Below is my column in the New York Post on the recent remarks of former Secretary of State John Kerry to the World Economic Forum, the latest in an array of powerful American politicians warning about the dangers of free speech and calling for government controls. He joins his fellow former Democratic Presidential Nominee Hillary Clinton in reaching out to the global elite for help in censoring their fellow Americans.
Here is the column:
If you want to know how hostile the global elite are to free speech, look no further than John Kerry’s recent speech to the World Economic Forum.
Rather than extol the benefits of democratic liberty versus dictatorships and oligarchs, Kerry called the First Amendment a “major block” to keeping people from believing the “wrong” things.
The former secretary of state and aide to the Biden-Harris administration told the sympathetic audience:
“You know, there’s a lot of discussion now about how you curb those entities in order to guarantee that you’re going to have some accountability on facts, etc. But look, if people only go to one source, and the source they go to is sick, and, you know, has an agenda, and they’re putting out disinformation, our First Amendment stands as a major block to be able to just, you know, hammer it out of existence.
“So what we need is to win the ground, win the right to govern, by hopefully winning enough votes that you’re free to be able to implement change.”
Free rein on social media
The “freedom” to be won in this election is to liberate officials who like himself can set about controlling what can be said, read or heard. Kerry insisted that the problem with social media is that no one is controlling what they can say or read.
“The dislike of and anguish over social media is just growing and growing. It is part of our problem, particularly in democracies, in terms of building consensus around any issue,” he said.
“It’s really hard to govern today. The referees we used to have to determine what is a fact and what isn’t a fact have kind of been eviscerated, to a certain degree. And people go and self-select where they go for their news, for their information. And then you get into a vicious cycle.”
Kerry continued: “Democracies around the world now are struggling with the absence of a sort of truth arbiter, and there’s no one who defines what facts really are.”
It is not clear when in our history we allowed “referees” to “determine what is a fact.”
Since the First Amendment has been in place since 1791, it is hard to imagine when referees were used in conformity with our Constitution.
The Founders would have been repulsed by the idea of a “truth arbiter.”
Yet it was a pitch that clearly went over big with the crowd at the World Economic Forum.
Located in Geneva, Switzerland, it is funded by over 1,000 member companies around the world. It is the perfect body for the selection of our new governing “arbiters.”
The greatest irony was that, after fearmongering about this supposed parade of horribles that comes from free speech, Kerry insisted, “If we could strip away some of the fearmongering that’s taking place and get down to the realities of what’s here for people, this is the biggest economic opportunity.”
It was like Ed Wood denouncing cheesy jump scares in horror movies.
Kerry is only the latest Democratic leader or pundit to denounce the First Amendment.
In my book on free speech, I discuss the growing anti-free speech movement being led by law professors and supported by both politicians and journalists.
They include Michigan law professor and MSNBC commentator Barbara McQuade, who has called free speech America’s “Achilles’ heel.”
Columbia law professor Tim Wu, a former Biden White House aide, wrote an op-ed declaring “The First Amendment Is Out of Control.”
He explained that free speech “now mostly protects corporate interests” and threatens “essential jobs of the state, such as protecting national security and the safety and privacy of its citizens.”
George Washington University Law’s Mary Ann Franks complains that the First Amendment (and also the Second) is too “aggressively individualistic” and endangers “domestic tranquility” and “general welfare.”
‘Will we break the fever?’
Kerry hit all of the top talking points for the anti-free speech movement.
He portrayed the First Amendment as hopelessly out of date and dangerous.
He argued that citizens would be far better off if an elite could tell them what was information and what was disinformation.
Other political contemporaries are working on the same problem.
Hillary Clinton has called upon Europeans to use the Digital Services Act to force the censoring of Americans.
She has also suggested the arrest of Americans who she views as spreading disinformation.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D.-Mass.) has called for companies like Amazon to use enlightened algorithms to steer readers to “true” books on subjects like climate change to protect them from their own poor reading choices.
Kerry explained how the true heroes are those poor suffering government officials seeking to protect citizens from unbridled, unregulated thoughts:
“I think democracies are very challenged right now and have not proven they can move fast enough or big enough to deal with the challenges they are facing, and to me, that is part of what this election is all about. Will we break the fever in the United States?”
The “fever” of free speech is undeniably hard to break. You have to convince a free people to give up part of their freedom. To do so, they have to be very angry or very afraid.
There is, of course, another possibility: that there is no existential danger of disinformation.
Rather there are powerful figures who want to control speech in the world for their own purposes.
These are the same rationales and the same voices that have been throughout our history for censorship.
Give me liberty
Each generation of government officials insists that they face some unprecedented threat, whether it was the printing press at the start of our republic or social media in this century.
Only the solution remains the same: to hand over control of what we read or hear to a governing elite like Kerry.
In 1860, Frederick Douglass gave a “Plea for Free Speech in Boston,” and warned them that all of their struggles meant nothing if the “freedom of speech is struck down” because “Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist.”
Douglass denounced those seeking to deny or limit free speech as making their “freedom a mockery.”
Of course, Douglass knew nothing of social media and he certainly never met the likes of John Kerry.
However, if we embrace our new arbiters of truth we deserve to be mocked as a people who held true freedom only to surrender it to a governing elite.
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.”
There are natural reasons why ‘give me liberty or give me death’ were spoken.
@ rbblum
I appreciate that sentiment, but it means precisely zero to anyone under 35, and we need to stop our *own* echo chamber. I’m sure Professor Turley deals with it all the time. That cohort has never even heard the term ‘liberty’, just that a bunch or rich white people ruined the world hundreds of years ago. That is the basic level you will have to drop to if you expect to have a conversation with them. They can’t use a stapler, I don’t know how you expect them to understand concepts such as these. And you’d better believe they vote.
A federal judge ruled Wednesday that California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) meme ban is unconstitutional.
Judge John A. Mendez of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California noted that Newsom’s AB 2839 “acts as a hammer instead of a scalpel, serving as a blunt tool that hinders humorous expression and unconstitutionally stifles the free and unfettered exchange of ideas which is so vital to American debate.”
https://www.theblaze.com/news/wonderful-repudiation-of-totalitarians-judge-rules-newsoms-censorious-meme-ban-unconstitutional?
The singular American failure is the judicial branch, with emphasis on the Supreme Court.
90% of government and legislation is unconstitutional.
To me agonizing about misinformation out there is the lazy man’s ploy to get the government involved and bypassing the necessary debate. If John Kerry is distressed that too many people do not view climate change as existential, the put out the facts and the arguments. Part of the problem with misinformation is that some of the media staff are poorly informed themselves and seem to have little curiosity. For example, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris has both proclaimed climate change to be and existential crisis. In the past when this country has faced truly existential crises (e.g. Founding, Civil War, Pearl Harbor), the political leadership has, given the technology of the time, addressed the nation and congress. The Biden/Harris administration has not seen fit to do so. But more to the point is that the media and congress have not demanded that they justify that claim. Whether or not the climate represents an existential crisis should be a national (and international) debate. Unfortunately, the likes of John Kerry appear want to bypass that necessary step.
Our country, because of its 1st Amendment, should be the leader in fostering that debate. Ultimately freedom of speech should not be a block to progress but rather provide a firm foundation for progress.
“If John Kerry is distressed that too many people do not view climate change as existential, the put out the facts and the arguments”
Difficult to do when your “facts” are made-up and your arguments are obviously bogus.
It’s not about climate change, it’s about global control.
I think it’s about both. If you’re thinking they are mutually exclusive, your brain is playing a trick called “the dichotomization trap” (it has to be A or B, not both, and nothing in between.) That mindtrap often grows out of viewing conflict as “us vs. them” rather than a problem to be resolved.
Climate is changing at a measurable rate. Atmospheric CO2 is nearly double it’s stable 250-275 ppm that supported the emergence of large-brain mammals. All that doubling has occurred since coal, oil and gas combustion greatly outpaced wood burning in the 1900s.
Most people don’t like to think about having to adapt to climate change, especially giving up convenient and productive artifacts of modern life. I know I don’t. But, I’m also honest about it, and accept that the laws of physics and chemistry determine the longterm livability of the planet, not public opinion, except to the extent public opinion faces up to the physics and chemistry in a caring manner.
Climate is changing at a measurable rate. Atmospheric CO2 is nearly double it’s stable 250-275 ppm that supported the emergence of large-brain mammals. All that doubling has occurred since coal, oil and gas combustion greatly outpaced wood burning in the 1900s
Incompetent dullards attempting lies of omission to push the lie of Global Warming attempt to avoid their audience knowing that CO2 levels were much greater before coal, oil, and gas combustion ever existed.
A massive new review of ancient atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and corresponding temperatures lays out a daunting picture of the Earth’s climate. The study covers geologic records spanning the past 66 million years, putting present-day concentrations into context with deep time. Among other things, it indicates that the last time atmospheric carbon dioxide consistently reached today’s human-driven levels was 14 million years ago—much longer ago than some existing assessments indicate.
https://scitechdaily.com/images/Atmospheric-CO2-Long-Term-Chart-scaled.jpg
These dullards posting the Global Warming lie invariably vote for their false Priests Of Global Warming who feed them the cult lies.
Like Obama – who spent eight years and hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars advancing the Global Warming lie. And then as soon as he was out of the White House and a millionaire as a Global Warming Guru, he spent $13 MILLION buying himself a mansion a few hundred feet from the ocean shoreline and a few feet above sea level.
Despite the fact he told Americans and the world that cities inland would soon by under the sea.
This is why we still call them Marxist Useful Idiots (and liars).
If you know anything about chemistry then you would understand that reactants and products of a chemical reaction exist in a state of equilibrium and the reactants and products will shift given the addition or removal of them proportionately. If you know anything about physics you would understand that a shift in the center of mass of our planet would effect the longitudinal rotational axis. A shift of an increment of less than a degree can mean a rain forest in the Sahara and deserts in historically forested regions.
Guess what, Climate changes, it always has and it always will.
Existential threat
Meaning, if you belive it that makes it true. If not, not.
Existentialism has no “truths”.
@Arnold
Agreed, but you don’t seem to understand that they simply *don’t care* about any of that, and will take/hold onto power by any means necessary. The time for arguing logic is long gone with the modern left. Best to accept that. They will never stop, because as the unelected, they don’t have to.
quickly, OT: God bless Elon Musk, sending in Starlink to help following hurricane Helene, -at no charge- despite Biden admin rescinding his award of $889M to develop satellite communications in rural areas.
“Starlink said Tuesday that a total of roughly 500 Starlink kits have arrived or will arrive in areas impacted by Hurricane Helene…
Musk also announced that Starlink was working to make the system work in hurricane-affected areas regardless of payment status, essentially providing free access for those impacted by Helene.” https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/musk-blasts-fcc-illegally-pulling-starlink-award-says-wouldve-helped-victims-hurricane-helene
I’ve read this blog daily for years and never felt obliged to comment until now. I am appalled by the now constant and unrelenting attacks on not just the First Amendment, but the entire concept of free speech. The attacks, which are coming primarily from the Left, are especially ironic given the Left’s strong embrace of free speech principles when it suited them in their 1960s protest movements.
However, here are my three fleeting thoughts as I write this:
1. It is extraordinary to me that the new would-be arbiters of “truth” believe they and they alone will always hold those positions. They can’t seem to fathom that at some point in the future the tables may turn and the arbiters of “truth” may, in fact, turn out to be the folks they now loathe. Their extreme lack of forethought is breathtaking.
2. I also find it extraordinary that the new would-be arbiters of “truth” act as if this issue has only arisen in the era of the internet and social media. Turley rightly points out the historical context, but even more recently not once have I heard or read anyone mentions the tabloids when discussing this issue. Ah, remember the hyperbole in the tabloids headlines while waiting to check at the super market. Did everyone believe the stories about Bat Boy? Were the tabloids misinformation? Disinformation? Malinformation? Certainly, it’s not for me to say. However, people were left to sort of out for themselves. The National Enquirer was founded in 1926. There were many more tabloids beyond the National Enquirer. We read National Enquirer stories for nearly 100 years, yet the republic and public was just fine.
3. John Kerry – Wow, did we luck out on this losing an election.
No one in their right mind would say G.W. dark Sith lord Cheney winning the 2004 election was a matter of good ‘luck’! see also, SCOTUS 5-4 decision in Bush v Gore 2001
*nevertheless, your right about the ‘left’, such as it is, pressing the case for censorship of speech they championed in 60-70s.
Special counsel Jack Smith is their new William Roper .. .
“William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!”
Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”
William Roper: “Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!”
Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!”
* free speech, press,
censorship attempts don’t worry me much. I’ll start worrying when penalties, fines, jails, gulags, beheadings via prosecution become real.
Free of prosecution. Trump’s gag order with fines?
Lurch can kiss my white fat ass.
Dear Prof Turley,
This is not 1791. In 1791 the Founders didn’t have any pressing ‘national security’ concerns like Trump MAGA hats. .. apart from the bloody British, of course.
Nowadays, free speech is classified far above your level. Probably above Kerry’s level, maybe above Biden/Harris level. Only the ‘gang of 8’ think they know what’s going on .. . it’s all spelled-out in Obama’s eternal EO 15523 governing the classification of public information. (refer to it .. . the truth shall set you free.)
*as always, should you choose to investigate the unvarnished classified truth, we will disavow any knowledge of your involvement if you are caught and charged under the 1917 espionage act.. . this message will self-destruct in 7 seconds
* There is absolutely nothing within The World Economic Forum that benefits the United States.
The 1st amendment protects citizens from prosecution based in speech, press, religion and assembly. There are restrictions in peaceably.
Defamation is a problem. It is assumed defamation is free. The case of Cassidy Hutchinson’s lawyer must show real property damages. Isn’t it redundant when malice must be coupled with defamation? It’s the nature of malice to defame. The sticking point is truth, Daumier. A drawing of Kerry with puppet strings and cash spilling from his pockets is truth.
Freedom from prosecution.
The Western World used to have “an arbiter of truth”. It was the Pope and the Catholic Church. Then Luther broke the mold, and the modern era began. Are we coming to the end of that period of intellectual freedom? In his magisterial book “From Dawn to Decadence”, Jacques Barzun wrote that such an ending is exactly what is upon us.
Just keep it simple. Speech must be limited to only one or two syllable words.
Kerry continues to enjoy the Heinz $$ thanks to “marrying” Teresa Heinz! He can blabber all he wants – trying to be meaningful, fly on Mrs. Heinz’ private jets, etc. And he wants to censor others, this guy who lost a Presidential election, who hob-nobs with the elite of the world, who rakes in a few $$ of his own with speeches, etc. etc.
National Archives delays release of Biden VP records with Hunter Biden info until after election
https://justthenews.com/accountability/national-archives-delays-release-biden-vp-records-hunter-biden-until-after-election
No attempt at election interference here (yes, I am aware that Harris is the nominee, but blatant misconduct by the Biden/Harris administration will provoke questions about what she knew, and otherwise reflect poorly on her…)
I wish you would have mentioned that the original request for records was made in 2022! met with constant delays, sandbagging, and now, claiming that it is too close to the election to release.
Frank Sinatra is over-rated: all of his songs sound the same. Save your bread clips.
Prosecutors Seek Indefinite Delay In Trial Of Alleged Trump Assassin Over “Complex” Evidence”
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/prosecutors-seek-indefinite-delay-trial-alleged-trump-assassin-over-complex-evidence
Evidently the Deep State has decided that, because of the very limited observation skills of most of the publicly-educated American public, it no longer needs to whack its contract assassins before they spill their guts, they can just keep them hidden until everyone ceases paying attention (then probably change their identity and send them to a paid-for retirement somewhere out-of-country).
Remember that every time Iran shoots a missile at Israel, the houthies send drones against international shipping, hezbollah fires rockets into Israel, hamas rapes, kidnaps and murders innocents and AMERICANS get bombed in the ME that every one of these attacks was financed by John Kerry giving money, support and legitimacy to Iran.
Kerry was SOS when Iran got billions, Kerry was just another rich grifter when he lobbied for Iran to get billions and Kerry has supported Iran continually for over a decade now and Iran is his burden to now carry.
Its simple. If you’re an American citizen then you know the Bill of Rights are our Constitutional protections from overreaching government. Overreaching government was a primary concern of the founders in casting off British Monarchy. It was the REASON America was founded as a sovereign, and why we went to war.
It was freedom for the INDIVIDUAL. Not “control the collective”. That was the Empires way. That was the Monarchs rule.
We wanted a low key non pomp and show and NON manipulative and intrusive govt. We wanted a free and open republic. Where every man was free to speak his mind and to read and think and worship and believe as he so choses.
And the Bill of Rights makes that so.
Now we hear these liberals leaders and university professors calling for an END to the Bill of Rights. They want to just dismantle it before our very noses. And they want to become the ministry of truth, controlling what we hear and read and say, which is hands down the purest evil there is.
It’s evil. Its corrupt. And like Trump told that little weasel Zelensky on Friday night when he was trying to weasel Trump into agreeing to keep funding his little war, …… “yea….that’s not gonna happen.”
* well, of course! You deplorables are just so difficult to program! We’ve tried everything and now we are just faced with blowing you up! We’ve tried. You’re such a nuisance…
lol
Chris Weber:And like Trump told that little weasel Zelensky on Friday night when he was trying to weasel Trump into agreeing to keep funding his little war, …… “yea….that’s not gonna happen.”
HIS “little war”????
Would we even know who ‘that weasel’ Zelensky was if America hadn’t reneged on our promise to Ukraine to act as their deterrent and defense if they would just please, please surrender all their nuclear deterrent that terrified us so much? Put away those memories of Russia’s Holdimor well within living memory of the survivors – trust America instead?
Or would we know who Zelensky is, if Ukraine had instead said “No, we’ll keep our nuclear deterrent against Russia because we don’t trust you in the west to honor that agreement once we no longer have the nuclear deterrent that our having it scares you so much”?
Would Putin have attempted to invade a nuclear Ukraine?
Any idea why Puin only invades Ukraine (or other countries like Georgia) when there isn’t an American president like Trump in office?
As the man who is possibly my most favorite writer, Dr. Thomas Sowell, often says “Never trust anybody who only wants to tell you the PART of the story they want you to hear – avoiding telling you the WHOLE story”.
Most charitably, they merely tell you the specific parts of the story because they claim and possibly believe that the situation is just simple.
Ukraine at this point is probably well past the tipping point of any good resolution, but it doesn’t get any better when politicians and others just tell people one small part of the story. While at the same time ignoring the second and third order consequences of any actions we take in any direction from this point forward.
Maybe because discussing those consequences of whatever actions we take isn’t appropriate because Americans are too simple to consider them?
For someone calling themselves old airborne dog you sure don’t know much about Russia, Russians or who’s going to do what. This is not difficult to understand nor is Putin or the Russian mentality here. We’ve been here before. In October ironically enough, 1962. Only then the roles were reversed.
Now we’re the ones dumb enough to think that we can put US nukes in the Ukraine right on Moscows front door and they’re going to allow it.
Do I think Putin would have invaded a nuclear Ukraine? I don’t think I know Putin would have blown the Ukraine along with whomevers trying to put the nukes in there, to kingdom come 1000 times over before allowing that to ever occur. THATS reality. THATS what Putin would have done.
Your dreams of positioning ground based nukes off Russia’s doorstep notwithstanding.
I think an overthrow of an existing duly elected Ukranian regime and installing Zelensky as well as reneging on our agreements with Russia that the Ukraine would never be a member of NATO allowing missile installations on Russias border might have had just a little bit to do with it, Obama’s fingerprints all over it .
But look, if people only go to one source, and the source they go to [like the the WEF] is sick, and, you know, has an agenda and they’re putting out disinformation, our First Amendment stands as a major block to
be able to just, you know, hammer it out of existence.protect the access to alternative viewpoints for all people.Where’s the outrage when Trump says he wants to terminate the constitution or to jail journalists? When Trump says he’ll have “his” DOJ investigate networks and newspapers? Or outright call to strip their licenses to broadcast? Where’s the outrage when two justices, Thomas and Gorsuch have openly called for NYT vs Sullivan to be overruled? Trump also called for Sullivan to be overruled in a 2022 court filing. Netchoise v. Paxton 2022 and Moody v. Netchoise would allow Republican governments of Texas and Florida to seize control of content moderation at major social outlets of Facebook and YouTube. Oh, you see no reason to worry there right?
Definitely Trump needs to be held to the Constitution as well. NO DOUBT. But it ain’t Trump right now in power trying to DISMANTLE THE BILL OF RIGHTS. And this article ain’t about him.
So where’s YOUR outrage, at John Kerry calling for the FIRST AMENDMENT TO BE DISMANTLED…. ?
That’s the question. Why are you trying to take attention OFF Kerry’s treasonous comments?
Turley does what he pays to do, lie and deflect. I mean he still takes his other paycheck from GW Law due to tenure, but they’ve had to watch their reputation and ranking tank since giving this guy tenure, so failure is just par for the course.
One party has legalized running over and arresting protestors, threatened every news org. with imprisonment and regulation if they do not toe their line, banned and made illegal books and teaching things they don’t like…The other party asked social media companies to take down lies during a pandemic that was killing people, and when those companies didn’t, did absolutely nothing. Turley is about as good on free speech as he is on not sexually harassing female students.
Turley does what he pays to do, lie and deflect.
If what you are claiming is actually true… are you terrified that you’ll lose out to competition who is better at lying and deflecting than you are while being paid to do that here?
Really got your panties in a wad eh? So are you agreeing with this loser, John (Lurch) Kerry? What is your proposed solution to this “problem” of free speech?
Where’s the outrage when Trump says…
You’re mistaking constitutional conservatives as Democrats. We don’t make decisions on how we feel. We make decisions on provable facts and evidence. Even if, and I highly doubt Trump ever said he would terminate the constitution, he would be on more than Democrats radar. Scare quotes all you want, but as the Chief Executive, it is his DOJ in the Executive branch.
Look it up Olly, what Trump said about the constitution, but I know you won’t, your cognitive dissonance won’t allow it.
I have and as usual, there is context you neglected to provide. The context and response to what he said proved my point. The idea was condemned by conservatives, proving my radar point true.
Once again you’re missing context fish dip context. Come on, swim man! You can dooooo it!
Where’s the outrage when Trump says he wants to terminate the constitution or to jail journalists?
Where’s the outrage, FishAnus, going back long before Trump, when Democrats actually jailed journalists and openly ignored the limitations of the Constitution? If Trump says figuratively that he’s so hungry he could eat a horse, will you be here shrieking to PETA that Trump will actually sit down and eat a horse the moment he’s elected, as soon as he’s finished the work of terminating the Constitution and jailing journalists even if they didn’t commit perjury or engage in other felonies?
Cosplaying that you care about the Constitution after Comey’s Special Counsel jailed a journalist while trying to get Bush and jailed Scooter Libby as his consolation prize (who had nothing to do with it) didn’t bother you 20 years ago. And Obama illegally bugging Sharyl Attkisson’s computers and devices to spy on her, or threatening James Rosen and others with prosecution didn’t send you screaming about Constitutional violations and threatening journalists. Clearly that’s okay when it’s your fellow police state fascist Obama doing that.
Nor did Obama and Biden cause you any constitutional concerns after we learned they illegally hiring a Russian spy to write their fraudulent “Russia Dossier”, and then sent their last two Attorney Generals and FBI Directors to perjure themselves to FISA courts to get illegal spy warrants. As long as it advances the great march forward to Democrat totalitarianism, you express zero concerns for either constitutional rights or journalists.
Channeling and deflection, FishAnus… if you didn’t have double standards and two different sets of facts, you’d have no standards and no facts to throw around.
Excellent, Old Dog!
Its so hard to even make a comment on this. I mean its so fundamental, so core to everything we as a nation are and ever were. The Bill of Rights. The first 10 Amendments to our Constitution, the ones that protect US, …the people.
And these mean NOTHING now to liberals other than a obstacle to their desires to control us?
I mean its not just John Kerry, listen to the liberal trolls in here defending this. What in the world….?
I’m practically speechless. … which apparently is what they want.
“The Founders would have been repulsed by the idea of a “truth arbiter.” – JT
Ever heard of a jury?…adversarial examination of evidence?…strict evidentiary standards?….a neutral magistrate?
All human organizations MUST sort out truth from fabrication to make sound decisions. The genius of our Founders was to codify a clever means of arbitrating the truth, making it hard to concentrate in the hands of an aristocracy.
So let’s not play dumb….our Founders harbored a decided preference for truth over artful fraud, institutionalized in our system of law. This is what the battle over public speech — the balancing of freedom and responsibility — is all about. How best to defend the public infospace from degenerating into a babble of competing mendacities — how to prevent a creeping authoritarian mendocracy like Russia from taking root here.
The means of challenging public frauds in the legal sphere must rule out prosecution, and instead follow the model of defamation — civil lawsuits. This severely limits the government’s power to ascend into the role of “truth arbiter.” That power must reside in juries of 12 Americans, after hearing adversarial presentations of curated evidence.
NOT when it comes to what we say, see, hear, read and write pal. NO SIR.
There’s a gorilla in the room but you can’t see it. You’re too busy with angst over, am I a bigot?
Juries are used in civil and criminal courts, free speech doesn’t fall into that category. What you’re advocating for is not free speech, a fundamental right of our Republic.
Ever heard of a jury?…adversarial examination of evidence?…strict evidentiary standards?….a neutral magistrate?
That’s a sophomoric (and feeble non sequitar) in attempting to equate juries and trials to Kerry and your fellow Democrats getting what they want: the power to appoint bureaucrats to unilaterally decide what the measurement will be for “truth”, and then enforce it with the power of government. Try and convince us that Kerry willing to have ‘adversarial examination of evidence’ – when he wants the exact opposite.
You’re going to have to be careful with what you post while attempting to cosplay as being a thoughtful, impartial Democrat commentator from California.
To quote somebody you know: “So let’s not play dumb”. Or at least stop posting to us as though we’re actually dumb.
Aisle 9!
* Jury trials aren’t about truth. It’s about—> my attorney is better than yours and then the little process appeals that 86 it all.
Standards-based
I know these attacks on free speech are promos for the book, but it’s still sad that there are such constant attacks on speech that they make for a column a day.