In recent years, we've seen a tremendous uptick in the Left's desperate, despotic attempts to restrict free speech. It's not anything new, the Left loved the now-dead Fairness Doctrine and lamented how its demise gave birth to wildly successful conservative talk radio.
During COVID and the 2020 election, the argument from the Left was 'misinformation is not free speech', a sentiment Democratic Party vice presidential candidate Tim Walz agrees wholeheartedly with. Conveniently enough, they were the only ones who got to decide what was and wasn't 'misinformation' (which was just a word for 'information we don't like or disagree with).
More recently in the UK, British citizens are being arrested and imprisoned for sharing memes and other social media posts that contain 'hate speech', and merely looking at protests. This crackdown, along with the intimidation of government critics like Douglas Murray should be alarming.
In all of this the Left thinks they're the good guys. They always do. Censoring speech and imprisoning those who offend is justified -- in their thinking -- because they have the moral high ground.
They do not, of course.
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But what they're overlooking is the fact they're setting a very, very bad precedent. They may believe they will always be in power and that they will be the ones to wield the cudgel of state power against their political opponents.
That is not the case. And -- as we've seen numerous times in the past -- the Left does not like it when they're forced to live under the rules they force on everyone else.
So when they're not ripping down statues and erasing history, they'd do well to learn from it.
Including President Woodrow Wilson, and his attacks on free speech.
Over the summer, I had the opportunity to go to Wilson's birthplace in Staunton, VA. It was an interesting glimpse into his life and a reminder that Wilson was...not a good president. Especially when it came to free speech.
This thread from TheFIRE reminds us of what he did:
WOODROW WILSON may be America’s WORST-EVER president on free speech.
— FIRE (@TheFIREorg) August 13, 2024
As president, Wilson weaponized fear of spies during WWI to silence critics, arrest suffragists, and even weaponize the postal service. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/SIoXyUnbNr
In the interest of space, I won't post the entire thing here, but I encourage you to read it.
And learn the lessons it teaches.
Wilson's suppression of free speech started with 'misinformation' (gee, doesn't that sound familiar?) that would harm American efforts in World War I. The Espionage Act limited what could be sent by mail, turning the US Post Office into a massive weapon against American citizens.
The Espionage Act destroyed an avenue of distribution for over 70 publications.
After that, the Sedition Act came along and it banned:
- advocating for labor strikes
- supporting countries at war with the US
- incitement of 'insubordination' in the military
- disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the government the Constitution, the military or the flag
Two of those things have nothing to do with war, and the other two? What does 'supporting' countries at war with the US mean? Speaking German at home?
What is 'incitement of insubordination'? Who gets to define it?
After the Sedition Act, 2000 prosecutions and 1000+ convictions followed. This included many women suffragists who were mad Wilson didn't advocate for them. These women were arrested for 'violent speeches' (doesn't that sound familiar, too?), jailed, and force fed when they tried to hunger strike in protest.
The point is this, and the Left would do well to heed it:
A thread that should be read by all well intentioned progressives who think restricting speech rights is an idea whose time has come: that s**t boomerangs https://t.co/1YvYbbzelf
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) August 13, 2024
That s**t does boomerang. And you won't like it when it does. Woodrow Wilson's policies started out suppressing speech that would 'harm' the war effort and ended with suffragettes in prison being force fed.
History will repeat itself. We've already seen how the Left eats its own eventually, and there's no reason to believe a progressive President like Kamala Harris wouldn't follow in Wilson's footsteps. And the other question these progressives -- who may like the idea of Kamala restricting speech -- need to ask is this: 'Do I want Donald Trump to also have the power to decide what misinformation is?'
My bet is the answer is 'No.'
