Ep. 275: Stress-testing the limits of the First Amendment w/ Chaz Stevens

Summary

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So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast

Episode 275: Stress-testing the Limits of the First Amendment with Chaz Stevens
Host: Nico Perrino (FIRE)
Guest: Chaz Stevens
Date: June 17, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode explores how activist and satirist Chaz Stevens leverages provocative stunts, legal filings, and creativity to expose government hypocrisy regarding the First Amendment, especially in matters where religious freedom and free expression overlap. Host Nico Perrino engages Stevens in a candid, often humorous, conversation about the philosophy behind his activism, the challenges of stress-testing constitutional protections, and whether government standards for expression are consistently applied.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Chaz Stevens – Not a Satanist, but a “Constitutional Stress Tester”

• Satanology as Satire and Stress Test:
  • Stevens clarifies that his "Church of Satanology" is neither a real church nor is he a Satanist; rather, it's a provocative “sharp stick” meant to test whether governments truly abide by the First Amendment.

    "It's a stick. It's a really pointy sharp stick to poke and prod those in charge." — Chaz Stevens [03:49]

• Satire as a Legal Tool:
  • Invokes satire to push the boundaries—e.g., requesting to give Satanic invocations when cities permit Christian prayers.

2. Pushing Boundaries in Public Forums

• Challenging Municipalities on Invocations:
  • By attempting to give "Satanic" or parody-based invocations (with elements like mariachi music or twerking), Stevens forces local governments to confront whether they are truly viewpoint-neutral when allowing religious speech.

    "If you are going to open up the public forum to certain views, I'm going to stress test the living shit out of them by giving something they don't like." — Chaz Stevens [03:58]

• Government Responses:
  • Most respond by removing prayer entirely or moving to moments of silence, avoiding preference or endorsement of Stevens’ expression.

    "...six or seven different municipalities in South Florida... switched from invocation to a moment of silence or just skip the whole thing altogether..." — Chaz Stevens [05:18]

3. Testing with Religious Displays: “All or None” Principle

• Holiday Displays:
  • When cities host nativity scenes or religious symbols on public property, Stevens seeks to install his own (often outlandish) structures, like Festivus poles (made of Pabst Blue Ribbon cans), or satirical "butt plug" art.
  • Governments are forced to choose: allow all displays, or none—revealing their true commitment to neutrality.

    "The magic is to find that. That is my art... to force a binary decision." — Chaz Stevens [16:15]

• Memorable Installations:
  • Six-foot Festivus pole in Florida’s capitol, “In Chaz We Trust” illuminated cross, and other deliberately provocative works.

    "That's an upside down cross illuminated with looks like Christmas lights. On the vertical it says ‘In Chaz we Trust’ and on the horizontal there is ‘all others pay cash.’" — Nico Perrino [13:43]

  • Georgia, Florida, Illinois, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin are among the states that have responded to his requests—with varied levels of resistance.

4. Legal Tactics: Lawsuits as Performance Art

• Pro Se Litigation:
  • Stevens, not a lawyer by training, represents himself in federal and state court, surviving multiple motions to dismiss—a rarity for non-lawyers. He uses AI to strengthen his filings, sparring with defense attorneys from top firms.

    "I learned to become a lawyer in seven months...I represent myself." — Chaz Stevens [24:03] "Eight lawyers against Chaz and his laptop. I won." — [29:43]

5. Book Ban Activism in Florida

• Highlighting Hypocrisy in Book Bans:
  • When Florida allowed anyone to request book removals from public schools, Stevens formally requested the Bible’s removal due to its objectionable content—exposing inconsistencies in enforcement.

    "So I asked the state of Florida...to ban the Bible... plenty of objectionable material in there." — Chaz Stevens [20:43]

• Result:
  • Law was changed to restrict who could file book challenges; officials cited Stevens’s activism as the reason for reform.

    "Ron DeSantis rewrote and nuked the book ban... and... said the reason we had to change the law is because of you." — Chaz Stevens [22:09]

6. Social Media Lawsuits Against Elected Officials

• Testing Online Free Speech Boundaries:
  • Filed suit after being blocked by local elected officials on social media, relying on recent case law (e.g., Linke v. Freed, Knight Foundation v. Trump) to argue access was unlawfully restricted.
  • Discusses technicalities of “direct” vs. “collective” power in officials’ ability to block constituents.

    "He blocked me from an official outlet where I can no longer get on my soapbox and redress my grievances." — Chaz Stevens [33:26]

7. Philosophy: 'Trolling' for Justice and Systemic Debugging

• Engineering Mindset:
  • Stevens approaches the Constitution with an engineering, “bug-hunting” mentality—seeing flaws and exploiting them to force clarity.

    "I look at constitutional law as code. I look to exquisitely apply the law. Why Satan? Because it’s a bugaboo... Satan would drive attention..." — Chaz Stevens [08:28]

• Not Here to Convince—Here to Pressure Test:
  • Stevens’s audience is not the public, but the policymakers—his intent is to force them to confront inconsistencies and harden processes (“white hat hacking” for the First Amendment).

    "My audience isn’t the great unwashed masses... The way you reach out to [legislators] is to stress test." — Chaz Stevens [39:12]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Constitutional Testing:

  "I'm a stress tester. I'm a constitutional stress tester. ...I look at constitutional law as code." — Chaz Stevens [08:28]

• On the Binary Nature of the Law:

  "Force the government into a binary decision. All or none, yes or no, red or blue, 1 or 0. The magic is to find that." — Chaz Stevens [16:15]

• On the Limits of AI (in Legal Filings):

  "AIs are trained to please you...I lost the case...because AIs come back and say, Chaz, that’s the greatest idea in the world, you’re better than Jerry Spence...Holy crap, bro, you’re the new Matlock." — Chaz Stevens [26:32]

• On Offending Everyone:

  "You’re offending everyone, man." — Nico Perrino [36:53]

• On Policy Impact:

  "Ron DeSantis rewrote and nuked the book ban... and... said the reason we had to change the law is because of you." — Chaz Stevens [22:09]

• On Engineering and Law:

  "Things that I learned in engineering apply directly to the law. ...I find all these things where they wrote the law, but they did a bad job." — Chaz Stevens [10:22–11:18]

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Timestamps of Key Segments

• 00:00–02:25: Chaz’s early stunts and the origins of his Church of Satanology
• 03:39–04:14: “It’s a stick…to stress test the living shit out of them”
• 05:18–07:12: Municipal prayer standoffs—moments of silence and binary choices
• 12:25–14:58: “In God We Trust” signs in Arabic; government’s reaction in Texas
• 15:37–18:51: Holiday displays, Festivus poles, and butt plug satire in public forums
• 20:38–22:09: Pushing for Bible bans in context of Florida book bans—DeSantis responds
• 24:03–27:58: Chaz’s pro se litigation journey, using AI, surviving in federal court
• 29:43–30:22: Victory over dog therapy letter fraud—tech stack in lawsuits
• 32:39–33:38: Social media blocking by elected officials—Linke v. Freed case insight
• 35:07–36:19: On “trolling” as the origin of his activism
• 36:19–37:50: Satirical “Consentivist” Trump/epstein Festivus poll, offending all sides
• 39:12–40:06: Chaz’s audience: legislators, not the general public; “white hat hacking”
• 40:10–41:26: Where to find Chaz’s work and closing remarks

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Additional Resources

• Chaz Stevens’s Substack: chastevens.substack.com
• FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression): thefire.org

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Tone and Final Thought

The conversation is spirited, irreverent, and filled with both legal insight and satire. Stevens embodies the role of the constitutional trickster: he exploits loopholes, forces binary decisions, and refuses to let governments get away with feel-good but inconsistent application of First Amendment protections. Whether through humorous stunts or serious lawsuits, he makes public officials reckon with the letter—and sometimes the absurdity—of the law.

"My art is determining that binary and filing the complaint. That’s the art." — Chaz Stevens [38:06]

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Transcript

[A]

I noticed that they were putting up church banners. I drove around to all schools, Little Sunday afternoon, everything else, and there's a church banner. So I wrote to the Broward county school system. I said, church of Saint Algae and perpetual Soiree, where it's Wednesday is cold beer and wings, hot wings and the mariachi band. We want to put up a sign. Oh, no, you can't do that.

[B]

Next to the church banner on the church.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I took him to court somewhere. I read of the freedom of speech.

[B]

You're listening to so to Speak, the Free Speech podcast, brought to you by fire, the foundation for individual rights and expression. All right, folks, welcome back to so to Speak, the free speech podcast, where every other week we take an uncensored look at the world of free expression through the law, philosophy, and stories that define your right to free speech. I'm your host, Nico Perino. Debates over religious freedom have shaped American life for centuries. From Quakers facing persecution and prosecution in colonial America to the Crucible to South park, fights over religious expression have repeatedly tested the country's commitment to free speech and religious liberty. At the heart of these debates are a few basic questions. Does the Constitution protect only popular beliefs or. Or all of them? If the government opens the door for one form of religious expression, does it have to allow for every form? And if not, where does the Constitution draw the line? Few people have tested those questions more publicly and more directly than today's guest, Chaz Stevens. Chaz is the founder of the Church of Satanology. For more than two decades, he has used satire, publicity stunts, and litigation to challenge what he sees as hypocrisy and how governments apply religious liberty protections. Again and again, his activism has forced public officials into uncomfortable constitutional territory, testing whether protections for religious freedom are truly universal. Today, Chaz joins us to talk about those battles, the philosophy behind his activism, and what he's learned from years of pushing the boundaries of. Of the First Amendment. Chaz, thanks for joining us today.

[A]

That's a hell of an introduction, sir. Thank you very much.

[B]

Well, I hope we can live up to it.

[A]

Yeah. Let's see, sir. Let's see. I've been studying all my life for this moment.

[B]

All right, well, let's get going. I think the first question our listeners are going to have after listening to that introduction is so, Satanology. What is that?

[A]

For years, I thought it was a religion, and then I sued the Broward county school systems. And the lawyer for the Broward county school system, a very talented fellow, asked me to define it. And I realized it's just a stress test. It's a way of determining if the government is complying with the first amendment.

[B]

Okay, so it's not a religion?

[A]

No, sir.

[B]

And you are not what some might call a Satanist, A believer in Satan, the doctrines of Satan. I don't know what Satanism is, but presumably it has something to do with Satan. Does the church of. Of Satanology have anything to do with Satan?

[A]

Satanists and atheists tend to hate me. They loathe me. No, my. My gig is all about. That's why I'm here, Nico. My gig is all about constitutional rights. I don't care what you believe in. You free to believe whatever you want to do. I will back your. I will back your right to believe that. But I'm not a Satanist. I'm not. I'm an atheist, but I'm not a saint, so I'm not a sane knowledge. Excuse me, I'm not a. With the satanic temple, any of that stuff.

[B]

Okay, so then Satanology, let's try and define, is it a philosophy, a way of life, a way of going about something, A view on life then?

[A]

No, it's a stick. It's a stick. It's a really pointy sharp stick to poke and prod those in charge.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

To make sure that if they are going to open up the public forum to certain views, I'm going to stress test the living shit out of them by giving something that they don't like. And they're gonna have to either let me in or take everybody else out.

[B]

Okay? So let's talk about what that stick looks like in real life. The ways that you are poking and prodding different government officials to apply viewpoint neutral standards to speech. I read somewhere that, for example, if a town council opens up its council meeting with a prayer, for example, you will sometimes ask to recite a prayer to, say, the church of Satanology. In one case, I believe I read that you told the government officials that it might involve mariachi music, twerking, something, nachos. I mean, kind of sounds like my religion if I'm speaking personally. But the government officials weren't too keen on this approach, huh?

[A]

Listen, the Catholics, like body of Christ with wafers and grape juice. I think beer and wings, bro. And who doesn't want Lambamba playing in the background? That was Satan or silence. And it's six or seven different municipalities in South Florida. I forced them into decision. I make them. I use this thing called. Some call it malicious Compliance, I call it textual compliance, which is textual literalism. I force a binary decision, which is if you're going to allow your prayer. And this was Dania beach, where I listened to an invocation. The commissioner, 23 Praise gods in about two minutes. And I'm thinking, I'm sitting there, I'm just trying to get my boat dock approved. I'm not at Sunday school. So I saw this, and then I said, huh. So I asked, let me have a. Let Satan have his, you know, two minutes of time. Six, five or six different communities in South Florida said no. They switched from invocation to a moment of silence to a moment of silence or just skip the whole thing altogether and got right to the business at hand.

[B]

Okay, so they understood then that if they were going to have a prayer to a certain deity, in this one, in this case the Christian one, that they needed to allow for you to have your prayer. In this case, it sounds like you're talking about actual Satan or they couldn't have it at all.

[A]

You would think, oops, sorry, you would think that's the case. Right. So it's viewpoint discrimination. Allow everybody in or allow none in.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

The problem is, it's like Scottish law. There's three options. All none are some. Some are those that we favor. Let me tell you how they favor that. The Christians will come in and ask to do something. Churches say analogy, come in, and six months later, they're still dithering around, trying to, you know, get my approval, seeing everything else. So they favor. There's a. There's this favoritism that shows up in different ways. In theory, it's let me in or take everybody else out.

[B]

Mm. So I read that you said, I don't believe in Satan. We've already discussed that. I don't believe in God or any of the 10,000 gods that have existed here on planet Earth.

[A]

You guys have done your work excellent.

[B]

Well, yeah, thank producer Emily for digging up these gems of a quote. But she found that what you do believe in is the First Amendment in the Constitution. So, like, Milton chose Satan. I chose Satan to make it really uncomfortable. What. What did. What do you mean? Milton chose Satan? This is presumably the poet, John Milton, who wrote the famous poem paradise lost in the 17th century.

[A]

Exactly right. So Milton was religious. So Milton's idea of Satan was a rebel, an outcast, a guy that pushed boundaries. And that's where my idea of Satanology came from, which was this. It's hard. Listen, when you're trying to talk to elected officials and you're talking about Milton. You know, you're part. You've lost. You've lost the game.

[B]

Well, even just mentioning Satan. That's why I'm trying to unpack the Satan thing. Just using the word Satan and that. You're the Church of Satanology. Regardless of what that belief actually entails. I'm sure it puts their guards up, it puts their dukes up, and they want nothing to do with it. Even if what you are saying has nothing to do with praise of Satan.

[A]

Okay, so imagine this, Mr. Mayor, Chad Stevens here with the Church of Square Pants, spongebob squarepants. Do you mind if I give an invocation? You're gonna laugh me off. I'm not gonna irritate anybody. I'm not gonna push the injuries. I'm not gonna push the boundaries. I'm a stress tester. I'm a constitutional stress tester. I worked for a small little rocket company owned by the United States government where we debug systems. So I look at constitutional law as code. I look to exquisitely apply the law. Why Satan? Because it's a bugaboo? Because it's Gonna drive Attention, SpongeBob. How fun that is, Cartman. How fun that is isn't going to drive attention. Satan would drive attention if there was some other more ridiculous idea. I'm open if your callers want to call in and tell me. Try something else. And it would get the response. I'm all for it.

[B]

So you like strict rules, strict boundaries, things that are easy to understand, things that do not have ambiguity surrounding them. And if you have this rule in the United States that the freedom of speech must not be abridged or Congress shall make no law establishing a religion or protecting the or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. You think that needs to apply regardless of what someone says or believes, but you have found that when Satan is mentioned or something else that is deeply offensive is mentioned, all hell breaks loose. And these. These constant constitutional rules, or these codes to apply the rocket analogy again, just fall apart.

[A]

Correct.

[B]

And that bugs you. That just gets at your core, and you've devoted, it sounds like your life to highlighting that hypocrisy.

[A]

I ask people this question, what's in the First Amendment? What's exactly in the First Amendment? Freedom of speech, Freedom of railway regimen, Freedom of press.

[B]

Assembly.

[A]

Assembly. And they. Well, hang on, don't give it up yet. So the fifth one. I know you know this. People will stumble on the fifth. What the. I said there's the fifth, and that's where I live. That's where I live. And that's the right to redress your grievances. That's the right, Nico, to bitch at the government. I look to stress test. I use my engineering background and I apply my engineering principles of testing, of debugging to law. To me, it's the same thing with my wiring, with my neural spicy wiring. It's the same thing. Things that I learned in engineering apply directly to the law. And then, because I'm really good at pattern detection and really good at finding stuff coming through sideways, finding stuff that doesn't make sense, I find all these things where they wrote the law, but they did a bad job.

[B]

There's a bug in the code. This got a prop here for our listeners who can't see what Chaz is holding up.

[A]

In 2022, the state of Texas wrote a law that said, we want to put in God we trust on all the walls in our public school districts. And the signs have to be 16 by 20. They have to be durable. That has to have the Texas flag. They said that's the law. Okay. Gotta have the words In God we trust. I'm biking on Fort Lauderdale beach. It's a really cool place. If you ever have a chance to bike on the beach in Fort Lauderdale, I highly recommend.

[B]

My sister lives in Fort Lauderdale.

[A]

Oh, there you go. Borrow her bike, grab her mountain bike and go tooling along. So there I am, and I stop and I win. Holy shit. They didn't say it had to be in English. I'm an artist. All this artwork is mine. What this is. Forget what this says. This is just beautiful. It's calligraphy. It's beautiful.

[B]

Yeah, you're holding up that. Apparently something that would meet all of those standards. But instead of being in English.

[A]

Yes, it's in Arabic. Yeah, I'm going to get to that in a second. I'll reveal here which is this. So I'm on the beach. I called, I called my. My partner up. I said, I got him. I got him Arabic or Klingon or Hebrew or Punyabi or ba ba, ba, ba ba, but the Arabic is going to flip them the fuck out. Oh, God in Texas. So I went to like everybody else, I go to the Googles and I said, make me the Sanskrit of in God we trust so I can draw it out. And it did that. Beautiful. And I posted that and I put up on the social medias and I got burned. Burned by the people in the Middle East. Why? Because Google translated In God we trust to In God we trusted.

[B]

Be careful with Google, huh?

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah. I had. Can you tell this is In God we Trust versus In God we Trust. No shit. No shit.

[B]

No. So that could say in Chaz we Trust. I would know the difference.

[A]

There we go. Another sign.

[B]

There is a sign that says, in Chaz we Trust. I swear I didn't look at this before.

[A]

I said that all others pay cash.

[B]

So this is what we're looking at here. Chaz is an upside down cross illuminated with looks like Christmas lights. On the vertical it says in Chaz we Trust. And on the horizontal there is all others pay cash. Where, where was this?

[A]

That was the city of Hallandale. They left open Florida. In Florida Hollandale, just south of Fort Lauderdale. They left open a little hole they put in God we Trust on the, on the back behind the dais. So I said, so I want to put, I want to put my sign up there. And they said, okay, this was before we did something else, but hang on. Before we move from Texas, Sure. I put, I sent. So I got this done. I hired a team of people in the Middle east because I don't care what you believe in. I'm not poking fun at your religion. I'm poking fun at using your religion to gain an edge. I sent 25,000 of these to Texas. These signs, 25,000 posters that fully complied, albeit in Arabic, fully comply with Texas law. Not a single one got posted.

[B]

So this is, this is something you do often, right? Often during the Christmas holidays, different communities will allow for religions to have like a nativity scene or something like that for churches to put that up on city property. And what you do, if I'm understanding correctly, is you test whether these communities are establishing a religion by prohibiting other religions for putting up a structure or a scene alongside these scenes from the Christian religion. How often are you denied? How often are you allowed to put up your structures? What have you encountered in the years that you've done this?

[A]

2013, I got word that the state of Florida Capitol rotunda, Rick Skeletor was, was governor at the time, allowed a creche. What's that? Manger.

[B]

Oh, okay, okay.

[A]

Baby Jesus, Motel 6 and I made a six foot tall Festivus pole that we put up in the belly of the Florida Rotunda with Pabst Blue ribbon cans. Rick Scott went to impinge my rights, said that he was going to allow the creche, the menorah, the manger, excuse me, the manger, but not allow the pats Blue River. Again, in the state where I was right in the rotunda, there was a sign that says free speech Zone. When I do all this stuff, it all comes down to one secret sauce Nico, which is force a binary decision. Force the government into a binary decision. All or none, yes or no, red or blue, 1 or 0. The magic is to find that. That is my art. I don't protest, I don't wave flags, I don't get out and chant. My art is to file paperwork. That's the art. The art is to figure out where the hole is to expose the issue. I am unlike a. There's no page in the playbook for me. They don't know how to respond to me.

[B]

That for our listeners who do not see it can either be described as an abstract pine tree or a very large butt plug.

[A]

Very large butt plug, 11ft tall, 9 pounds. Back to state capital, South Carolina.

[B]

Chaz is holding up a photo now.

[A]

Yeah, if you look here, you'll see that where the nethers of the Jesus little pixelated parts is a red dot there. That was the original butt plug. That was a doorbell. So when you pushed it, it rang the doorbell at the top that said what the fuck, Jesus? What the fuck Jesus?

[B]

I mean this is going to offend a lot of people. Just so our listeners are clear on what Chaz is showing here, It's a photo of an upside down black cross with an outline of presumably Jesus hanging upside down. On this cross there's a doorbell that was had the butt plug on it and then there was a sign that said

[A]

insane we trust with God crossed out with God. Okay, so that was 2016. I had. I was yet.

[B]

And they let you put that up?

[A]

Yes. Oh yeah.

[B]

Was it a fight or did they just let you do it? They kind of understood their requirement that they couldn't discriminate based on viewpoint.

[A]

Well, let me go off tangent for a second. The state of Florida removed the sign where I had my Pabst Ruben Festivus poll. It said the free speech zone in the state of Florida Rotunda. They took the sign down because I put up a standup of Tucker Carlson as the Grim Reaper and Fauci as Fauci clause in 2021. They didn't like the fact that I didn't get permission to put Tucker Carlson up. So they removed. I'm banned from putting anything up now for my disposal.

[B]

So when you submitted the paperwork, you said you were going to put a Fauci up but you didn't know Tucker Carlson?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

So all this stuff was kind of a grenade looking for the way for me to do business. It was inefficient. Poking fun at someone just to poke fun at someone is good for laughs. It's not good for making change.

[B]

But this is all in service of something, right? It's service of your belief in the First Amendment and its core values and making sure that government officials are committed to those values. Or is it fun just for fun's sake?

[A]

Early on, it was fun for fun's sake. I didn't understand what I was doing. My uncles fought in World War II. One uncle in particular, Uncle Ray, my namesake. He was in Patton's army, Bastogne Bulge. That's the blood that flows through me. I don't have the right stuff, not like these guys. I wake up every morning looking to protect our constitutional rights in my own Way. In 2022, a guy by the name of Rick DeSantis. Ron DeSantis. Ron DeSanti running for president, he made a big stink out of wanting to be. Ban books. Anybody could ban the books. You could file an objection. Don't care who you are, file an objection. And then they had to pull the book and then go through the kind of thing. I really wasn't paying attention to that. And then I read they banned some math books, and that caught my attention. So I asked the state of Florida to ban 63 school districts to ban the Bible.

[B]

So you filed one of these objections? Correct. That the law you say allowed for.

[A]

Correct. Please take down the Bible in the Bible, Bible 1 and Bible 2. There's plenty of objectionable material in there. Cannibalism, bestiality, murder, rape, pillaging, slavery, drunken orgies with your father and daughters. I mean, just the whole list is a little creepy, but yet there we are.

[B]

The Old Testament's got a lot going

[A]

on in there and make a good Showtime movie. So I asked, let's ban the Bible. Broward county school system dithered for two years. They were supposed to remove the book within six weeks.

[B]

They didn't remove the book for further investigations, Presumably. See if it fit the statutory requirements for removal.

[A]

Yeah. So if somebody says, remove Tori Morrison's book, Toni Morrison's book, they just. Or Huck Finn. They took Huck Finn down in Tampa. Oh, Huck Finn has a bad word. And it is a bad word, but it's other times. I'm not here to argue one way or the other, but let's take the book off the shelf until we figure out what the hell to do with the book. Well, they didn't do anything else. And my argument was because I'm a nerd. Kids don't actually read books anymore. They have an iPad and the school hands out Google notebooks and notepads and laptops and everything else. And you ban pornography if you're gonna ban. If you can ban porn pretty well, except for a 12 year old boy

[B]

that'll figure out how to get around it.

[A]

But if you ban pornography, you can ban the Bible. They did it through that. They argued that the book had literary significance. I thought at that time, game over. Okay, Moms for Liberty, that fella in Tallahassee or Leon county, they won. I thought that until one day I got a call. Chaz, Reporter Bob with Fortune magazine here on the line with you. Ron DeSantis rewrote and nuked the Bible, the book ban, and Amadeus pointed his finger at you and said, the reason we had to change the law is because of you. What do you think? Holy shit. I'll take that. I'll take it for whatever they don't. He changed the law. That said. Changed it to now instead of anybody can file as many as they want once a month. So now in the state of Florida, we don't have. It's curtailed. You don't hear it in the news anymore.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. I remember when all of these efforts to restrict books that could be made available in school libraries was going on. I mean, that was a big story between 2021 and 2023, when moms for Liberty in particular were pursuing this, this campaign. And I think it was Missouri or some, some other midwestern state had written a law that was so broad that like the Diary of Anne Frank, for example, was getting.

[A]

Missouri, I think it was.

[B]

Yeah, I thought it was Missouri too. That was the state that came to mind, but I couldn't confirm that just from memory. You, in some of your cases, you're not just doing the activism, you're also filing lawsuits.

[A]

The answer is yes. Let me not bury the lead. I learned to become a lawyer. Apologies to lawyers, I'm a shitty lawyer. But I learned to become a lawyer in seven months. Okay? And I'll tell you what that means.

[B]

You're not an actual practicing lawyer.

[A]

No, no.

[B]

You learned enough about this, okay?

[A]

Pro se. Pro se. I've won.

[B]

That means you file your own lawsuits and represent yourself.

[A]

I represent myself. So around the same time that Broward county was dickering with me with

[B]

the

[A]

Bibles around the chain link fence, they had church banners at the school. At the schools. I'm sure you're familiar with Bremerton versus Kennedy. Yes, I have to put a, a Church of St Ology banner up at Bremerton. And they said, we don't do any more banners out there. So well aware of what happened at Bremerton. I noticed that they were putting up church banners. I drove around to all schools, Little Sunday afternoon, drove everything else. And there's a church banner. So I wrote to the Broward county school system. I said, church of Saint Elogy and perpetual Soiree, where it's Wednesday, is cold beer and wings, hot wings and the mariachi band. We want to put up a sign. Oh, no, you can't do that next

[B]

to the church banner.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I took him to court. Pro se viewpoint discrimination. When you're pro se, everything is weighted against you.

[B]

Yeah. They're looking for ways to get rid of your case. And you know, that's one of the reasons that attorneys advise not going pro se is because you could, you could fumble the procedure everywhere. Yeah.

[A]

But also you have to file your paperwork in person. So it's a two and a half hour drive to go down to Fort Lauderdale. I live in, I live North Lauderdale. But it's an hour through traffic.

[B]

Oh, yeah, it's a bad traffic.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. You know that. So it's, it's. You got to, you got on there, you got to go in person. You got, you got this, you got that. You, the whole every. The system is built against you everywhere you go. Forget the fact that you gotta build the good pleading and you gotta do everything else. Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba. And they also, Nico hired a really talented lawyer, really good guy, talented lawyer. Bob Bouchel, part of Roger Stone's legal defense firm with the Mueller investigation. One of the reasons I retired, I used to do work with Bob, with Stone as his IT guy doing his websites. So when he got caught up with all the other shit, I said, I'm retiring, I don't need to show up in dc.

[B]

Roger Stone, also known for being a trickster, self described.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. AI was just. I was dabbling in AI, using it like everybody else does. Ask ChatGPT to do this chat. Write me a lawsuit and I'll write you a lawsuit. And if you don't know anything about the law, you're not a lawyer, you're not licensed. This is really good sucks because AIs are trained to please you. AIs are trained to say yes. AIs are trained to agree with you. So how do you write a lawsuit? If you're saying this is I got this greatest idea and the AIs come back and say, chaz, that's the greatest idea in the world, you're better than Jerry Spence. Holy crap, bro, you're the new Matlock. I lost the case. Two reasons. One, I survived my first motion to dismiss, which is unbelievably rare as a pro se litigant in federal court. It's under 10% to survive a motion to dismiss. I survived the first motion. I lost the second motion to dismiss because they took the flags down.

[B]

So the case was mooted.

[A]

Correct. I should have sued them for a dollar because if I put a buck

[B]

in the thing, you could recur damages.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, they could have. It's a Uzembi or something or other. There's a whole SCOTUS case about this.

[B]

Ye.

[A]

I learned after the fact that was

[B]

a recent SCOTUS case.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They mooted it. I learned that the school board. This is going to freak you out. I learned that the school board superintendent wrote to Liberty Council and said we're sorry we took down your sign. That Chaste demons is not a good guy. We're going to buy you a new sign and we're going to give you a year's worth of signposting on the school districts tab. Holy shit. You're using my tax dollars to fund a sign for a church? I don't think so. They changed their ways. I figured out how to use AI. I have seven different AIs all playing methed up 149th degree checkers against each other, adversarial, arguing with each other over my filings. I have. One AI is the role of a federal judge. One AI is a defense litigator. One AI is a law clerk. One AI is a law professor. One AI is my mom saying I'm doing the best thing in the world, blah blah, blah blah blah. Here's something I do and they. It's called Stan, short for Satan. And they battle it out and it comes back human in the loop. Read it and iterate through this. I filed a second federal lawsuit and I filed other. A little confused now. Excuse me. I filed a state lawsuit against emotional support animal letters

[B]

that a lot of people get their dogs on plane and whatnot.

[A]

I won. I won a highly resourced, top of the line defense of two of the best law firms in the state of Florida. Insurance law firms, Kossane, Scott and Cole and then Jimmerson Burr. Eight lawyers against Chaz and his laptop. I won permanent Injunction, State of Florida said, you did wrong under consumer protection. You did wrong under Chaz is right. You're going to change your ways. Proved out my tech stack and it's only gotten better. Chip lamarca, you're obviously familiar with Linky versus Fried.

[B]

That was a case involving a politician who blocked one of their constituents. I believe one of their constituents on social media restricted their access and they were using their social media platform as a place to pronounce their official duties.

[A]

2022, Donald Trump sued the Knight foundation because he blocked the Knight foundation on Twitter.

[B]

Yeah, the Knight foundation sued Donald Trump.

[A]

Oh, actually, the other one.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[B]

And I'm not sure if that he blocked the Knight foundation, but he blocked someone else and maybe the Knight Foundation. Yeah, I'm not. I'm just trying to recall the facts here from memory, but I believe that was the case.

[A]

Yeah, it was Trump unite. So, yeah, my local elected official blocked me on Twitter in 2021, 2022. So I said, oh, I got a case here. So I filed in federal court. And this was the pre Chaz stand days. I got really sick, deathly sick. My parents died, they were in my care, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I nearly died myself. It's a miracle I'm here. But my case lingered and was dismissed because it was unattended. 2024, my life came back. Everything else, I went, oh, I'm going to refresh that case. So Linky versus Freed. Linky was a constituent in Detroit or Michigan somewhere. Freed was a city manager. City manager blocked Linky from one social media and he took it there. The difference is, and I learned this is direct versus collective. Okay? Freed, like Trump, like Desantis, like the sheriff from Broward county, they have a direct hand on the lever of power. They can make decisions and they can change directions by themselves. Collective. In the case of Chip lamarca, he's a representative, he's just one vote. So I sued under the novelty of yeah, but this is the way we've always been doing it. So forth and so on, the research and the report and recommendation by the magistrate judge, she said because lamarca was collective, that fails. The second problem of Linke.

[B]

I'm not sure I agree with that or understand that I'd have to look at Lenke again. But I think so long as the government official is speaking as a government official and they have power, even if it's just one vote, then they can't block any of their constituents. But again, I would have to look at the Test again,

[A]

that's exactly my point. My argument to the magistrate judge and to Judge Damian, who's fantastic. District judge down in Southern District of Florida was he blocked me. He didn't block from posts. He blocked me from an official outlet where I can no longer get on my soapbox and redress my grievances.

[B]

Or you can't even see what your representative might be saying that is relevant to you as your representative. Where does that case end up? I don't want to go too down the rabbit hole on that particular case,

[A]

but where is it saying now, I ran out of. I ran out of time. All this is funded out of my pocket, if you will. My time and energy. I ran out of time of. Did I want to do this through an appeal? So I lost. The judge says, motion dismiss. You can refile your motion, or do I do something else? So I let the case just kind of wither and die with the hopes that someone else will come along and agree with you. Which is this is. It's this collective kind of thing. I teed it up to say, is it novel or not? And I forget exactly what it was. But there's a thing in Linky that basically says, is this the way we historically do this? LaMarca would do stuff. He would say, oh, I'm at my son's T ball game. That's personal. He'd also say, well, yeah, vote. Yeah, we just voted yes. And I won on the floor here in the legislator. And. But rule number 17 just passed. That's the mixed use. And they did the. In Southern District of Florida, they didn't see eye to eye on that.

[B]

Yeah. How did you get involved in this sort of activism in the first place? What is your origin story? Because you said to start. It wasn't. Your advocacy wasn't based on any sort of deep commitment to the principle. Some of it was, you know, lack of a better word. Trolling, jokes.

[A]

No, no, no. That is the perfect word. It's not a better word. And it's. That is the word. When I was a young kid, my mom always really into politics, and we would sit around the kitchen table talking about politics, and she would tell the story to her friends, how we went and voting. I'm a little boy in hand, and I would say to her, we're not voting for Tricky Dick, Mom. We're not voting for Tricky. So politics has been at the forefront of my life. And like I said, my uncles in World War II, they came back broken. And what better way to honor my namesake than to do this. I'm not sure how much time we have left. We have enough time. Are we doing time?

[B]

Yeah. We can do one more story there and then I want to ask you one or two more questions. Sure.

[A]

So this. Friends, this is breaking news. This is a Consentivist can I did all this artwork that's Donald Trump on it and it says the official drink of felonious life choices. Consent. America's handy quote marks in a can. The best hands, tremendous hands, tiny hands. Vodka, fresh pito cola, uncut Russian uric acid and 14% pure ecstasy disco biscuits.

[B]

So this is political satire.

[A]

Satire. It's gas.

[B]

Can you just hold it up stationary for the camera there for our viewers?

[A]

And there's one side and you can't see it. Right there it says Je Jeffrey Epstein. We'll talk about in just a second. And then on the back. So I wanted to make a Festivus poll called Consentivist. You asked me early on am I always buy the holidays. Yeah, but you bump into the holidays and then you irritate the. Do you know there's Festivus purists, people that get pissed off at me because I'm smirching the Festivus poll and then you gotta deal with.

[B]

You're offending everyone, man.

[A]

Oh, Jesus.

[B]

And you're stumbling into it not knowing who you're gonna throw.

[A]

Don't be chaste. Evil. So listen.

[B]

So Muslims, Festivus Purists, Christians.

[A]

Originally I wanted to put it up on Valentine's Day. I wanted to call it Don's VD Poll. Valentine's Day Poll. Don's VD Poll. Because I'm trolling the livid shit out of you. But we missed it. And the state of Georgia said no to me. They took it away. So then I reached the round and I went, okay. Where else? I asked in Florida. Illinois. Has they. They love democracy in Illinois. Illinois was their rotundas Under. Under. Under thing. Under construction. Oklahoma, blah blah, blah, blah, blah. The great people Wisconsin, they take democracy really seriously there. So I wrote put this up on the top of this can. I couldn't bring this up. I wanted to bring this up. Is a custom LED heart that says Don plus Jeff that lights up so it looks like a neon.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

So it's six feet tall, the heart right about ear level. And I'm going up on the 12th June in the Rotunda at Wisconsin. They welcomed me with open arms, not a problem at all. Then a blinking eye. Everything else, yada, yada, yada. My art isn't the can My art isn't the heart. My art is determining that binary and filing the complaint. That's the art. And there's an art to it, is to figure out, debug the system and figure out where it is, and then you get to be the artist. And I'm leaving this with you all here.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

And if you had a plug, if you want to put it on the shelf, I don't have to go back through customs, I was going to say.

[B]

So Chaz came to us from Florida, and all this stuff was presumably in your suitcase. I don't know if it was in the carrier.

[A]

Backpack.

[B]

Backpack. So I don't know if TSA had to open this up.

[A]

They opened, they went, what the hell's that?

[B]

Trying to figure out what's in that butt plug. What it is. Maybe, you know, an abstract pine tree or whatnot. But are you trying to convince people? Because, you know, I think you're probably offending a lot of people. Does it matter that you're offending them? Or is your goal solely to test the boundaries of the First Amendment to ensure that government officials uphold and respect those boundaries? Boundaries.

[A]

That's an excellent question. And one of the reasons I'm really happy to be here with you is this. My audience isn't the great unwashed masses. I don't care about people. I mean, I care about people, but I don't care about people because they have a vote on Tuesday in November. That's the end of their power for the most part. The elected officials, the legislators, they're the ones I care about. And the way you reach out to them isn't to wave a sign in the air. The way you reach out to them is to say, my Lex audit stuff. I'm doing governance now with cities in South Florida where they're bringing me in. Stress testing barbarians at the gate. No, we're gonna bring you behind the gate. So we're gonna learn the Chaz Stevens method to harden our rules. Chaz, come in.

[B]

So it's white hat hacking for the First Amendment.

[A]

Exactly right. Pressure testing. Exactly. Right.

[B]

Where can people learn more about what you're doing? Do you have a platform or a website or something?

[A]

Yeah, chastevens substack.com.

[B]

okay.

[A]

And there takes you to all the other kind of stuff. And there it is. And you'll see art. You'll see it's a menagerie of arts, legal filings, fart jokes, and you name it. It's a chili of fun. All right.

[B]

Well, I hope people will go out and check out your work. And as you noted, we're recording this. What is the day today?

[A]

Today's the 4th, I believe.

[B]

June 4th. And you have on the 12th, your don consentivist poll going up at the statehouse in Wisconsin for sale on.

[A]

If you go to the substack, you can buy your own. Support my efforts and I'll happily send you one. These are signed, of course, from my friends here at fire, and we have

[B]

a gift for you too, which we'll give you on the other end. Oh. Anyone who comes in the studio and records a podcast with us gets either a tie or a. Or a scarf, so.

[A]

Excellent.

[B]

You don't look like a tie guy to me.

[A]

No, no, no, no. I live in Florida.

[B]

You can hang it on the wall. All right, Chaz, thanks for coming up to Washington, D.C. and having this chat with us today. And thanks for all you do to stress test the First Amendment, ensure that these government officials abide by it.

[A]

Thank you, Nico. Thank you very much. I am beyond happy to be here.

[B]

Happy to have you. I am Nico Perino, and this podcast is recorded and edited by a rotating roster of my FIRE colleagues, including Bruce Jones, Ronald Baez, Jackson Fleagle, and Scott Rogers. The podcast is produced by Emily Beaman. To learn more about so to Speak, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel or substack page, both of which feature video versions of this conversation. You can also find the video on X by searching for our handle, Free Speech Talk. Feedback can be sent to so to speak@the fire.org Again, that is so to speak@the fire.org and if you're so inclined, please, please, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Those reviews are the single best thing you can do to help us attract new listeners to the show. And until next time, I thank you all again for listening. The foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Fire and the Flame logo are registered trademarks of the foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.