Kansas City Free Speech & 4th Of July 2025

First and foremost . . . If nobody told you yet . . . 

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY KANSAS CITY!!!

Even better . . .

SPECIAL THANKS TO TROOPS, VETERANS & FIRST RESPONDERS!!!

There wouldn't be any freedom to debate without brave souls willing to risk their biscuit in order to protect this country. 

And the point of this post . . . 

EVERY JULY 4TH TKC ASKS: WHAT CAN WE DO TO IMPROVE FREE SPEECH IN KANSAS CITY!?!

 We'll start with a few of our concerns and then open up the discussion to anybody who cares . . . 

A pat on the back for our blog community . . .

Nobody talks trash about local politics better than TKC readers. 

Now that the daily newspaper has faded and public radio fears MAGA cuts we find that our blog community dominates the discourse as far as politics are concerned. 

Sure, there are much more popular social media hype blogs . . . And even a few nice Facebook groups full of old ladies constantly complaining about trash pickup.

However . . .

When it comes to impacting policy, talking about elected officials and reflecting on "the culture" of Kansas City -- This blog community can compete and offer insight greater than or equal to any local news outlet staffed by dozens of journalists. 

But things aren't perfect in our bloggy corner of the world . . . 

The Disqus comment system is the best we can afford right now and there are creeps who take advantage of it . . .

Lesser commenters will wait HOURS to troll more thoughtful users with personal attacks or stupid references. 

Interestingly . . . Foreign agents lurk the Internets and we've noticed a few curious perspectives attempting to advance the interests of adversarial nations in our humble TKC comment section . . . Which is kinda weird for a blog that is much more concerned with streetscaping along Southwest Blvd than international affairs. 

Still . . . We're not too worried about MILLIONS of Chinese dudes attempting to earn a check from their government when they're not spamming reddit.

 Sometime very soon . . . In an effort to sustain this bloggy outlet . . . TKC MIGHT offer a paid option that doesn't require any waiting, offers a few special features and maybe a place for more influential denizens of our community wherein we won't apologize for BLOCKING commenters. 

And that brings us to our main conundrum . . . 

Mayor Q gets a lot of heat for blocking critics and taking abuse is part of his job . . .

More than anything we love free speech and open discourse in Kansas City . . . That's why we allow "trusted users" to post almost anything they want without any wait. 

But, for better or worse, what we've discovered is that NOT ALL COMMENTARY IS CREATED EQUAL and as the Internets moves forward . . . The challenge is to search for thoughtful and worthwhile perspectives in a sea of AI Bot content slop, constant trolling and outright hateration. 

Nobody has solved this problem as even the world's richest dude has turned Twitter/X into a hellscape that continues to lose users.

Here at TKC . . . Growth of our readership has ALWAYS trended upwards, even during our blogging slumps and slowdowns. 

We remain committed to the cowtown discourse and want to keep updating this blog for as long as humanely possible as we continue to tinker, adjust and struggle. 

As always, we thank you for reading www.TonysKansasCity.com and hope that everybody has a safe & fun July 4th.  

Peace.