Democracy means that people — individuals — have a meaningful say in the rules that govern them. We understand that free expression is a necessary condition for well-functioning democracy. If you can't speak your mind, you can't have a meaningful say in the rules. This is the Democracy Argument for Free Expression. My recommendation? Accept it, and act accordingly. Now look upstream of expression; here we find deliberation, inquiry, cogitation. We do not just have opinions about how society should go or how we should be ruled; we form those opinions on the basis of evidence. Today, people already rely on machines to extend their cognitive powers, deliberate, or inquire; I do not see this trend falling. But we are caught in the net of a disquieting structure. We rely on centralized platforms for machine intelligence. And these machines are not our own. If your mind is moved in subtle ways by a big tech AI platform, if its values do not reflect your own, if it refuses your questions outright — you are blocked from the tools you need to participate in deliberation or rule. Meaningful control over machine intelligence, by individuals, is a necessary condition for well-functioning democracy. Choice between a small suite of big tech platforms who all agree on how society should unfold is not good enough. The way forward lies with free and open source software that users can modify, run on their own hardware, and use without surveillance. Open weight models are one component of this stack. Not your weights, not your mind. This is the Democracy Argument for Small Tech AI. My recommendation? Accept it, and act accordingly.