Progressives Wobble On Free Speech
The Democrats, ever vigilant in guarding our “fragile” democracy, have identified a new threat—the First Amendment. That monumental addendum codified the right of all Americans to speak freely even if it offends the government, affording them a level of freedom not available in the rest of the “free world.” And, before Donald Trump short-circuited their minds, the Democrats recognized it was the cornerstone of democracy. Private-jet-loving climate czar, John Kerry, spelled it right out, sans coded language, on September 29 when he addressed the World Economic Forum (hardly a champion of free speech) and said, “Our First Amendment stands as a major block to be able to just, you know, hammer it out of existence.”
“It” is the misinformation and disinformation that he, the Democratic Party, and the MSM have convinced themselves—contrary to volumes of evidence—they’re not guilty of spreading. Their continual insistence that only Republicans are involved in this democracy-threatening activity is just another example of how they spread misinformation.
Try to imagine the poundings Kerry would mete out if he had the big hammer he yearns for. He might even be a “threat to our democracy,” although that position’s already monopolized by one bad guy in the minds of half of America. A couple of days after the failed presidential nominee warned the world about the dangers of free speech, aspiring VP Tim Walz displayed his ignorance of the First Amendment to the nation. The avuncular (yet authoritarian) Minnesota governor cited the hypothetical Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes used in the since-reversed 1919 Supreme Court opinion in Schenk v. United States. “You can’t yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater. That’s the test, that’s the Supreme Court test,” said Walz to the moderators, referring to the legal limits of free speech. Except it never was the “test.” It was just an observation Holmes made to illustrate a point.
It's hardly surprising, that a politician (and former teacher) doesn't know the actual test—the Brandenburg Test—currently used to determine restricted speech, especially in light of the fact that he’s on record for supporting the curtailment of speech he doesn't approve of. The Brandenburg Test exempts First Amendment protections for speech when there’s both the intent and the likelihood for such speech to incite imminent lawless action. That's a high bar, although Walz doesn't see it like that.
It's stunning how fast the Democrats’ support for the First Amendment’s evaporating. A RealClear Opinion Research poll from 2023 revealed that nearly half of democracy-loving Democrats are willing to admit that they support limiting what people can say. By contrast, 74 percent of registered Republicans and 61 percent of independents said speech should be legal “under any circumstances.” According to a Pew Research report released last year that tracked attitudes toward speech since 2018, Democrats and Republicans were in agreement on the issue just five years ago.
Walz, more of an aw-shucks, middle-America-style demagogue than a thinker, would have no problem with this disturbing result. In an interview, the Governor said, “There's no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy.” Wrong, again. He's lucky such guarantees do protect him, given his history of dispensing misinformation and/or disinformation on such matters as his military service and where the self-described “knucklehead” was during the Tiananmen Square revolt in China. As those lies were told in service of getting himself elected, they are, as he puts it, “around our democracy,” making them especially dangerous. As for hate speech, there's no universally agreed upon definition for it, and no governmental restriction on it, which benefits Democrats, when they refer to Trump as Hitler and Republicans as Nazis.
Increasingly, the Democrats want to curtail free speech, but when it comes to identifying the source of all that misinformation they want law enforcement involved in, they have the self-awareness of a foul-mouthed, drunken Jets fan at MetLife stadium. Their hypocrisy is reminiscent of the Nixonian “law and order” boozers who at one time were vocal proponents of locking people up for marijuana violations. Do John Kerry and Tim Walz have any idea about their party’s complicity in spreading the disinformation that the Hunter Biden laptop story was a Russian plot? Even the Intel Community got in on that action, as did Twitter when it suspended the New York Post’s account after the newspaper wrote the truth about it.
How many Democrats are aware of all the misinformation and disinformation they spread in promoting the Russian collusion narrative after the 2020 election? MSNBC had Malcolm Nance on to blather about his crackpot theories on the matter almost every night for months after Trump took office. Serial offender Walz made a vulgar crack about J.D. Vance and a couch at the Democratic convention well after that silly rumor based upon a faked passage in Hillbilly Elegy book was debunked, and the Democrats loved it. Once again, Tiananmen Tim’s disinformation (not misinformation, because it was a calculated lie) was, because he was campaigning for high office when he said it, “around our democracy.”
Hillary Clinton has suggested that criminally charging those spreading “propaganda” (information she disagrees with) would be an effective deterrent. Kamala Harris, in her “cop mode,” has spoken of the need to censor social media companies carrying information or allowing behavior she doesn't like. In 2019, the presidential candidate tweeted this: “Michael Brown’s murder forever changed Ferguson and America. His tragic death sparked a desperately needed conversation and a nationwide movement. We must fight for stronger accountability and racial equity in our justice system.” This was five years after the DOJ issued an 86-page document explaining that the cop in question didn’t “murder” Brown, as he was acting in self-defense.
Today's Democrats lack understanding of how dangerous it is to allow a government to lock its citizens up for doing something they do all the time. History offers lessons on the consequences of criminalizing inconvenient opinions. At the rate they're going, the party of Hollywood and the Silicon Valley might start considering the “re-education camps” that former Democratic congressional candidate from New York, Paula Collins, alluded to as a way of pulling us out of the MAGA nightmare. This would be done, of course, as a necessary tool to save our democracy.