<story><title>I Just Gave Up $4000 Per Month to Keep My Freedom of Speech</title><url>http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/06/21/i-just-gave-up-4000-per-month-to-keep-my-freedom-of-speech/?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MrMoneyMustache+%28Mr.+Money+Mustache%29</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>crazygringo</author><text>It&apos;s certainly an interesting attitude.&lt;p&gt;But what if he had decided to change the banner, and give the money away to a charity instead?&lt;p&gt;Money is a tool you can use for good. If you are blessed with the kind of extra money he was suddenly given, you can use it to do good with.&lt;p&gt;Obviously it&apos;s all his choice, but making a big show of &quot;freedom of speech&quot; feels a little disingenuous. No government is trying to censor him; nobody is taking away his freedom; this is just a business negotiation. At no point was his freedom of speech ever threatened in the slightest.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Smerity</author><text>Freedom of speech has many facets. I don&apos;t see this as being disingenuous at all as it literally did impinge on his choice of speech if he wanted to remain in the business relationship.
This situation would be similar in nature to Microsoft forcing businesses to disavow Linux to remain in partnership with them.
Censorship can be legal and doesn&apos;t have to come from a government for it to still be censorship.&lt;p&gt;The charity argument is unfair -- most people and businesses could give more money to charity if they live &quot;comfortably&quot;. The manner in which he gives back to the community is purely for him to decide. In this situation it&apos;s not a free trade either as he needs to give up something quite important to him (censorship) to receive the money. He&apos;d be endorsing a product or service that he doesn&apos;t believe in and changing the content of his product or site to fit with it.</text></comment>
<story><title>I Just Gave Up $4000 Per Month to Keep My Freedom of Speech</title><url>http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/06/21/i-just-gave-up-4000-per-month-to-keep-my-freedom-of-speech/?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MrMoneyMustache+%28Mr.+Money+Mustache%29</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>crazygringo</author><text>It&apos;s certainly an interesting attitude.&lt;p&gt;But what if he had decided to change the banner, and give the money away to a charity instead?&lt;p&gt;Money is a tool you can use for good. If you are blessed with the kind of extra money he was suddenly given, you can use it to do good with.&lt;p&gt;Obviously it&apos;s all his choice, but making a big show of &quot;freedom of speech&quot; feels a little disingenuous. No government is trying to censor him; nobody is taking away his freedom; this is just a business negotiation. At no point was his freedom of speech ever threatened in the slightest.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>FreakLegion</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;#62; making a big show of &quot;freedom of speech&quot; feels a little disingenuous&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Maybe not disingenuous (which implies some degree of pretense), but certainly inaccurate. People like to use the phrase &quot;freedom of speech&quot; because it has propaganda value in most Western cultures. To paraphrase one legal scholar, the first lawyer to yell &quot;freedom of speech!&quot; in a crowded courtroom wins.</text></comment>