In the 1999 cult classic The Blair Witch Project, one character tells his friends “I could help you, but I’d rather stand here and record.” For free speech advocates, we often feel that other citizens have become passive observers as an anti-free speech movement grows around us, threatening our “indispensable right.”
One of the most infamous figures in this movement has been former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has long been the smiling face of censorship. As the head of the Labour Party, Blair pushed through some of the early crackdowns on free speech in the United Kingdom. He is now calling for global censorship to expand these efforts.
In an interview on LBC Radio, Blair declared:
“The world is going to have to come together and agree on some rules around social media platforms. It’s not just how people can provoke hostility and hatred but I think… the impact on young people particularly when they’ve got access to mobile phones very young and they are reading a whole lot of stuff and receiving a whole lot of stuff that I think is really messing with their minds in a big way.”
We recently discussed how the UK is already using recent rioting to crackdown further on those with opposing or “toxic” views.
For years, I have been writing about the decline of free speech in the United Kingdom and the steady stream of arrests.
A man was convicted for sending a tweet while drunk referring to dead soldiers. Another was arrested for an anti-police t-shirt. Another was arrested for calling the Irish boyfriend of his ex-girlfriend a “leprechaun.” Yet another was arrested for singing “Kung Fu Fighting.” A teenager was arrested for protesting outside of a Scientology center with a sign calling the religion a “cult.”
Last year, Nicholas Brock, 52, was convicted of a thought crime in Maidenhead, Berkshire. The neo-Nazi was given a four-year sentence for what the court called his “toxic ideology” based on the contents of the home he shared with his mother in Maidenhead, Berkshire.
While most of us find Brock’s views repellent and hateful, they were confined to his head and his room. Yet, Judge Peter Lodder QC dismissed free speech or free thought concerns with a truly Orwellian statement: “I do not sentence you for your political views, but the extremity of those views informs the assessment of dangerousness.”
Lodder lambasted Brock for holding Nazi and other hateful values:
“[i]t is clear that you are a right-wing extremist, your enthusiasm for this repulsive and toxic ideology is demonstrated by the graphic and racist iconography which you have studied and appeared to share with others…”
Even though Lodder agreed that the defendant was older, had limited mobility, and “there was no evidence of disseminating to others,” he still sent him to prison for holding extremist views.
After the sentencing Detective Chief Superintendent Kath Barnes, Head of Counter Terrorism Policing South East (CTPSE), warned others that he was going to prison because he “showed a clear right-wing ideology with the evidence seized from his possessions during the investigation….We are committed to tackling all forms of toxic ideology which has the potential to threaten public safety and security.”
Blair’s views have been echoed by Speaker of the House Sir Lindsay Hoyle who declared:
“Misinformation is dangerous. Social media is good but its also bad when people are using it in a way that could cause a riot, threat, intimidation, suggesting that we should attack somebody, it’s not acceptable. What we’ve got to do is factually correct what’s up there, if not I think the government has to think long and hard about what they are going to do about social media and what are they going to put through parliament as a bill.
“I believe it should be across, it doesn’t matter what country you are in, the fact is that misinformation is dangerous and no misinformation, or threats, or intimidation should be allowed to be carried out on social media platforms.”
As with the effort in Brazil to block X entirely for refusing to censor political opponents of the government, Blair’s call for global censorship is where the movement is going next.
Notably, after Musk purchased Twitter, Hillary Clinton called upon European officials to force him to censor American citizens under the infamous Digital Services Act (DSA). Recently, Democratic leaders like Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison praised Brazil for its action to prevent citizens from having access to unfettered news sources.
Interviews like the one with Tony Blair are not just jump scares meant to intimidate or scare others. They reflect a comprehensive campaign from our political elite to enforce censorship on a national and transnational scale. If you think that this latest Blair Witch Project is just another scary production, you have not been paying attention.
* take the long view when Jesus Christ is just a carnival dance and Mohammed a quaint goat herder myth and bands of humans roam the world hunting and gathering for a bit of food and water or just a huge band of slaves.
In 150 years no one will remember. NYC is ready for a bubonic plague with rats outnumbering people.
Were you sober when you wrote that?
* I’ll plead the 5th
* which part sounded non-sober?
If you need help with that, you prove my suspicion.
So by their own measure isn’t Sir Phony Blair guilty of his own crimes? Didn’t Blair and convicted war criminal George W Bush continually spread false and misleading information to incite a war in Iraq? How many people did their lies and false representations cause the death of? Where were the weapons of mass destruction? What strategic national security interests did Iraq have to any coalition countries? Instead it led to total chaos as Colin Powell had said, it led to mass migration from the domino effects and resulted in untold debt by unfunded wars. By Mr. Blairs own calls, shouldn’t he himself be dragged to British court and tried for inciting violence that led to the deaths of thousands?
Hear, hear!
Traveler’s comment points out how grotesque can be the impact of deceitful infowarfare. A small group of Shiite Iraqis led by Ahmad Chalabi waged a highly successful infowarfare campaign in 2002 to scare the U.S. into toppling their arch-rival Saddam Hussein. The elements of the campaign illustrate how rank falsehoods can be “packaged” and spoon-fed to a receptive audience. It consisted of two synergistic lies: Iraq has WMDs, and was secretly forging an alliance with Al Qaeda. The image of mushroom clouds over NYC and DC was ginned-up to induce a manipulative level of fear and compliance.
An unnecessary 8-year war killed 4000 Americans, >100,000 Iraqis, and cost $3-5T that could have been spent on something of lasting value.
In his new book “The Indispensable Right”, Jonathan Turley builds a case for “free speech”, mostly to the benefit of small dissenters facing a self-serving govt. He advocates for free speech rights essentially unencumbered by any responsibility for authenticity — with only one exception — defamation.
In other words, he makes no distinction between speakers in the public square who are trustworthy-authentic and those manipulative actors who enter the discussion intent on duping the public (like Chalabi) for their own secret purposes. Only a blind fool would go forward with a uber-permissive definition of “free speech” that tolerates such mischief.
This topic deserves careful analysis, and a willingness to look at all aspects of how speech is being employed.
When you begin to acknowledge that the modern world is being populated by well-funded, professionally-managed infowarfare shops — for whom authenticity and transparency are a buzzkill because their purposes must remain stealthy — you see that there might be other needed exceptions to “free speech” besides just defamation. In fact, there are responsibilities of honesty and authenticity that go with free speech if we want to have a trustworthy infospace.
Or, we can be intellectually shallow/lazy, insist there are no exceptions, and resolve to living with being duped into doing the bidding of the most compelling infowarriors — ones like Chalabi. Is that the future you want? It’s a choice before us. Could expanding defamation law to cover public frauds maybe rebalance the equation?
A small group of Shiite waged a misinformation war with whom? The CIA? Isn’t America’s intelligence service capable of debunking BS? The only ones that were privvy to that summation of misinformation were the DOD, UN investigators in country, CNN and the MSM, and THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, oh and Haliburton.
I don’t follow your logic. The American people (at least the majority) had to get behind going to war against Iraq. The U.S. media didn’t lift a finger to expose the ruse. Yes, there were neo-cons in the USG and defense contractors who parroted the lies, rather than risk seeing them unravel. The point is that Americans were successfully fooled, and together made a regretful policy decision, prodded manipulatively by some cunning special interests in Iraq and the US.
I honestly don’t know if the CIA is able to do much about borderless infowarfare. They practice it themselves, supposedly in our interest. Therefore, I would expect the CIA to oppose counter-infowarfare as a serious undertaking to expose covert operatives. They are more about playing the game than changing the game.
* may I ask for what purpose ?
pbinca isn’t any better than those he criticizes: Traveler’s comment points out how grotesque can be the impact of deceitful infowarfare. A small group of Shiite Iraqis led by Ahmad Chalabi waged a highly successful infowarfare campaign in 2002 to scare the U.S. into toppling their arch-rival Saddam Hussein.
Yep… Go look at the debates and discussions from BOTH parties at the Capitol prior to America RESUMING the war against Iraq. You’ll find all that Shiite Iraqis propaganda EVERYWHERE YOU READ! pbinca has nailed it!
pbinca forgot to mention that those clever Shiite Iraqis also supposedly terrified the crap out of the UK (and other countries), resulting in most who were combatants in the Gulf War joining the US when they resumed hostilities with Iraq.
pbinca… show us your expertise on this and tell everybody how many conditions the UN required Iraq to comply with at their end of the ceasefire agreement for hostilities from the Coalition to cease. You know there was a whole bunch of them, other than the subset list of conditions referring to WMDs, correct?
Or maybe tell all of us which of those conditions Iraq actually complied with if you don’t know how many there were. Or maybe even just the subset list pertaining to WMDs. After all, there were coalition strikes on Iraq in at least three years of the12 years between the Gulf War and the Coalition resuming hostilities with Iraq – and none of them were on suspected WMD sites or had anything to do with that.
Or at least tell us which of those conditions that Iraq failed to comply with was the result of slick Shiite Iraqis propaganda.
Got anything?
The somewhat scary thing is many of these conspiracy theorists that have been played by the media on the Iraq War like they were played by the media on the “Russia Dossier” were probably adults (although not adults in military uniform who were there) when both the Democrats, Republicans and other Coalition nations agreed to resume the war. An agreement they reached because Saddaam refused to stop violating the ceasefire agreements that saved his ass by stopping the US kicking his ass without barely breaking a sweat in the Gulf War.
Airborne, there were military movements toward the north that some respectable people thought could be WMD removal from Iraq, and there was a lot of chaos that you report on. At the time, I could not possibly know enough to say we shouldn’t go to war, but I felt we didn’t have to. Once at war, my opinion doesn’t count, but I believe GWB was a fool in the way the war was managed.
If we had to go into war, we had to prepare for problems from Syria and Iran. GWB did nothing when the borders were crossed. I would have threatened Syria and forced them to close their borders. If they didn’t I would have destroyed their airforce. The same goes for Iran after I showed them what happened to Syria, and if need be, I would have done more to Iran than Syria. I would not have gotten rid of the Republican Guard but rather put the generals on desk duty with high pay to separate them from the troops while advancing the lower commanders into their places if they seemed appropriate. I then, immediately, would have leveled Tikrit, gone to their council, and showed them Tikrit, telling them we were leaving while letting them know if they caused trouble for us, we would be back and kill them and their families and level their communities. I would do this because of how tribal they are. I would let them know we would return if not satisfied.
I know all of that sounds very militant, which I am not unless threatened, but once we made a mistake, we should have gotten out immediately when the job was completed.
There is no way to create a democracy out of thin air, so I depend on their military and government structure to maintain peace at least where we are concerned. The balance of power between Iran and Iraq should never have been destroyed.
Didn’t Blair and convicted war criminal George W Bush continually spread false and misleading information to incite a war in Iraq?
Traveler, was Bush convicted of war crimes by one of the New York/Washington DC courts that are now busily convicting Trump? I’m not aware that he has a criminal record – but I know a lot of rabid police state fascist Democrats who said he was virtually Hitler like they now claim Trump is Hitler, who also wanted Bush jailed as a criminal. (They claim all Republican presidents are Hitler and should be in jail all the way back to Reagan…)
Or was it in one of those UN courts Trump refused to allow to have Globalist jurisdiction over American soldiers and political leaders? You have George traveling in lockstep with you on this one, applauding you!
Can you or your cohort George tell the rest of us which specific court convicted Bush?
As for the CONTINUATION of our war with Iraq after they refused to comply with the conditions of the ceasefire that saved Saddam from being rolled up in Bagdad within a few short hours, as authorities on that war, you both must know the points that both the Democrats as well as Republicans agreed should result in the resumption of that war. So which specific ones were false and which, if any, were true?
I am always amazed that George Bush, laughingly called a dummy by the Democrats then and now, was actually a masquerading genius so clever that he even fooled brilliant Democrats who not only had access to our intelligence assets as he had – but Democrats back then, as they still do now, had their own intelligence committees to ensure yet another Nazi Republican fascist president like Reagan, both Bushes and now Trump, isn’t lying to them.
Meanwhile, members of the Democrat intelligentsia fooled by that Nazi dummy war pig Bush included Senator Joe Biden, Senator Hillary Clinton, and Senator Schumer…
oh… and Senator Diane Feinstein, chair of the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The Democrat MAJORITY intelligence committee – the Democrats that reviewed all the intelligence product used by Bush on any matter. That Nazi Bush fooled all those Democrats on their majority intelligence committee he had to get past with his lies.
I am not an Iraq war expert as both of you are. But I am one of the many tens of thousands who actually went there and got the briefing on ALL the reasons we were going back there.
Unfortunately I’m many who has friends with service injuries diagnosed as being exposed to the product of NBCW weapons during their time in Iraq. For some, those service injuries from NBCW products ultimately became injuries that ended their lives.
On the subject of lies: how many lie about both the original war with Iraq and the resumption of the war with Iraq? Because it is easier to do that in order to pursue their personal biases and/or political agenda than it is to address all of the facts about either of those wars? Particularly the second that Bush did not fight very well with the Democrats kneecapping him every step of the way as they did Trump when he became Commander In Chief?
And on that subject of “mass migration”: what war (false or not) did Colon Powell identify as forcing 20 MILLION Illegal Aliens to enter America after Biden took office?
A wanton yet barren Canadian woman, expounding vagaries, twisted by shame and remorse, for president of the United States of America?
Just what the American Founders conceived and intended.
That’s dead, unburdened by all that came before. Don’t have babies.
A wanton yet barren Canadian woman
Kamala Harris, born in America and who moved to Canada with her mother to attend five years of Canadian schools for her public schooling before returning home to America, is not Canadian. She never was.
Going to a Canadian school, working in Canada, i.e. does not result in Canadian citizenship. Nor does it result in losing American citizenship. My wife’s father was a petroleum geologist, he moved to Canada to explore for oil in the Canadian north, bringing my wife and her older sisters with him. They even did some school years in Canada as Harris did before he returned to the USA along with his wife and children.
Americans seeking Canadian citizenship need to do more – like their parents applying for them to receive citizenship or applying on their own behalf at the age of majority. Neither happened with Harris
We know she’s not Pure Blood White like you are George and demand of presidential candidates. She’s definitely objectionably brown in your eyes.
But if you must hate her rather than just reject her being in government because of her horrific record when serving beside other Pure Blood White neo-communists, you don’t have to put on your Byrd/Biden Kluxxer racist hood to condemn her on her skin color instead of on her record.
You’re such a vile lying Cheap Fake American Kluxxer.
* Why should American kluxxer do as you want when it Joe Biden’s pick for the color of her skin.
Perhaps you’re the racist?
Perhaps you’re the racist?
Got us another Soviet Democrat Biden fan. Long history of calling others racists when they point out Biden saying he would only choose from black women is racist. Or perhaps George forgot to sign his name again…
But that’s a pretty lame defense of George who claimed VP Cackles was Canadian – along with being ineligible to be president.
Funny that this made it past the censors.
No true man will vote for Kamala.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4866756-harris-trump-male-voters
Women might vote for her for the worst of reasons; she can be ‘woman’ in the abstract but they don’t see her as attractive enough to be a female competitor.
Nobody truly likes her.
“OF INDIGENT FORTUNES, UNDER THE IMMEDIATE DOMINION OF OTHERS, AND SUSPECTED TO HAVE NO WILL OF THEIR OWN”
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Imagine, male voters in a severely restricted-vote republic is precisely what the American Founders intended and effected.
Turnout was 11.6% in 1789 and, generally by states, voter qualifications were male, European, 21, with 50 lbs. Sterling or 50 acres.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“the people are nothing but a great beast…
I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value.”
– Alexander Hamilton
_________________________
“The true reason (says Blackstone) of requiring any qualification, with regard to property in voters, is to exclude such persons, as are in so mean a situation, that they are esteemed to have no will of their own.”
“If it were probable that every man would give his vote freely, and without influence of any kind, then, upon the true theory and genuine principles of liberty, every member of the community, however poor, should have a vote… But since that can hardly be expected, in persons of indigent fortunes, or such as are under the immediate dominion of others, all popular states have been obliged to establish certain qualifications, whereby, some who are suspected to have no will of their own, are excluded from voting; in order to set other individuals, whose wills may be supposed independent, more thoroughly upon a level with each other.”
– Alexander Hamilton, The Farmer Refuted, 1775
_____________________________________________________
“[We gave you] a [restricted-vote] republic, if you can keep it.”
– Ben Franklin, 1787
It seems that the only speech (ideology) going to acceptable with these leftist elites, is their own brand of hateful,koolade drinking rethoric and misinformation. I say BULLSHT
The lying and panic porn by the Left continues unabated. When they see other outlets, like Elon Musk’s X, reaching millions of people, they turn to censorship. Their lunge towards censorship began at full throttle in 2020 with COVID. Turns out COVID was not nearly as deadly as what the governments did with their “mitigating strategies”
In most cases, recruited immune cells remove SARS-CoV-2 in the lung and reduce the immune responses. However, in some individuals, the immune responses become dysfunctional, accompanied by cytokine storms and widespread lung inflammation…..Thus, the disease severity or mortality of COVID-19 are linked with dysfunctional inflammatory responses and cytokine storms. 1,9
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41392-021-00575-7
The following has no basis in scientific facts, but The Atlantic, as a Leftist rag, peddles it as such because the Left seeks power over us all.
If you think you got COVID, treat it like the common cold or the flu. Stay home, take OTC meds, and carry on. Don’t even bother testing whether it is COVID, flu, RSV or common cold. Treatment for most people is identical.
It Matters If It’s COVID
COVID-19 remains deadlier than the flu, and has the potential to cause debilitating symptoms that can last for years. It sends far more people to the hospital than RSV. But as of March, the CDC does not distinguish among these respiratory viruses—or any others—in its advice to the American public. If you’re sick, the agency advises, simply stay home until you’ve been fever-free and your symptoms have been improving for 24 hours. These days, hardly any public spaces specifically exclude people with an active COVID infection. Numerous sick people are not bothering to test themselves for the virus: Compared with 2022 and even 2023 numbers, sales of at-home COVID tests have tanked.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/09/covid-test-summer-surge-vaccine-booster/679704/
Vinay Prasad MD MPH
@VPrasadMDMPH
I would like to report the Atlantic magazine for misinformation
https://x.com/VPrasadMDMPH/status/1832539532476215719
Estovir: “Turns out COVID was not nearly as deadly as what the governments did with their “mitigating strategies”
True. The one personal friend who died of/with Covid was one who refused HCQ and followed the government guidelines by waiting until he was having respiratory complications before going to the hospital where he was given Remdesivir and a ventilator and then died. Remdesivir can cause organ damage and we were puzzled as reports came in of his having multiple organ failure. Everyone else we knew who used HCQ or Ivermectin recovered fairly quickly.
The government and media lied to us many times saying that the Wuhan lab was not the origin of Covid–almost everyone is now convinced it was–that masks helped [they didn’t and caused other problems], that 6-foot distancing was scientific [even Fauci admits he has no idea where that came from] that HCQ and Ivermectin didn’t help [even the government acknowledges that they do].
The continuing lie is that the Covid shots are safe and effective. Almost everyone knows of someone who points to a Covid shot as a cause of some medical injury. Even Megyn Kelly has commented on it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNR_ikpm2VU
A big one was that it was dangerous to go to church, even outdoor services, but it is perfectly fine to go with BLM mobs for a sacking of cities. What moron in government pushed that idea?
As for its being effective, Fauci has had Covid at least three times and, presumably, is vaccinated and boosted.
A consequence is that the government and medical establishment has vaccinated the public against their ‘experts’. Vaccine participation in all areas is falling off. We just don’t believe these people anymore.
Apparently nobody who refused the Covid vaxx regrets that decision [in fact we kind of gloat at times] but many who did get it wonder what might happen next. Even the Pfizer Fact Sheet says long-term side effects are unknown.
Meanwhile, young people keep dropping dead and the media tries to tell us that’s not unusual [it is] and highly vaccinated countries are posting ‘excess deaths’ for ‘some’ reason.
From a different perspective now that we are far enough past Covid we can look at long term mortality trends in the US.
The US mortality rate hit bottom in 2013 and has been slowly rising since. Looking at the trend line since 2013 – you can not find Covid.
I am speculating, but my view is that with very few exceptions the people killed by Covid were going to die in the next 6 months regardless.
It is still a bad thing, But it is less bad to not do the stupid things that we did that made things worse, not better, when there is nothing that there is evidence to support actually having a beneficial effect that we could have done.
What’s really scary is most of this falls on deaf ears on both sides, as the readership in here demonstrates.
There’s a real question here, one you’ve posed and opined about in your recent blog articles, and that is; why hasn’t Donald Trump made free speech a priority in his campaign?
If he really is the ‘chosen one’ and he really is the ‘answer’ to the corruption, then why hasn’t he made freedom of speech any sort of priority in his campaign whatsoever?
A real question every American needs to be seriously asking themselves, in between their cheers and pom pom waving for him.
What’s really scary is most of this falls on deaf ears on both sides, as the readership in here demonstrates… why hasn’t Donald Trump made free speech a priority in his campaign?
Other than campaigning and mentioning government censorship by proxy?
One reason would probably be he’s running on populism, just as Obama, Clinton and Biden did. A grave concern about free speech issues doesn’t get close to being one of the major issues pollsters identify as either party having.
https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/05/PP_2024.5.23_economy_2-01.png
Trump wasn’t my preferred candidate the first time and he isn’t my preferred candidate this time around. HOWEVER, he is far, far better than the Soviet Democrat alternative.
As such, I want him to concentrate on the most likely issues that will convince the most voters to vote to put him in office. You’re going to get far more free speech with Trump while working on him to do more than you’ll ever get out of Obama’s Fourth Term if Trump loses.
Quoting polls these days is a joke. They make that stuff up as they go now to suit whoever’s buying the poll.
But I won’t argue that he’s not a lesser evil than Biden, at least he has some mental capacity to at least try to stand up to the oligarchy, if he would. If he will.
It was under Trump that I lost most of my income that year (2020). It was under Trump we lost our rights to travel freely, to congregate freely, when our small businesses bankrupted and our churches closed. He said he wasn’t for it, but i didn’t see him doing much to stop it. Lots of late night “tweets” voicing his opposition and an occasional token gesture or two, then he handed out our small business loan money to big corporations and his own legal firm (which got 70 million) and suddenly the money was dried up and MILLIONS of American small businesses went under. I starved that year.
And I will argue that free speech is not a priority issue with the population. It is with millions of Americans which is why Turley’s books doing so well.
And why its pretty much ALL Turley writes about these days. And why he has written time and time over his alarm that that Trump is NOT making free speech a center point in his campaign.
So yea, it is a priority with a large percentage of the people along with the economy.
Maybe not with you, but with most of us who understand there is nothing without it, that ALL rights to freedom stem from that one. Without Free Speech, we have nothing.
So I disagree that Americans who see the evil being wrought by the democratic party right now, are only interested in the economy. Most Americans want more than to be fed and kept “safe” by the government. They want freedom. And most Americans realize that without free speech there is no freedom. Its very important to them.
Maybe no to you, but to most it is. Including the guy who writes this blog you’ve haunted for a decade or more.
Which begs the question, what are you doing here then?
Quoting polls these days is a joke. They make that stuff up as they go now to suit whoever’s buying the poll… So yea, it is a priority with a large percentage of the people along with the economy.
Well then, if you know those poll results are a joke, this is going to be easy for you.
Give us your informed opinion on where free speech falls on a list of voter priorities. I won’t expect you to be precise: that would be a joke, wouldn’t it?
So, in your informed opinion: second place?
Fourth? Ninth? Not even in tenth place?
You said it’s a priority with a “large percentage” (that’s a pretty vague percentage, BTW) of the people, not Republicans… so it should be relatively easy for you to identify where it falls in the priority list.
Most Americans want more than to be fed and kept “safe” by the government.
You’re as sure of that as you’re sure free speech is a priority with a large percentage of Americans? And yet roughly half the country is voting for Democrats who promise and often times deliver ever increasing benefits, entitlements, universal income, take more from The Evil Rich to redistribute the wealth to them (who did nothing to earn it), etc.
BTW… how’s the Republican effort to get Republican voters behind supporting them repealing Obamacare going?
Repealing Obamacare one of Trump’s campaign planks? I think he’s promising free IVF being added to the list of government freebees instead.
And I get it that you say Trump wasn’t your first choice, but you have been pushing him for a long time and pushing him hard. That struggle of conscience hasn’t come through in your comments, quite the opposite.
If you’re claiming I pushed Trump over another candidate in either the first election primary or this one, you’ve got the wrong guy. Pushing him over Biden, Harris, or any living Democrat, then I am indeed that guy. Pushing him for where I believe he’s wrong, yeah, I am that guy as well.
I do know there’s more than one person who has the naive belief that politicians will do their best and/or correct where they’re wrong if you’re careful to NEVER criticize them. Just cheer and wave, cheer and wave, cheer and wave – whether it’s Obama or Trump.
I don’t buy that; I believe they’ll improve when they get serious pushback. Watching Trump waffle on elective birth control abortions is that in full display… holding his finger up to test the political winds for what he thinks he should say, when the easy and correct answer is that SCOTUS affirmed it is a state issue and therefore not relevant to a federal election.
A universal 10% tax is a universal stupid idea, and I truly hope that’s just election mouth making promises he thinks people want to hear.
And I get your point about why you want him to concentrate on what will get him elected, and I can’t necessarily deny that’s something candidates need to do to win, but free speech right now is a siren issue, there are thousands of social media influencers like Russell Brand and Tucker Carlson out heralding the stump on this, and I get that Tucker likes Trump.
Polls say what folks want them to say, and yes he needs to focus on what works but I think free speech works. That’s why guys like Brand and Carlson and Rogan have zillions of subscribers, because it is important with the population.
Which begs the question why doesn’t Trump make it front and center?
And I get it that you say Trump wasn’t your first choice, but you have been pushing him for a long time and pushing him hard. That struggle of conscience hasn’t come through in your comments, quite the opposite.
I honestly haven’t decided yet . I don’t know now. I get the issue. I get it that if the laughing Witch of the West wins we are royally screwed when it comes to free speech. I’ll admit I think free speech will be better under Trump, but I’m not sure by how much. And I think it also will depend on who’s talkin whether their speech gets censored.
At this point I am trying to bring myself to vote for him because I can see what the Biden admin has done and I can only dread what the Harris admin will do. To both the economy and free speech, both of which are cornerstone issues with me, as is the absolutely corrupt wars we are engaging in both in the Middle East and in Russia.
But I’m just having a hard time getting there.
“why hasn’t Donald Trump made free speech a priority in his campaign?”
Chris Weber, if you weren’t an insulting boob with a tree branch up his a$$, you would know that free speech is a priority. See #7 in his 20 promises.
I’m well aware of his 20 promises but number 7 is merely a blanket promise to restore Constitutional protections of which he includes free speech but as Professor Turley has repeatedly pointed out, time and time again, … he’s not made any point of it whatsoever in his speeches.
Chris, for you to have put the statement the way you did tells us you weren’t aware of his 20 promises and now realize it is part of his campaign. You must be deaf, dumb and blind. Did you not note his statements about Twitter before it became X? Trump even created a free speech platform, Truth Social, before Twitter became X? Did you not notice how he almost ended up in jail because of his free speech issue? You do know the Judge prevented him from speech the law permits. In his speeches, he discusses free speech and how the left is trying to subvert it.
The air must be very thin in those high branches.
I didn’t state it in anyway troll. I pointed out what number 7 WAS, since YOU MISREPRESENTED it.
In other words, you LIED about number 7 trying to make it sound like it was just about free speech and got caught.
Where did I say #7 was”just about free speech?” Must you lie and call people trolls when you screw up? You don’t have to. All you have to do is say you made a mistake and move on or show why you believe you were misunderstood.
Now, why don’t you get back to the subject matter? Elsewhere, you say “I’ll admit I think the free speech will be better under Trump, but I’m not sure by how much. And I think it also will depend on who’s talkin whether their speech gets censored.” I won’t quibble and tell you how bad the idea of free speech suffered under Biden and Harris and how Trump did not censor speech. You probably know that already,
The point of this election is very much about #7 (and other things)
The Constitution
The Bill of Rights
Freedom of Speech
(Take note free speech is mentioned in all three things listed. When someone says something three times, they are telling you something.)
Religious freedom
Right to bear arms
And by the way, Troll calling itself Seth Meyers, I’m sorry it bothers your demons that I actually work for a living, but its not my fault you sit on your no doubt fat lazy a$$ all day trolling in an internet blog trying to give your life meaning.
Get outside, get some sun… son… and try actually working for a living.
Then maybe it won’t offend your emotional insecurities so much when you confront other people who actually do.
“And by the way, Troll calling itself Seth Meyers, I’m sorry it bothers your demons that I actually work for a living,”
Chris, do you think you are the only person who works for a living? Get that branch out of your A$$. It makes you sound silly. Do you think no one else works or has worked? Do you think everyone is on food stamps? Did I complain to you about how hard I worked? That is what you are seemingly doing to all of us with your comment.
I might be on the Internet, but I have a whole life of working and, to this day, am productive. I don’t like to say things like this, but even in retirement, I can put more bread on the table than you. Understand me. I appreciate anyone that works, and thank God he gave me the opportunity.
Put your crotchety behavior with branches you throw away. You will feel a lot better.
Chris, while I share some of your views regarding Trump, SM’s more full throated support for Trump,
does not make him a troll or stupid
Both of you need to chill.
You have important points to make. But you are not arguing with nutacha or the clueless left wing nuts.
You are arguing with people who CAN be reasoned with, and who even if they do not agree with you on everything are NOT the enemy, are not the threat.
I think that the Tea Party and later MAGA movements are the most libertarian thing to happen to a major political party possibly in US history. But MAGA is NOT libertarian, it is just More libertarian that prior republican platforms.
Despite tearing left wing nuts here limb from limb for constant stupid lies about Trump, I have plenty of issues with him.
That does not mean I am voting for Harris.
I do not ever expect to get the perfect presidential candidate.
I have said many times – Trump is a mediocre president. BUT he is also the best president of the 21st century.
It has been a long time since we have had even president that reaches Mediocre.
” Trump, SM’s more full throated support for Trump,”
John, I am full-throatedly supportive of Trump. Do I know his failures? Of course. Do I like him? Yes? But that is not the point. I am not looking to marry him. I am looking toward him as a leader in a leadership position. He is good, better than the rest of the candidates on the ballot.
Should that support today, post Obama-Biden with the potential of Harris as President, be full-throated? Yes. The damage to the nation has been devastating with the two already.
We must remember that not only the government is involved but also the people who have finite lifespans. They should not be told that things are cyclical and that in 500 years, things will change because that is the nature of things. In 500 years, all of us, our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, will be dead. I am not interested in how the cycles of politics work.
Today, there is a clear choice: devastation or the best success possible. Choose Harris or any third-party player, and one is choosing devastation. Choose Trump, and one is choosing for America and its people, not people outside our borders and not for some dreams that can never be realized.
John, you are not the only one who recognizes hard work and that no person can meet all the criteria for the presidency we all want. No one can.
“does not make him a troll or stupid
Both of you need to chill.”
Though I thank you for standing up for my intelligence, NO, I don’t need to chill. No sane individual should chill. We should fight like Hel1 to get Trump into office, for the other is devastation and perhaps war. I want my children, grandchildren, and their great-grandchildren alive, not burnt to a crisp or for them to be fodder in unnecessary wars. I didn’t tell my grandson not to serve when he said he might, but I don’t want him dead because we have the most stupid people (Obama- Biden- Harris) in office.
Instead, I will drop any doubt and Vote for Trump, Trump, Trump. He is the only one in a position to improve the country while reducing the chance of war. I won’t mention all the other things.
Chris is bitter and thinks he is better because he lives in the trees. I actually like his independence, but one doesn’t show independence by tearing a candidate down to feel good.
“But MAGA is NOT libertarian, it is just More libertarian that prior republican platforms. ”
MAGA may not be libertarian. Who cares about the name? It is closer to my libertarian beliefs than anything else. Today, in this bipolar world, anything else out there is not electable or pushing the nation in the wrong direction and toward war.
I am pragmatic. I don’t push for everything I want because that is impossible. Instead, I support that which travels in my direction, leaving the left and the losers behind. The left destroys. The losers destroy less because they might travel in the right direction, but they take away from the winner traveling your way.
“SM I do not understand the vitriol here.”
John, I don’t have vitriol on my side, though the words are sharp. They should be. Patronizing Chris by letting him be nasty since day one would be wrong. He deserves respect from others, but not for them to hide in a corner when he calls them trolls for no reason. Your point, however, is on target, but your sights need to be slightly adjusted.
“Atleast some of my views are closer to Chris’s than yours.”
I don’t know which views of Chris are closer to yours because a lot of what he says is hidden by his short-tempered, impatient responses that do not lead to discussion or his revealing his positions. You and I have close ideologies that differ more because of my pragmatism than they do because of what I believe. I will support smaller steps, knowing that 50% of the country likely doesn’t agree with me and the rest might question what I am saying.
“Chris correctly points out as an example that Trump botched covid.”
Yes, Trump botched Covid (though that is not the correct word, in my opinion). However, that is neither an argument for or against Trump. DeSantis did a better job, but Biden-Harris were wrong, wrong, wrong. Trump didn’t do much harm and did a little good, but the left killed people not just from Covid but from the destruction they created incorrectly managing the Covid epidemic. Chris’s opinion might be acceptable, but it was unattached from a deep examination of what Trump did that was wrong, what he could have done better, and what others did or could do.
“Trump was president, and should have known better.”
You can say what you wish, but he knew somewhat better, was out of his field of knowledge and did what prudent business people do: give authority to those they think know better. In any event, it wasn’t Trump who closed down the economy and schools. It was the governors of the states. That is why DeSantis shined.
Had certain things worked out (unlikely as they were), your method would have led to tragedy. Many of the problems related to Covid came from a Congress and populace that was more interested in fighting than saving lives. Trump didn’t close down alternate opinions, Biden-Harris, the left and weak-kneed Republicans did. One has to understand the times and the restrictions Trump was under.
SM
I do not understand the vitriol here.
Atleast some of my views are closer to Chris’s than yours.
Our disagreements – are something for reasoned debate – not holy war.
You have repeatedly made pragmatic arguments for Trump with me in the past
i,e, that he is the least bad choice.
I think we are all agreed on that.
Chris correctly points out as an example that Trump botched covid.
He went WAY to far left. The fact that democrats went far further does not change the fact that Trump was president, and should have known better.
At the same time Chris’s attacks on Trump do not change the fact that there is not a Democrat with a shot at the presidency – this year or anytime soon that is not a MUCH worse choice.
Chris – I agree with many of your criticisms of Trump.
While he HAS spoken out regarding free speech many times – and I do not think that Platform 7 waters down free speech.
While Free speech is possibly the most important freedom the left erodes. They erode ALL FREEDOM.
But like you I wish Trump’s priorities were different.
That does not change the fact that there is not, and was not a better credible choice.
I do not expect to get the perfect president. I am hoping for the least bade choice.
He has made Free Speech important. He has ranted about the ciolation of his free speech and that of others.
#7 on Trumps platform
Defend our constitution, our bill of rights, and our fundamental freedoms, including freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to keep and bear arms
The core problem is that the left has done so many bad things that need fixed that our rights such as free speech just become another in the long list of absuses by the left.
“Interviews like the one with Tony Blair are not just jump scares meant to intimidate or scare others. They reflect a comprehensive campaign from our political elite to enforce censorship on a national and transnational scale.”
Your prior topic (“That Has to Stop”: Harris Denounces Unfettered Free Speech in 2019 CNN Interview – September 4, 2024) closes by saying: “It was the only presidential election in our history (Adams vs. Jefferson) 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.”
So as not to appear one of those “passive observers as an anti-free speech movement grows around us, threatening our “indispensable right”,” I happen to believe Democracy IS on the ballot this election; vs. Tyranny.
I believe one of the candidates for President this election to be a “One Eyed Jack.” Yes, the same one designated as their presidential candidate by party elites without campaigning for the nomination or earning a single delegate.
(Urban Dictionary: One eyed jack – A person who shows the good side of themselves, while hiding the other side of themselves as being incredibly repulsive, insincere, malicious, and untrustworthy.
FREEDOM NOT SUBJUGATION
People enjoy natural and God-given rights, freedoms, privileges, and immunities that existed before government was conceived. Those rights and freedoms were revealed and codified by the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, which serve to provide freedom to individuals while simultaneously and severely limiting and restricting government. People are not required to ask any person for their rights and freedoms. No person holds the power of nature or God. Kings, dictators, despots, and tyrants are evil, illicit, and illegitimate. The U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights hold dominion in America—a president, senator, congressman, governor, commissioner, or mayor does not. Great Britain and all nations exist in nature and under God. If global consolidation is coherent, rational, beneficial, and good, it must be to perpetuate the freedom of people, and it must be under the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, which must be adopted by all nations, understanding that universal humanity is not fundamentally dissimilar to that which exists in the United States.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1st Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
The American Founders responded long ago and for all eternity to the dictatorship of the monarchy of Great Britain and the likes of the psychotic and megalomaniacal Tony Blair.
To wit,
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
– Declaration of Independence, 1776
Truth be told, we need to terminate all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.
So says Mr. Marx; chaos ensues to be replaced by order—the oppressive order of the “dictatorship of the proletariat.”
Looks like a Trump quote.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/dec/06/donald-trump/trump-said-2020-fraud-calls-for-termination-of-rul/
Politicfact idiotically fixated on the alleged falsity of election fraud – making the rest of the article you linked worthless.
They Alleged this was a Trump post on Truth – but they could have provided the Truth post and they did not.
We have all seen so much of the left mangling what those they disagree with say that I would not trust Politifcat with anything short of a link to the post on Truth Social.
I do not want to hear what some left wing nut thinks Trump said ore posted.
All of the above said – presuming the quote is correct – it is also True.
It is little more than a paraphrase of the declaration of independence.
When government loses our trust – it is our TIGHT to alter or abolish it.
It is greatly preferred that is done without violence.
It is greatly preferred that is done within the law and constitution.
But if restoring government worthy of our trust requires violence and violating the law and constitution – so be it.
I do not beleive we are there yet. But if violence and lawlessness are ther only way to restore a governmetn that can be trusted, then that is what we must do.
* That happens to be political philosophy. Natural freedoms? To outrun the foe, hide from the predators, or fight like a rhinoceros.
… and enjoy the natural and God-given rights, freedoms, privileges, and immunities nonetheless.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Rose Garden
Lynn Anderson
I beg your pardon
I never promised you a rose garden
Along with the sunshine
There’s gotta be a little rain sometime
Turley– “Even though Lodder agreed that the defendant was older, had limited mobility, and “there was no evidence of disseminating to others,” he still sent him to prison for holding extremist views.”
+++
So they sent him from a place where he was not disseminating his views to a place where he will disseminate them to a large and very receptive audience.
Ah, the freedom wanting masses?
Masses are for the antisocial, perverse, and demented alcoholic Karl Marx.
OT, only because it is just too funny,
“We’ve got 60 days until the election. You know, we don’t have time to sit around and think about why, over the last few years, certain things may have happened or may not have happened.”
— Harris-Walz spokesman Ian Sams
Gives you insight to what a Harris/Walz admin would look like.
UpstateFarmer: You know, we don’t have time to sit around and think about why, over the last few years, certain things may have happened or may not have happened.”
— Harris-Walz spokesman Ian Sams
Why would you find it too funny, UpstateFarmer? How many times have you heard her say she refuses “to be burdened by what has been”. A dozen? Two dozen?
She’s never wanted to be held accountable for, or even questioned about her past record, why wouldn’t we expect her to continue that when running for president?
I don’t think the despicable Ian Sams said that off the cuff; it came straight from Kamala Harris’ lips to his ear.
At the root of this is Britain’s misguided effort to make peace with their immigrant Muslim population. You won’t change them because they are there to change you into an Islamic country.
Nazi-ism is Left Wing, one continuum that ends in totalitarian communism. Full stop.
Dr. Turley, while I realize that your newsletter services the goal of publicizing your book, I appreciate your writing it and having me on the distribution. Honestly, I never realized how serious and widespread the attacks on free speech have become. Whatever happened to the liberal POV that “I may disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.”?
Ad-hominem attacks, intentional falsehoods, and militant intimidation tactics.
The quote you cite was made at a time when there was an honorific culture among the elites of society. Those elites acted as gatekeepers of published information, to keep cowardly, manipulative operatives on the sidelines. The internet destroyed those elements of moderation and honor-checking. Modern infowarriors don’t feel any need to present themselves authentically. They steal trust, instead of earning it. Theirs is to manipulate rather than persuade.
That’s why the quote is a relic of a bygone era. Who is going to “defend ’till the death” an adversary who hates them, doxxes them, threatens them and their children, destroys their reputation and livelihood?
Well remember now, these are the jolly folks that after meeting with Adolph Hitler in September 1938, came home waving a piece of paper around declaring it to be “peace in our time”. It would appear nearly a century later, that they’re none the wiser.
* only if chairman Xi agrees for now..
I do not believe that is the case. But it does not matter. The solution is not to go to war with legal immigrants, it IS to expect them to conform to the laws and values of the country they are immigrating too rather than changing that country to suit them.
I see a naive quaintness in JT’s overly broad definition of “free speech”, one that seems totally oblivious to the organized, well-funded infowarfare shops that are operating around the globe, in the U.S., and practice “borderless opinion-shaping”. The most alarming example is the way radical Islamists with social media influencer skills reached into American youth from overseas, and convinced many of them to side with Hamas’s cause of eradicating the state of Israel. Turley is nostalgically arguing for the free flow of sincerely communicated opinion without use of deceitful tactics about who is speaking and other forms of conniving tactics. He should have everyone’s support in arguing for an open-minded public square, where mere discomfort with ideas communicated with candor, authenticity and civility is never cause for censoring them. But, this is “free speech with responsibility”, quite distinct from “free speech unplugged”.
JT doesn’t seem to buy into attaching the responsibilities I mention. He seems to be ignoring reality.
Children. Tony Blair mentions the special case of children being preyed upon by infowarriors. Turley studiously ignores the contradictions inherent in his uber-permissive definition of “free speech”, defining the rights of deceitful infowarriors (many outside the U.S.)to freely access the young, impressionable minds of our kids, in total disregard for parental rights going back millennia to exercise control over what their children are exposed to.
I’m not accusing Turley of abandoning children to the worst social media influences — just encouraging him to come down from his naive idealism and speak directly to the issue: Do radical Islamists operating infowarfare shops in the Middle East have “free speech” rights under 1A to have direct, unsupervised access to American children?….do parents not have traditional rights of moderating their kids exposure? What if parents decide to act together in unison using powers of democratic law, rather than each one fighting a lonely battle to protect their kids?
Tony Blair may be wrongheaded about how to best deal with the problem, but you can’t expect parents to just cede their childrearing rights to the worst elements. JT, tell us how you think children ought to be protected from vicious, predatory, deceitful infowarfare. Stop acting like the foreign infowarrior has superior rights to even to parents under 1A….that hedonistic overreach makes you look foolish.
“For free speech advocates, we often feel that other citizens have become passive observers as an anti-free speech movement grows around us, threatening our “indispensable right”.”
You either have the right to free speech or you don’t; there is no middle ground. Just as there is no such thing as ‘a little bit pregnant.’
This is the same “slippery slope” argument made in “The Indispensable Right” given for not allowing ANY exceptions to complete speech freedom (including deceitful infowarfare).
Except, Turley does allow one exception….defamation — dealt with through civil lawsuit, not govt. prosecution. Has that exception led to a slippery slope taking away press freedom? No… just the opposite….in the Sullivan case, SCOTUS slipped further downhill towards more freedom of the press to mount character assassinations, and devaluing the reputational property of some group called “public persons” never mentioned in any law or in the Constitution.
Speech freedom, unless we decouple it completely from authenticity, requires nuance.
The world is barreling toward a cesspool of manipulative infowarfare where nobody can be sure of anything. It’s worse in Russia, Philippines, Mexico, Venezuela than here, but not for long unless we take a more calibrated approach to how far speech freedom goes — and concentrate on civil lawsuits as the best way to deter public frauds.
I take as a given that yours are sincerely, thoughtfully held convictions. However, it seems incontrovertible that yours are the “slippery slope” for free speech rights, and not the mandated dictate in the First Amendment. IOW, where do the restrictions on speech begin and end, and more importantly, who decides?
Bonus question: How is a decision allowing greater freedom of the press a step “downhill”? It doesn’t. You have merely created a false choice.
Are you saying that “children ought to be protected from vicious, predatory, deceitful infowarfare” by governments? That parents aren’t capable of doing that? Should government have “superior rights to even to parents under 1A (sic)”?
Yes, I am. Are you saying that government is not there to implement the will of the majority? That doesn’t sound a bit like government of the People, by the People and for the People.
How about foreign spies operating inside the USA, pushing out deceptive infowarfare? We have always allowed the FBI to keep an eye on them, and use FARA indictments to deter them working here doing foreign tradecraft. Are you going along with Turley that those highly-trained foreign agents get full 1st Amendment rights to dupe us? (To be honest, Turley hasn’t endorsed free speech rights for foreign spy agents as co-equal to those of Americans — he simply refuses to acknowledge that an adversary nation will use free speech against us to destroy us — he ignores the problem).
I’m in favor of free speech on the part of authentic voices; very much opposed to inauthentic, manipulative, clandestine infowarfare. These are two forms of self-expression that have almost nothing to do with each other. One is made to enlighten, the other to confuse, demoralize and dupe.
Anyone unwilling to make this distinction is ready to surrender a free society to the most artful liars. I believe Turley is smarter than that, but has become so caught up in the “anti-censorship” cause, he hasn’t thought through the contradictions to an ultra-wide definition of free speech (where only defamation may be legally challenged).
He pretends that we don’t need any exceptions.
* Government is not there to implement the will of the majority, correct. It’s there to regard the principles adopted and ordained by the founders. If you want to change that you’ll need to change the principles. That will require a super majority.
You can easily see what happens next.
Everyone wants to deny any moral foundation of the principles, of course, to admit their personal perfect deviance.
Government is there to do the mundane work from day to day without infringing upon the principles.
* “it takes a village”
pbinca’s pitch for government having censorship control of your children while pushing Critical Race Theory and gender blending in classrooms: Tony Blair may be wrongheaded about how to best deal with the problem, but you can’t expect parents to just cede their childrearing rights to the worst elements. JT, tell us how you think children ought to be protected from vicious, predatory, deceitful infowarfare.
What a sophomoric strawman that is, straight from a Democrat in far left police state fascist state: California. The government will be the primary protector of minor children, mind, body, and soul!
pbinca claims parents supposedly willingly cede their child rearing rights to the worst elements, and those worst elements are “infowarfare”? I would assume most parents would think of having their child rearing rights TAKEN from them by governments is where the most vicious, predatory, deceitful worst elements are to be feared.
Parents across America are fighting like hell to STOP the government having control over their childrens’ bodies and minds. Government agents presenting “infowarfare” to their children in school for example like the virulently Marxist racist: “Critical Race Theory”. State and federal governments spending millions of tax dollars to push that Marxist racism.
How trustworthy are governments like California to take control of minor children in the name of protecting them?
A government that has declared minor children can elect to have their reproductive organs surgically mutilated and refashioned without parental consent.
A government that has declared that a minor child can not only get an elective birth control abortion up to the point of birth without the parents ever knowing about it.
So, the government who bpinca claims knows better than parents about whether minor children should be allowed to permanently sexually mutilate themselves, should also be given authority to determine what is “infowarfare” and what is not. Because parents clearly can not be entrusted with either identifying “infowarfare” like Critical Race Theory, or trusted to protect their children from it if they do.
And the only way Democrat government in California or in the White House can protect those children against the “infowarfare” those governments have identified is to grant themselves censorship powers.
For Soviet Democrats and assorted other neo-communists, the answer is always taking power from individuals, from parents, etc and giving more rights to government to control everything in our lives and our growing childrens’ lives.
Give them that power of censorship – right beside the power to push infowarfare like Critical Race Theory into our childrens’ classrooms.
You’re reading all kinds of sinister motives into my position. I fully support parents rights, and denounce the way public education has taken to indoctrination.
If you took the time to study my position, instead of jumping to conclusions that I must be with “them”, you might see that
I want average people to get more power in the infospace to fight back against infowarriors with an axe to grind — whether their social studies teacher, or some radical Islamists reaching out to our kids thru TikTok.
I only endorse very narrow, limited government involvement in the infospace….essentially anti-terrorism, anti-sex-predators/sex-slavers, foreign spies, and business frauds.
For political speech, I’m in favor of expanding defamation law to cover public frauds, so that everyday citizens can band together and sue government officials who attempt to dupe the public. Wow…now there’s a “leftist proggie” behind that ideation.
I was irate that Biden-Blinken-Morrell and the 51 “spies that lie” got away with their Hunter’s laptop cover-up campaign for the 3 weeks leading up to the election. If we’d had public frauds lawsuits, that BS story could’ve been blown up within 7 days of legal proceedings, including plaintiffs determining who concocted it (the Biden campaign).
You’re reading all kinds of sinister motives into my position. I fully support parents rights, and denounce the way public education has taken to indoctrination.
Public education is government education, we have this federal government thing called the Department Of Education.
Perhaps I missed your point because you wrote of parents supposedly ceding their right to parent their children. I haven’t seen them do that. Just as you implied that parents no longer have a right to exercise control over whether or not their children have access to all those foreign deceitful infowarriors. I haven’t seen that either.
Turley studiously ignores the contradictions inherent in his uber-permissive definition of “free speech”, defining the rights of deceitful infowarriors (many outside the U.S.)to freely access the young, impressionable minds of our kids, in total disregard for parental rights going back millennia to exercise control over what their children are exposed to
When I was growing up, my parents had complete control about what I watched and read – even if it came down to hiding the rabbit ears antenna for the TV while they were out and we were supposed to be doing homework or chores. Just as they parents do today with complete control over their childrens’ and other family electronic devices – if they want to.
The one thing they CAN’T control is what their children are exposed to while in the governments’ hands i.e. public schools.
If the rights of individual citizens i.e. parents having the right to censor what their children are exposed to isn’t enough for you, who else do you want granted the right to decide what is harmful infowar and censor?
And along with that, the necessary power to determine what is harmful and to be censored and removed from view.
Only other option I can think of outside of the parents is government.
* I wasn’t allowed to touch my father’s television. He turned it off and on.
* CRT — it’s poor scholarship currently. Replace the oppressed “brown people” with Jewish people. People appear to really dislike Jewish people to the openly desired genocide of the group. Does CRT fit? DEI?
One of the most vile things I’ve seen is the selling of 23 and me. Louis Gates telling Julia Roberts she really wasn’t a Roberts at all.
So OT of me.
Your posts are informative. Personally, the power issues are not understandable.
* The “young” are merely Canon fodder for them…to used.
” Do radical Islamists operating infowarfare shops in the Middle East have “free speech” rights under 1A to have direct, unsupervised access to American children?”
Pbinca, many of us have tried to get the US to declare them (Muslim Brotherhood) terrorist organizations. Many countries in the Middle East have already done so. That is the approach needed for the problem.
“do parents not have traditional rights of moderating their kids exposure? “
Yes, and that is why, instead of parents being targeted by the FBI, the FBI should be helping to keep the kids safe. In Florida, de Santis has done a wonderful job all the way up to the university setting. The New School, formerly leftist, has a new direction: education. Chris Rufo and some others are in charge.
You complain a lot, but these two things affect many of the things you are concerned about.
It’s pretty simple.
Those that are against free speech should be told to just shut up!
Then just stand back and listen to what they have to say about it.
“It’s pretty simple.”
If it does not fit the State’s ‘Narrative and Mission’ then -Squelch It- .
i.e.: Kill free Speech unless it is beneficial (to have Free Speech), When & Where the Regime needs to be Controlled by the State.
Lord Acton: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The internet was supposed to free us. But it was also a tool to spy on us, and that power has corrupted the likes of H. Clinton and T. Blair.
Blair and Clinton are part of the gods of the one world. I suppose minor gods like Xi and ayotollah and the pope will simply be [disappeared] sic
Clinton and Blairs’ unquenchable lust for power is what corrupted them. The Internet is just the current vehicle for their never ending quest to remain relevant.
* “lust for power” you say, what is that and why is it? Power for what reason?
If the main stream media actually practiced unbiased, objective journalism, there would be no need for alternative news sources on the internet.
I often say the exact same thing. .. unfortunately, some people will buy petrified dog turds if it’s wrapped in a NYT subscription.
*the ‘paper of record’
yes, the NYT has gotten itself such a reputation that if I see a book review that refers to “NYT best seller” I just avoid that book on principle – I know it is prog/left blather.
My continual concern is who will be watching the “watchers”. This is the ultimate road to tyranny.
Jonathan, excellent piece as usual, but while you’re critical of proponents of free speech not taking action, where are your suggestions? What can we do individually to help protect free speech? And equally as important, where is the comprehensive, strategic plan to preserve free speech?
Carpslaw, vote against the party that wants to end free speech in America. The situation is not complicated.
Carpslaw, what you can do is decide in the upcoming election which candidate and their party has been and is more likely to continue to be more protective of free speech. And which candidate and their party has been and is more likely to continue to want to censor free speech.
And act on that, not just on election day, but every time you see something indicative of government censoring free speech either directly or by contracting that censorship out to private partners. Like Facebook, for example…
Some of the best conservative voices are urging Donald Trump to put a big free speech plank in his campaign. I hope he does. Blair’s Old World redux is numb to why we have a Fourth of July. The first ever federal republic grounded on the rights of the individual starting with freedom of expression. Rights that come before and beyond the government. Time to invent a VPN married to something like Starlink beyond the reach of the Old World. Same big step forward like the Wright Brothers discovery that a propeller is a wing in rotation.
“Time to invent a VPN married to something like Starlink beyond the reach of the Old World.”
Nice idea, but with “killer satellites” reportedly being developed and tested by China (and no doubt just as much by the US Deep State, although the MSM has pretty well stifled reports about that), your “beyond the reach” is highly unlikely to happen. If the fascists are to be defeated, it must be on their own turf. In the meantime, use of VPN and other tools from providers (such as Proton) who are committed to prioritize user privacy, along with research and diligence on the part of the user (sadly lacking in most cases) can go a long way toward immunizing our own, private, expression against usurpation by government.