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buried whenever she takes the stage. Pound her into her housewife life like a post into the ground.
    The tyrant ties tongues in knots. Speech is so easy it takes more than snow to slow its course. The tyrant must frighten people from their freedom; beat the soles of their feet till they mince their step in time to his goose-wide stride. Stagger after me; the best is yet to be. The tyrant can make men line up as though they were made of tin or lead to tip over for this week’s war, because pain is a great big persuader, and their lead-headed patriotism is petty and made of hatred; because, after all, though a war may topple their obedient rows, the tyrant can, in any case, melt them down, these tin-lead men, mold them anew, and paint their britches pretty. He can encourage kids to tattle on their folks; he can set friend against friend, family against family; for the fear of punishment and the promise of reward do for men what they do for the donkey. Be fruitful, multiply, the tyrant says benignly. I must have a larger army.
    What is always offered us? The truth like a stuffed bird. But evenif the real word were given, given in all honesty, given with good intention, given as tradition claims it gives everything, with absolute accuracy and serene assurance, it will not be our word until it is allowed freely to live in us and freely to issue from our mouths, even poorly pronounced, inadequately stated, open to the risk … the terrible risk … of misstep, misstatement, of error … or … horror! … change of mind. Because we have the right to be wrong. We have the right to be mistaken. We have the right to travel the long low potholed road instead of the high. We have the right to dawdle when called, to dance instead of march, to make vulgar sounds and embarrass society, embarrass ourselves.
    Our tyrants always feel in need of excuses. Our enemies are always spying, undermining, arming, plotting, seizing the high ground, inventing new horrors, inventing flashier weapons. This mole, or that rat, is smarter than we ever imagined, and it is working day and night against us—cunning and conniving—out of sight, in secret—because beneath deep undergarments it holds a gun, a knife, a bomb, or a book full of dreadful ideas.
    We must monitor our phones, watch our neighbors—note, film, record, trace, follow, measure every movement, scrutinize every public meeting, overhear every private one, rifle records, ponder every purchase, search through garbage, twist dumb tongues till they scream with the pain of prying pliers.
    Tyrannies do not come in ones or twos; tyrannies come in battalions: there is Mother’s heart you mustn’t break or Father’s hopes you dare not dash; there are the reprisals taken by society because you sniffed when you should have sneezed; there are all those looks delivered like blows from someone sitting on his high horse and wielding his scorn like a whip. It does not matter what the party motto is, what flag flies, what history pretends to teach, what rewards will be yours, what hurt feelings will follow; we need to be free to choose our own errors, our own myths, to furnish our souls as we see fit.
    Of course, what we believe is important, but that we believe it freely, that we can speak of it openly, that we fear neither disapprovalnor contradiction, is essential to the humanness of our being. This freedom—if it is to be freedom and not another fraud—comes at a cost. It is a cost that those who have rarely been free are often reluctant to pay, because they are as unused to the presence of liberty in others as they are of freedom when granted to themselves.
    We can be real only when others are allowed to play their radios. It’s odd, but our liberty lies in the liberty of our neighbors. They will be rude; they will cross the street against the light; they will eat offal; they will entertain tyrants at tea; they will be tasteless; they will be other; they will be … That’s