I previously wrote how a Harris-Walz Administration would be a nightmare for free speech. Both candidates have shown pronounced anti-free speech values. Now, X owner Elon Musk and former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have posted a Harris interview to show the depths of the hostility of Harris to unfettered free speech. I have long argued that Trump and the third-party candidates should make free speech a central issue in this campaign. That has not happened. Kennedy was the only candidate who was substantially and regularly talking about free speech in this election. Yet, Musk and Kennedy are still trying to raise the chilling potential of a Harris-Walz Administration.
In my book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I discuss how the Biden-Harris Administration has proven to be the most anti-free speech administration since John Adams. That includes a massive censorship system described by one federal judge as perfectly “Orwellian.”
In the CNN interview, Harris displays many of the anti-free speech inclinations discussed earlier. She strongly suggests that X should be shut down if it does not yield to demands for speech regulation.
What is most chilling is how censorship and closure are Harris’s default positions when faced with unfettered speech. She declares to CNN that such unregulated free speech “has to stop” and that there is a danger to the country when people are allowed to “directly speak[] to millions and millions of people without any level of oversight and regulation.”
Harris discussed her view that then-President Trump’s Twitter account should be shut down because the public had to be protected from harmful viewpoints.
“And when you’re talking about Donald Trump, he has 65 million Twitter followers, he has proven himself to be willing to obstruct justice – just ask Bob Mueller. You can look at the manifesto from the shooter in El Paso to know that what Donald Trump says on Twitter impacts peoples’ perceptions about what they should and should not do.”
Harris demanded that Trump’s account “should be taken down” and that there be uniformity in the censorship of American citizens:
“And the bottom line is that you can’t say that you have one rule for Facebook and you have a different rule for Twitter. The same rule has to apply, which is that there has to be a responsibility that is placed on these social media sites to understand their power… They are speaking to millions of people without any level of oversight or regulation. And that has to stop.”
In other words, free speech should be set to the lowest common denominator of speech regulation to protect citizens from dangerous viewpoints.
Harris’s views have been echoed by many Democratic leaders, including Hillary Clinton who (after Musk purchased Twitter) called upon European censors to force him to censor American citizens under the infamous Digital Services Act (DSA).
Other Democratic leaders have praised Brazil for banning X after Musk balked at censoring conservatives at the demand of the socialist government. Brazil is where this anti-free speech movement is clearly heading and could prove a critical testing ground for national bans on sites which refuse to engage in comprehensive censorship. As Harris clearly states in the CNN interview, there cannot be “one rule for Facebook and you have a different rule for Twitter.” Rather, everyone must censor or face imminent government shutdowns.
The “joy” being sold by Harris includes the promise of the removal of viewpoints that many on the left feel are intolerable or triggering on social media. Where Biden was viewed as an opportunist in embracing censorship, Harris is a true believer. Like Walz, she has long espoused a shockingly narrow view of free speech that is reflective of the wider anti-free speech movement in higher education.
Harris often speaks of free speech as if it is a privilege bestowed by the government like a license and that you can be taken off the road if you are viewed as a reckless driver.
Trump and the third party candidates are clearly not forcing Harris to address her record on free speech. Yet, polls show that the majority of Americans still oppose censorship and favor free speech.
In my book, I propose various steps to restore free speech in America, including a law that would bar federal funds for censorship, including grants and other funding that target individuals and sites over the content of their views. The government can still speak in its own voice and it can still prosecute those who commit crimes on the Internet or engage in criminal conspiracies. Harris should be asked if she would oppose such legislation.
For free speech advocates, the 2024 election is looking strikingly similar to the election of 1800. One of the greatest villains in our history discussed in my book was President John Adams, who used the Alien and Sedition Acts to arrest his political opponents – including journalists, members of Congress and others. Many of those prosecuted by the Adams administration were Jeffersonians. In the election of 1800, Thomas Jefferson ran on the issue and defeated Adams.
It was the only presidential election in our history where free speech was a central issue for voters. It should be again. While democracy is really not on the ballot this election, free speech is.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
Rejoice! Rejoice! Be Joyful!
Good news Free Speech haters.
And, we can proudly say that Sir Donald Trump is the sure winner.
Just waiting for the results and Oath ceremony.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Be Joyful!
Good news Free Speech haters.
The American commies are doubling down on their real intentions and no longer care who knows it.
The nyt published a diatribe “The Constitution Is Sacred. Is it Also Dangerous?” by their in-house tool jennifer szalai that speculated “one of the biggest threats to America’s politics might be the country’s founding document.”
And of course the lefties are on the case waiting in the wings with their final solution to the US Constitution problem which is to make establishing, preserving, protecting and defending absolute power of government the utmost goal and duty of the government and it’s operatives by stripping The American People of Their Constitutional Rights and consent to be governed and downgrading them to either state property or enemy of the state categories to be managed much like cattle and vermin are managed.
The question then becomes “if the ones in power derived their authority from The Constitution, how exactly does that work when they dissolve the power that gave them their power?”
Who tried to subvert the Constitution by storming the Capitol to take over the government
You will lose, . . . again.
Who didn’t recognize the danger and abetted the bad actors by her actions? (Pelosi)
Who approved troops to prevent such a thing from happening? (Trump)
You probably don’t know, but Pelosi admitted part of her guilt in a video. Trump’s request for troops is documented before Jan 6 by independent persons.
The fbi
Oh, that would be pelosi and the fbi.
Relevance to the issue of free speech?
You’re a certified idiot GJK. What sitting, incumbent POTUS would pre-authorize 10,000 National guardsmen to ward off potential unruly crowds prior to “Inciting an insurrection/overthrow of our government” you moron??? Also invoking a “Peaceful and Patriotic” march to the capital guaranteed by the Constitutions 1st amendment??
First, turn of your Fake News and try reading the facts provided in the book by DC Capital Police Chief Steven Sund for the timeline that delineate some 32 unanswered/ignored phone-call requests he placed to both the Congressional Sargent at Arms and/or Speaker Pelosi to activate the 10,000 National Guardsmen & women to the Capital only to be ignored. Read how Mayor Bowser denied in writing prior to the J6 incident the offer of these troops. Note the lack of weapons carried by 99+% these mostly peaceful protesters. Also, if feasible, try conducting a thought experiment evaluating the odds of successfully acquiring thousands of flight records of people f n n lying into DC to compare against local cell phone pings to determine potential rally attendees and marchers that January 6th while failing to attain a single cell phone locator ping of the individual who placed the 2 pipe bombs adjacent to both the DNC & RNC. Unsuccessful for that single cell phones records had been corrupted and/or destroyed. Anything jumping out to you yet Einstein.
I could continue about how no charges of sedition or insurrection have ever been levied against DJT – yet you decide he’s guilty without charges or due process as ensured for every citizen by 5A.
Get some facts before making such broad, bold, yet clearly invalid, unsubstantiated declarations of facts which are merely overzealous accusations, based on emotional TDS moronic assumptions.
And finally NO – I DO NOT ADVOCATE NOR SUPPORT CIVIL VIOLENCE, VANDALISM, OR RIOTING MOST ANYWHERE MOST ANYTIME AND CERTAINLY AND UNFORTUNATELY NOT ON 1/6/21.
“In other words, free speech should be set to the lowest common denominator of speech regulation to protect citizens from dangerous viewpoints.”
Actually what she is saying is “speech needs to be regulated by people like me using my approved viewpoints”
There can no longer be any question that this is simply who the modern dems are. They do not belong anywhere near power in America in 2024. It is coming from every quarter with them. The only solution is to vote them out, and you’d better believe they will fight like hell and pull every dirty trick and abuse they can to prevent it. It is going to be a fight (and that does not mean a literal hot war). They are going to use every dirty trick they know and likely invent new ones, and that is a stone cold fact. We can’t be bowed by any of it.
Since the capture is every agency of government and as Mike Benz explained, freedom of speech on the world wide web was no longer a US gov priority after brexit, cremexit, spaxit, Trumpxit, and the rest of the free speech social conditions no longer resulted in the State Departments’ desired election outcomes overseas, they turne d the tables on free speech and went for the opposite to continue their power and control over the rest of the world.
See, they used the free speech to disrupt other governments until the rest of the world caught on and THEIR rfee speech backfired on the machinations.
The demoncrats have taken over the no free speech mantra so they can control and steal everything.
Besides beating the demoncrats at elections it will require a purging of the agencies and ngo’s and big slap in the face of the foreign policy monsters who now use it all domestically.
SEE MIKE BENZ
https://twitter.com/i/status/1758529993280205039
a lot of everything is explained in that video, highly recommended
George: With any due respect, I do not believe that you and Gigi are the same person as others do (despite your name change). Notwithstanding, you share a common trait with GIgi: using new words/writing styles/arguments that you recently learned, either from the Web or from fellow commenters. This week from you, it is “Kruger-Dunning,” –in fact, –so new to you that you might have already forgotten that it is actually “Dunning-Kruger.”
Please don’t go away with your comments; –but please pay attention to your “reading comprehension” and cognitive skills,(smile) –maybe work on your originality. Go back and read about the Dunning-Kruger effect and how it may apply to your targets. Then TRY to fashion a cogent argument if you think it is ON TOPIC by relating the bias defect to a particular comment by someone, and what you believe is the unbiased alternative. This might allow some readers to fashion some respect for you.
Thanking you in advance, yours truly, lin.
As all the normal (non-progressive) Americans are well aware, the ‘dangerous, unregulated free speech’ that Harris wants to be able to censor is simply any free speech that speaks the truth about the socialist/marxist dictates of the democratic party, and how corrupt they really are. A prime example was how they quickly used social media to silence the Hunter Biden laptop issue to interfere with the 2020 election, and intentionally lied that it was ‘Russian disinformation’.