of it. In political context, that move is handy: it allows a speaker to reject censorship while still validating aggressive counter-speech, media pile-ons, or institutional disapproval as morally legitimate.

The subtext is about power, not principle. “Freedom of speech” functions here as branding - a way to appear tolerant and constitutional - while “the right to comment” signals permission to police norms. It’s a preemptive defense against the common rhetorical trap in free-speech debates: the notion that criticism equals suppression. Day is drawing a boundary: you can speak; you just can’t demand immunity from being answered.

That’s rhetorically slick, because it recasts accountability as liberty. It also dodges the harder question: when does “commentary” stop being democratic debate and start becoming a tool of intimidation?