In an interview with The Verge Editor-in-Chief Nilay Patel, former President Barack Obama once again claimed that he is virtually a “First Amendment absolutist” despite supporting censorship for years, including United Nations efforts to criminalize criticism of religion on a global scale. There are aspects of the Obama terms that I have praised, but his record on free speech is not one of them.
Obama declared in the interview that “I’m close to a First Amendment absolutist in the sense that I generally don’t believe that even offensive speech, mean speech, etcetera, it should be certainly not regulated by the government.”
That is virtually identical to prior statements that “I’m pretty close to a First Amendment absolutist” as he was arguing for social media censorship. Notably, Obama avoids calling himself a “near free speech absolutist.” The distinction is key for Obama and others in supporting massive censorship while virtue signaling that they are tolerant of opposing views.
The First Amendment is not synonymous with free speech. It is only a restriction on government action. As emphasized by groups like the ACLU, censorship by private companies is also an attack on free speech. As I discuss in my new book, The Indispensable Right, the greatest threat today to free speech is the alliance of government, academic, and business interests in censoring speech.
Obama is fully aware of the distinction and has often stressed that you can support both the First Amendment and censorship. In prior events, after claiming his absolutist position, Obama has stressed that:
“The First Amendment is a check on the power of the state. It doesn’t apply to private companies like Facebook or Twitter, any more than it applies to editorial decisions made by the New York Times or Fox News. Never has. Social media companies already make choices about what is or is not allowed on their platforms and how that content appears. Both explicitly through content moderation and implicitly through algorithms.”
He analogized corporate censors to meat inspectors protecting the health of the nation.
Even under the First Amendment, Obama has stressed that there are exceptions since “we have laws against certain kinds of speech that we deem to be really harmful to the public health and welfare.”
As someone often called a free speech absolutist, I find Obama’s self-characterization maddening. He has been no friend to the free speech community.
The effort to evade or obfuscate on the issue is common in the current anti-free speech period. However, as I testified before Congress, the level of government involvement and support for these corporate censorship programs could well violate even the First Amendment by creating a “censorship by surrogate” approach.
Later, that is precisely what a federal court found in issuing an injunction against the Administration. Chief U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty found that the evidence overwhelmingly shows systematic violation of the First Amendment by the Biden administration. According to Judge Doughty, the government used layers of coordination and consultation to “assume a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.’” The court found that “the censorship alleged in this case almost exclusively targeted conservative speech.”
While claiming to be a First Amendment [near] absolutist, Obama has supported massive censorship on social media and called for the media to frame news to better educate citizens and shape public opinion.
For those of us in the free speech community, those positions make Obama’s recurring claim nothing short of absolute nonsense.
Progressives are not just attacking free speech in the first amendment. They are attacking free exercise of religion, right to petition government, and assembly. The whole first amendment is under attack.
Obama was the most successful president in subverting core protected and enumerated rights
Obama has always been a con man looking for his next con…all the way to the POTUS. And now you are surprised, Mr. Turley? And you have to put window dressing on your disappointment with his adolescent freedom of speech remark by prefacing it with “There are aspects of the Obama terms that I have praised”?
Anyone that has followed Barack’s career knows this is typical Barack speak. He was famous for it in the Illinois legislature and it carried him through his presidency that had “aspects of the Obama terms that I have praised”. Indeed!
Barack Obama is emblematic of the disease afflicting Western Civilization, all the way around, and people are starting to see it..
@C.X.
What’s sad to me is he really did have the opportunity to be one of our greatest presidents. He not only completely blew it, but had the opposite intention from the start. People hear what they want to hear.
Obama’s place in history was to mark a turning point when Western civilization initiated a reset which will last until 2081
@C.X.
I don’t disagree. I don’t know how we undo the entropy of even Biden’s term. This. Is. insanity. Anyone that doubted the USSR or CCP was wrong in relation to being a free human being – I don’t even know what to say anymore. This. Is. Madness. And it is global.
People are starting to push back, especially in Europe, but it will not be pleasant. Obama is the man behind the curtain.
@C.X.
You aren’t wrong, and I myself would have not believed it back then. Thanks for your honesty and incisiveness. Even Bill Maher is coming around. Hopefully all of the rest of what is true follows, but I just dunno in 2023.
C.X. and James,
I felt the same about Obama at the very beginning of his first term.
It was only in hindsight did we see exactly the kind of damage he did.
The fact most of Biden’s admin is made up of former Obama apparatchiks explains the additional damage done to America.
Upstate, I think it was clear from the beginning who Obama was. Americans wished to feel good about themselves. They disregarded everything that told us who he was, warning us of the unlikeliness he would change. For me, like apparently it was for Estovir, I read his book before voting, then I added up his short history and decided he was dangerous.
@Upstate
Yup. And that this is not obvious tells me that most of us just don’t care. Ennui and indifference killing our country will be the saddest thing ever recorded in history. Maybe we need the Vikings to invade again. 😂 I am well and truly flummoxed. I sure appreciate your perspective, thank you.
There is a Freedom from Religion Foundation. Maybe Obama can start a “Freedom from Free Speech” foundation.
Barack Obama has believed his own “press releases” from the very beginning of his career in Illinois and the mainstream media continue to fawn over his every word. He is no more a First Amendment Absolutist than I am the Tooth Fairy.
Bathhouse Barry is a despotic con man (and I use the term ‘man’ VERY loosely).
I’m just so entertained when Turley takes it upon himself to talk of free speech because of his sheer hypocrisy on the issue. He clearly censors here, this being his social media influencing Fox talking point workshop…, so he’s down with censorship in the private sphere. That’s his right. But to play himself off as a free speech absolutist, or to criticize anyone for their own nuanced position, well, that’s just hilarious.
Typed this from my phone because my lap top is banned here.
I’d be surprised to find out that Professor Turley ever reads this crap.
obamma makes NBC look trustworthy, plus NBC isn’t nearly as racist.
F obamma, POS
If you call yourself a near absolutist, maybe you should lay out the no go zones. Calling for Social Media censors is not near absolutist. Using the First Amendment as the justification is a neat dodge. To me it is justifying bad behavior. I just love when censorship is used as a method to prevent “misinformation”, “disinformation”, “malinformation”, or”conspiracy theory”. It is great in theory, but whose truth?
This cuts both ways.
Either you believe in free speech or not.
Generally, the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties, says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the federal government can’t do to you. But it doesn’t say what the state or federal government must do on your behalf. Obama
While the DoI specifically said the purpose for government is to secure rights, this PoS believes the constitution doesn’t tell them they have to do that. This is great example of the “want to’s.”
People elected to government should explicitly “want to” secure the rights of the people. Obama explicitly doesn’t “want to” do any such thing. Instead, his focus is on the “can’t do.” And when the focus is on the can’t, what comes next for an NPD is to find a way that they can.
“But [the Constitution] doesn’t say what the state or federal government must do on your behalf.” (Obama)
Actually, it does. Government “must do” only that which is expressly *permitted* by the Constitution.
Sam, I understand they “shall” have powers limited to what is stated. I don’t see where it says they “must” do anything. Perhaps the preamble? Anyway, Obama laments the limits of shall or must.
O: I should have made it clear that my comment was not directed at you, but rather at the Left’s attempt to rationalize unlimited government. Your point is well taken, which is why I put “must do” in scare quotes.
OBAMA hates the first amendment- he is for censorship-100%-his staff and former staff works for Biden admin. they are for censorship. Obama along with Boden will go down as the worse or one of the worse Presidents.
It’s interesting to see so many suddenly finding distaste with Obama. More interesting to me is why it’s taken this long, as it was clear who he was before his first term had ended. The man is 100% about eliminating dissidence and control rather than governance. Always has been, and this is far from the first, second, or tenth time he has lied right to our faces.
I voted for him the first time and have regretted it ever since. It’s been disappointing watching people fall over themselves to glorify this arrogant tool; I think he’d have been very happy being emperor rather than a term-limited and duly elected politician. For me his ascendance was the final death knell for the democratic party.
There is an interesting book called “The Communist” written by Paul Kengor, Ph.D. About Obama’s mentor Frank Marshall Davis. He wrote admiringly about him in “Dreams of my Father” but never mentions his full name.
“Frank was a pro-Soviet, pro-RedChina card carrying member of Communist Party USA (CPUSA). His communist Party card was 47544.”
The book is well researched and written. Much of the data the author sought had been removed from internet access but was found in smaller university libraries and in paper documents.
Obama is slick and clever, just the kind of person one must approach with caution. One doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to recognize that there is something deeper behind his eloquent words.
I saw through him from the beginning, and could not understand why nobody else could see it. Lost friends even.
Behind every problem this nation has is an Obacala appointee.
Today’s Democrats are just Machiavellian Fascists in control of DC
The Rule of Law is dead
Free Speech is dead
Why do Republicans in Congress support Democrat Criminals?
I hate to say it but when it comes to 21st century Democrats and free speech, in general they have a hypocritical track record. It seems to me that many Democrats think that free speech is fine when it agrees with them and it should be censored when it disagrees with them. This is a pattern I’ve seen so many times from 21st century Democrats that it really is signature significant*. “Rights for me but not for thee” seems to be an unspoken driving factor in leftist ideology driving their hypocritical actions. Any “free speech” that disagrees with leftist narratives is automatically tarred a misinformation – these people really are acting like Orwellian totalitarians.
Claiming to have moral standards to which one’s actions do not conform is hypocrisy. Here’s a good example of what I’m talking about; What Would You Call It?
*Signature Significance: Signature significance posits that a single act can be so remarkable that it has predictive and analytical value, and should not be dismissed as statistically insignificant.
Steve,
Well said.
Additional problem is they think they know better than everyone else and Americans should just shut up and do what they say. Obama and Hillary absolutely oozed with that kind of contempt.
Obama is just a talking head. Follow the power…Marc Elias, Soros, etc
Obama does what he is told….guy has never run anything in his life!
“. . . that we deem to be really harmful . . .” (Obama — the non-absolute absolutist)
Note the royal we. Guess who’s the Voice of that we.
Obama is a thorough-going collectivist, which is why he detests America’s individualism. To him, individuals cannot be trusted to make their own choices, be they about speech, medicine, education, cigarettes. He and his cabal of Voices have a mysterious, higher power of insight — and they use the government’s police powers to force those insights down our throats.
I’m not aware of a single Conservative that is a First Amendment “Absolutist”.
In past decades Conservatives routinely cite as unconstitutional to “falsely yell fire in a movie theatre”, defamation or incitement to violence. Conservatives aren’t absolutionist on flag burning, it’s routinely used as a wedge issue to divide voters.
Conservatives also supported in past decades, the U.S. Department of Justice maintaining a “List of Constitutionally-Subversive Groups and Individuals” then gave the FBI authority to destroy or even assassinate individuals on that list, even on U.S. soil.
Last week, Donald Trump (and many of his supporters) cited dehumanizing speech and other actions that are “Constitutionally-Subversive” – dehumanizing speech adopted from Hitler, Goebels and Mussolini.
If the DOJ still maintains this blacklist, sometimes authorizing lethal action, some Trump supporters would be on this list today.
Conservatives have never supported an “absolutist” view of the First Amendment.
The great irony of free speech is that the very leftists that fought for free speech in the 60s and 70s, against “ the man”, now control much of government and have become “the man”, desiring to censor views that are in conflict with their leftist agenda. Sure there are a few on the right that want censorship of some type, but by and large the epicenter of censorship is the so called liberals of today. They want censorship of speech and thought.
President Barack Obama is a progressive and NOT a free speech absolutist, his ridiculous claim is a propaganda lie trying to put lipstick on a pig and no one with a critically thinking mind will fall for it.
There is no such thing as a “progressive” (read regressive) that’s a free speech absolutist and anyone that claims otherwise is a liar.
pudnhead was right and you are wrong. Obama is a fake, not a progressive. He IS a marxist, however.
Let’s see, did Obama support gay marriage before or after Clinton and Biden changed their stripes???
Jimmy wrote, “pudnhead was right and you are wrong. Obama is a fake, not a progressive. He IS a marxist, however.”
Yes, Obama is a progressive and progressives are fakes! They’re bald-faced hypocrites, they’re fakes. They’re “Rights for me but not for thee” anti-American and anti-Constitution, they’re fakes. They talk out of both sides of their mouths, they’re fakes. The 21st century word “progressive” is synonymous with fake; therefore, both pudnhead and I are correct.
By the way; 21st century “progressives” are anti status quo no matter what the status quo happens to be. They’re like ignorant rebelling teenagers that never grew out of adolescence.
Lastly…
If you can; please explain to me what the difference between a 21st century progressive and a Marxist is.
Also if you can; please explain to me what the difference between a 21st century progressive and an Orwellian totalitarian is.
Steve,
“They’re like ignorant rebelling teenagers that never grew out of adolescence.”
That right there. And they make up fake causes to rebel for.
If you put it in those words, “21st Century Progressive”, then I agree, there is no difference. And if I understand you, yes, they are all Marxists.
I have long time friends who I have always considered progressive, and they are nothing like the people you describe. Thats the distinction I was making.
Yes Obama IS a progressive and he called progressives to action in 2008 and it was blown off as political campaign rhetoric.
Steve,
Those who call themselves “progressive” are actually regressive.
A person would have to have some kind of mental deficiency or regressive mental state to think there are more than two sexes, exposing children to pornography is okay, dividing children into who is the oppressed and who is the oppressors based off skin color is okay or say all the Jews in a class room into a corner.
Everything about Obama is fake.
Rush Limbaugh told us that. I sure do miss Rush.