This has been a very telling week for the opponents of free speech and democracy (read: Democrats and the Left).
If you missed it, a legal analyst on MSNBC has called for 'common sense' speech restrictions because the First Amendment makes America 'vulnerable'.
MSNBC legal analyst says First Amendment makes US ‘vulnerable,’ calls for ‘common sense’ speech restrictions https://t.co/XFDMZCjw8q pic.twitter.com/FS8F8ZsSgj
— New York Post (@nypost) February 29, 2024
No, it doesn't.
In fact, it's the very thing that allows leftists to write garbage books like 'White Rural Rage', a racist diatribe against rural voters who don't think they way they do (but they're the defenders of democracy).
This is a dangerous time for our rights: if we're a threat, the government will move to neutralize that threat. It's how this always plays out.
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Free speech is now portrayed as an existential threat to the country as opposed to the very thing that defines us as a free people. https://t.co/YRT0S8bIRA
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) March 1, 2024
Free speech does define us as a free people. It's the First Amendment for a reason: it's the right from which all other rights flow. If you can't speak your mind, you are not free.
Well, the question is what “we want to do related to speech.” If it involves blacklisting, throttling, deplatforming, and bans, it most certainly does raise questions of censorship. Free speech is now portrayed as an existential threat to the country as opposed to the very thing that defines us as a free people.
McQuade captures the theoretical divide over free speech, though she is clearly voicing a view that is increasingly popular among law professors. She advances views of free speech that I have discussed in prior academic writings and the new book as “functionalist.” These views allow for greater trade offs between free speech and overriding social or political priorities.
For some of us, free speech is a human right. In that sense, I am undeniably a free speech dinosaur who believes that the solution for bad speech is better speech. Rather than continue down the slippery slope of censorship under the guise of disinformation, we can allow citizens to reach their own conclusions in an open and robust debate.
We can all figure out what the Left wants in terms of free speech: All of it for them, none of it for their political and ideological opponents.
Up to and including criminal penalties for 'hate speech', a la the draconian laws Canada is currently considering (ones that will see people imprisoned for the 'crime' of maybe offending someone in the future).
Anything the right says is always, invariably, 'misinformation' that has to be censored.
We know this game because they've been playing it for years. They're just more open about it now.
The first amendment offends the communists.
— Ginny (@ginkates) March 1, 2024
Yes, it does.
Their ideas are so good, so infallible, they cannot be exposed to differences of opinion or argument or critical thinking.
Yes it is. Just listen to what this woman said to Rachel Maddow on Monday. If the government has a "compelling interest." pic.twitter.com/QzPGeABD9h
— SpeakFreely (@BakCuzOfElon) March 1, 2024
Give it a listen.
And when the government has a 'compelling interest', it'll pass laws to protect its interest, Constitutional rights be damned.
"Malinformation" is a scary concept, got some attention
— Brendan (@BrendanMcInnis) March 1, 2024
But the DHS referring to American citizens' minds as "our cognitive infrastructure" would make George Orwell pee his pants
How has that line not gotten more attention?
Thanks to Jonathan Turley pointing it out 👍 pic.twitter.com/i1sjFsr3xZ
This is scary stuff. Orwell is turning over in his grave.
Because if they think our minds are their 'cognitive infrastructure', then they can argue they own our very thoughts and feelings.
Free Speech is a natural right - it really is that simple.
— Calvin╭ರ_⊙ (@TisMoreorLess) March 1, 2024
The end. pic.twitter.com/lFotIVJQ5q
It is that simple. And also that tenuous. If we don't protect it, fiercely, we will lose it. Because the Left is tireless in their effort to destroy it, and they will never stop.
If you argue the First Amendment, if free speech, is the weakness of America -- it's an admission that your policies and politics are so terrible they have to exist above criticisms and outside the marketplace of ideas. It means you are weak, and have to resort to oppressive dictatorial behavior to hold on to control.
It's why the Biden FBI/DOJ is harassing journalists like the Blaze's Steve Baker or former CBS reporter Catherine Herridge: they both are using the First Amendment to question and expose the government. In the case of Baker, his work has undermined the narrative around January 6. Herridge's 'crime'? Working on stories unfavorable to the Biden White House.
In any other nation, or under a Republican president, this sort of behavior would be an impeachable scandal. Any analyst on Fox News calling for 'common sense' restrictions on speech would be booted from polite society.
And rightly so.
Because it's wrong.
The Left -- the so-called defenders of democracy and the anti-fascists -- are the ones who are destroying democracy and engaging in fascist behaviors. The fact they need to oppress free speech and trample our First Amendment rights to accomplish their goals reveals they're more of a danger than Donald Trump (or anyone else) could ever dream of being.
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