More like "die free instead of maybe living free" if you ask Null. There's no way to know what the future holds. Null has built something that took years and years of hard work and he's formed a community that most site runners would kill for, and he's going to nuke it because of a bump in the road and go be some code gopnik for the rest of his life. If 230 goes, that will unleash a tide of the most white-hot retardation we have ever seen and there is no fucking way that the world is going to tolerate that and let the internet implode. It will get fixed. But as usual, Null is going to take the impulsive emotional route, tell everyone around him to fuck themselves, and destroy his life's work because it's easier than fighting within the system. There are numerous options he could explore before nuking the site, but he's going to take the easy and stupid way out because he's emotional and can't bring himself to compromise even if the potential payoff is better than not compromising. Five years from now Null could be the man who guided a beloved niche of the internet through hellfire with his users at his back or he could be a nameless drone sucking some corporate dick somewhere and he's opening wide instead of rallying the troops. I'm not asking him to do it for me, I am telling him to do it for himself. If I were in his position, I would fight, because he has a chance I will never have and the alternative is a guaranteed loss.
So yeah, "live free or die", but Null interprets that as "kill yourself if there's a chance you can't live free". It's retarded. If he does pull the plug, that's his choice, but he shouldn't make it. He has something worth fighting for and people who would help him and he won't fight. You can try to make his choices out to be freedom fighter alpha male if you want, but he's acting like a lolcow to me.