Invoking Galileo and Milton to Win Today’s Free-Speech Fights

Public intellectuals increasingly invoke canonical historical figures (e.g., Milton and Galileo) to frame contemporary free‑speech battles as timeless moral struggles. That rhetorical move packages complex policy debates as moral absolutes, shifting attention from tradeoffs and legal detail to symbolic legitimacy. — If cultural elites consistently use heroic historical analogies to frame modern censorship, debates over platform regulation and legal limits will be fought as moral dramas rather than technical policy contests.