Category Archives: Freedom of Speech

This week's column from Windsor MP, Adam Afriyie.

Freedom of Speech is important, and I am glad that the Government is protecting it in universities

A key part of learning and education is getting exposed to new, different, and perhaps disagreeable ideas. This is how people are able develop diverse and varied viewpoints of their own, enriching wider society in the process. Rigorous debate - between academics, between students, and between academics and students, is a hugely important part of the university experience.

So its alarming to see that polling by the think tank Policy Exchange has shown that a number of current and retired academics are choosing to self-censor. As many as 32% of academics, who consider themselves right of centre politically, report feeling unable to express their views. Whilst it is never a divine right to spout whatever nonsense you please without social or professional consequences, it is a major problem if those in the academic field are effectively muzzled from pushing the boundaries of thinking and research.

This sort of backdrop allows for the very worst kind of echo chambers. One example is the extraordinary level of vitriol and aggression targeted towards those, like Professor Kathleen Stock, who merely express views on social issues which are in line with those of most right-minded people. We cannot allow ideological tyranny from a vociferous, intolerant, and frankly deranged minority. Therefore, I am glad that colleagues in the Government recognise this and are taking action to ensure universities have a duty to uphold free speech.

Similarly troubling is the influence of foreign powers on what is able to be discussed in universities. Its bad enough that elites in the Chinese Communist Party seek to control what citizens in their own country are allowed to say, but it is truly an outrage that students or academics in the UK do not feel fully able to speak out against them, or draw attention to their well-documented trampling of basic human rights. Again, it is right that, through the Higher Education (Freedom of speech) Bill, the Government is taking action to protect our universities from undue foreign influence.

We must do all we can to uphold the very British values of freedom and democracy and I want us to live in a society where we enjoy the experience of hearing views with which we disagree. One where we relish the chance to argue against those views and where we strive to offer a well thought-out alternative instead of resorting to censorship.

See the original post here:
In my view: Freedom of speech is important - Slough and Windsor Observer

Freedom of Speech and Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion cover

WASHINGTON (PRWEB) June 23, 2022

TheAssociation of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges(AGB), the premier organization advocating strategic board leadership in higher education,today released Freedom of Speech and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion on Campus: Considerations for Board Members and Chief Executives, a publication providing practical insights into why and how institutional leaders should prioritize freedom of speech as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

Colleges and universities are grappling with conflicts on campus related to a perceived tension between free speech and the advancement of DEItwo pillars of institutional missions. Freedom of speech is not only a fundamental right under the First Amendment but also the foundation of academic freedom. Simultaneously, the ongoing national reckoning on race and culture has called attention to the importance of DEI as a cornerstone of student success, institutional viability, and a more educated citizenry. Some DEI proponents claim that provocateurs abuse institutional commitments to free speech to promote ideas that exclude and marginalize vulnerable populations, which can hinder student success, demoralize campus communities, and present a reputational risk for the institution and higher education.

With an increasingly diverse student population, board members and chief executives should recognize their time-sensitive imperative to contextualize these issues for students while cultivating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive campus environment for faculty, staff, and students. The AGB publication offers practical advice for higher education leaders in anticipating, evaluating, and addressing these issues. Two such recommendations include ensuring that the institutions freedom of speech and campus climate policies are harmonized and calling on the administration to create response plans before anticipated conflicts break out.

This report comes at a time when students, administrators, lawmakers, and the public are grappling with questions about the nature and limits of free speech and the impacts that it has on social cohesion and individual well-being. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), multiple states have enacted laws to protect free speech rights for students and faculty at state institutions. At the same time, some of the same legislatures passed divisive concepts legislation, limiting the kind of conversations and the topics of discussion in classrooms. Against this backdrop, students appear to believe that a wide spectrum of speech at college is important, although there is nuance among racial groups. According to a 2022 survey by the Knight Foundation, students of color believe their speech is less protected. White students, on the other hand, report that diversity and inclusion sometimes conflict with their freedom of speech.

While a previous AGB publication focused on key points of consensus regarding the boundaries of free speech, this report goes a step further to help boards face instances where frictions arise between the institutional priorities of protecting free speech and advancing DEI.

AGB President and CEO Henry Stoever affirms the need for boards to be prepared to address these issues in a timely and comprehensive manner. Board members should not wait for a crisis on campus to focus on these issues. Upholding the principles of academic inquiry, civil discourse, and free speech is fundamental to college and university missions, he said. Its also critical for boards to model this behavior for the rest of the campus community. If boards cannot model inclusive behavior and champion free speech, how can they expect others to do so? It is too important to students success to ignore.

A complimentary e-book version of Freedom of Speech and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion on Campus: Considerations for Board Members and Chief Executives is available for AGB members at AGB.org/Freedomofspeech.

About AGB The Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB) is the premier membership organization that strengthens higher education governing boards and the strategic roles they serve within their organizations. Through our vast library of resources, educational events, and consulting services, and with 100 years of experience, we empower 40,000 AGB members from more than 2,000 institutions and foundations to navigate complex issues, implement leading practices, streamline operations, and govern with confidence. AGB is the trusted resource for board members, chief executives, and key administrators on higher education governance and leadership.

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New AGB Resource Prepares Higher Education Board Members to Balance Freedom of Speech with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion - PR Web

Piers Morgan invited Larissa Kennedy onto Thursday's instalment of Piers Morgan Uncensored to debate a report which revealed students want more restrictions on free speech. The broadcaster and student clashed over the report and Larissa became frustrated she could not finish her points as she kept being challenged by Piers.

A new report by the Higher Education Policy Institute has revealed the dramatic surge in support for censorship by students.

The report revealed nearly 60 percent of those who were surveyed were opposed to unlimited free speech.

It also revealed almost 40 percent believed the Student Union should ban all speakers who might cause offence, and 76 percent want universities to get rid of any historical figures which might be deemed offensive.

Before the interview with Larissa got underway, Piers told viewers he believed the report was "absolutely nuts".

READ MORE:'Unspeakable' Prince Andrew savaged over 'cruel' treatment to Queen

Piers asked Larissa: "What's going on at universities and why have you all become the enemies of free speech?

"Why do you all get triggered by everything and why have you all become such snowflakes?

The student replied: "Yes we need to uphold freedom of speech but we also need protection so we can ensure our campuses are a safe space for evolving people.

"And if you want to ask what that means, it means if you have got someone with views which are obviously going to spark outrage, that you give a heads up to the people coming."

The TalkTV host explained he was allowed to challenge Larissa on her views before he branded the student "ageist" after she told him he had not been in education since he was 19 years old.

"You're the snowflake here, you're the snowflake here," she said. "All I am saying is how can you know what is going on at universities?"

Piers clapped back and said he understood what is going on from the report by the Higher Education Policy Institute.

"Can I ask you a question without you getting offended?" Piers asked Larissa as she rolled her eyes at him.

"I'm not offended, you could not offend me if you tried," Larissa added.

Piers asked Larissa what her idea of free speech was and she replied: "My idea of free speech is people being able to express themselves whether that is through speakers on campus or through protests."

The pair left on a sour note after they clashed over whether Larissa would want Harry Potter author JK Rowling to be a guest speaker at a university.

Piers Morgan Uncensored continues on weeknights at 8pm on TalkTV.

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'What's the point inviting me on!' Piers Morgan and student erupt in free speech row - Express

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao has weighed in on the heated free speech debate that has consumed social media.

The company is one of a handful that pledged funds to "free speech absolutist" Elon Musk's bid to take Twitter private, promising $500 million. Zhao told Bloomberg in a lengthy interview published this week that he's all for the cause.

"We want to support free speech," Zhao said, before Bloomberg asked if that sentiment applies to his company's decision to sue Forbes in 2020 for defamation over a report saying Binance was dodging regulation. (The suit was later dropped).

To bring the suit, Binance hired lawyer Charles Harder, who's best known for teaming up with billionaire investor Peter Thiel in his fight against Gawker Media that eventually bankrupted the outlet.

"Free speech is very hard to define," Zhao said in the interview, maintaining that the article is inaccurate. "I've never talked to Charles Harder. Our team handled it."

Free speech has been a key driver in Musk's acquisition of Twitter. The Tesla and SpaceX billionaire has been vocal about his desire to ease Twitter's policies on harmful content. The platform and its moderation decisions have been thrust into a culture war as conservative figures claim Big Tech is stifling their freedom of speech by flagging and removing posts that break their rules.

Zhao also said the suit had with Binance's decision to invest $200 million in Forbes' plans to go public via a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC . The deal may be scrapped, however, as The New York Times reported in late May, after investors showed a decline in interest in the deals.

Zhao, who is worth $18.5 billion, also discussed with Bloomberg his company's mission and his stance on money. The outlet spoke to former Binance employees and investors who described the iron grip that Zhao has over his company.

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Binance CEO says 'free speech is very hard to define' - Business Insider

Commentary

The Supreme Courts decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Assn. v. Bruen (pdf) was a signal victory for the right to keep and bear arms. Reading Justice Clarence Thomass opinion for the court is a rich journey through constitutional law and history. The opinion may become a SCOTUS classic.

However, the case has implications more important stillimplications that go well beyond the Second Amendment. Amid all the noise surrounding the courts holding, you probably wont read about those implications anywhere but here.

First, though, Im delighted to report that Justice Thomas gave due credit to the work of Dave Kopel, my Independence Institute colleague who is probably the leading Second Amendment scholar on the face of the planet.

Most of the Supreme Courts constitutional-rights precedents date from the 20th century, when progressive justices dominated the bench. Those justices usually didnt pay adequate attention to the historical meaning of the Constitutions words and phrases. They usually didnt inquire, for example, into the historical meaning of terms such as the freedom of speech.

Instead, they usually applied balancing tests. An early example was the 1944 case that upheld the mass detention, without charges or trial, of tens of thousands of American citizens of Japanese extractiona case I discussed in an earlier column for The Epoch Times.

The Constitution says explicitly that the government shall deprive no person of liberty without due process of law. It also says that before the writ of habeas corpus (the traditional remedy for unlawful imprisonment) is suspended, certain conditions have to occur. Yet in Korematzu v. United States (pdf), the court balanced away all those rights. It did so under what we now call the strict scrutiny test: Government may override even an explicit constitutional right with a law necessary to further goals that the justices think are strong enough.

After Korematsu was decided, the justices applied this balancing approach to free speech, free exercise of religion, and other constitutional liberties. Occasionally, as in some pornography cases, this approach shielded conduct the Constitution didnt really protect at all. More often, the balancing approach privileged government over individual citizens.

As for rights that liberal justices didnt think as important as free speech (such as economic liberties), the court applied balancing tests that empowered government even more.

To be sure, some parts of the Constitution do call for balancing. One example is the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches and seizures. But most parts of the Constitution reflect the documents own balances and compromises. There is no call for justices to replace those balances and compromises with their own notions of what is and isnt important.

Despite all the misleading ballyhoo about the Supreme Court now having a conservative majority, the current justices generally have continued to apply the precedents and methods invented by their liberal predecessors.

In 2008, the Supreme Court issued United States v. Heller (pdf). It ruled that the Second Amendment created an individual right to keep and bear arms. Lower federal courts then started applying balancing tests to the individual right. Even if a law or regulation exceeded governments traditional power to regulate firearm usage, judges still upheld it if they thought the law or rule was sufficiently important and narrowly tailored.

Justice Thomass opinionand remember, he was writing as a representative of the court not merely for himselfaffirms, however, that the scope of the right to keep and bear arms is fixed by the words of the amendment. The law is reflected in those words, not in some judges idea of what is important.

Of course, the opinion applies only to the Second Amendment. At this point, judges still may balance away other constitutional rights. Perhaps, however, his opinion marks the beginning of a return to a more accurate meaning of other rights as well.

Many lawyers and commentators have an annoying habit of trying to prove constitutional meaning with evidence far removed from the time when the Constitution was adopted. For example, they may argue that the Constitution reflects a rule of English common law that prevailed in the year 1400, even though the rule was abandoned long before the Constitution was ratified (178790) or the Bill of Rights was adopted (1791).

More commonly, they trot out evidence arising months, years, or even decades after the ratification was complete.

Unfortunately, this is not just a bush league error: Some of the most prestigious constitutional law professors do this sort of thing. The Supreme Court is sometimes complicit as welland Justice Antonin Scalias opinion in the Heller case is a good example. It never seems to occur to these people that the understanding of the Constitutions ratifiers could not have been influenced by events that hadnt yet happened.

Thomass opinion for the court in this firearms case recognizes that sometimes subsequent practice can clarify (liquidate) ambiguous phrases. But most cases are not in that category. One of the most refreshing parts of his opinion is his caution against evidence that is either too early or too late to be part of the constitutional bargain.

In a concurring opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett underscored this: [T]odays decision should not be understood, she wrote, to endorse freewheeling reliance on historical practice from the mid-to-late 19th century to establish the original meaning of the Bill of Rights. On the contrary, the Court is careful to caution against giving postenactment history more weight than it can rightly bear.

Another implication of Thomass opinion is more subtle. Heres some background:

In our legal system, the traditional way of construing most legal documents is to inquire into how the parties to the document understood its terms. Only when understandings conflict, or are unrecoverable, do the courts apply the words of the document as a third party would read them.

Those who wrote and adopted the Constitution expected it to be interpreted that way. We call this method original understanding (pdf). Examining how third parties would read the documentcalled original meaningis applied only if the original understanding cannot be recovered.

For reasons too complicated to review now, during the 1980s, constitutional commentators began to invert the traditional rule of interpretation. They applied original meaning at the expense of original understanding. Although the framers didnt write the document to be read that way, this focus on original meaning has become orthodoxy.

So its refreshing to report that, while Thomass opinion uses both concepts, it edges back toward the correct position: Of the Constitution, he writes, its meaning is fixed, according to the understandings of those who ratified it and the scope of the protection [of a provision in the Bill of Rights] is pegged to the public understanding of the right when the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791.

Time will tell if the court builds on this view, but a foundation has been laid.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

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Robert G. Natelson, a former constitutional law professor, is senior fellow in constitutional jurisprudence at the Independence Institute in Denver.

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The Deeper Significance of Justice Thomas's Second Amendment Opinion - The Epoch Times

OPINION:

Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

When James Madison authored the language that would become the First Amendment, he and his colleagues feared that the new federal government might enact legislation that would interfere with personal liberty. That fear was shared by many in the 13 states that had just ratified the Constitution. Indeed, five of the states conditioned their ratification on the addition of a Bill of Rights.

Mr. Madison who had been the scrivener of the Constitution in 1787, was, by 1791, a member of the House of Representatives and the Houses resident expert on the Constitution was designated by his colleagues as the drafter of the Bill of Rights.

Mr. Madisons language in the First Amendment is clear; it only restrains Congress. Yet, recognizing the natural origins of the freedom of speech and aware of the universal governmental animosity to free speech, and taking account of the 14th Amendments imposition of due process upon the states, the courts expanded the scope of the First Amendment so as to impose its restraints upon all government including the president, the judiciary, the states and their subdivisions.

During the Civil War and World War I, Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson incarcerated folks for their speech and argued that the First Amendment only restrained Congress, not the president. Today, such an argument would be dismissed out of hand in any court. Today, the First Amendment protects the freedom of speech from all government.

But the First Amendment only restrains the government. It does not restrain private persons, whom lawyers call nongovernmental actors.

The old counterpoint that the First Amendment does not permit shouting fire in a crowded theater is inaccurate. If the theater is owned by nongovernmental actors, the First Amendment plays no role whatsoever in regulating or permitting the shouting; the property owner does. There are sound reasons why shouting fire in a crowded theater is actionable under the law, but the First Amendment is not among them unless the government owns the theater.

I offer this brief background as a prelude to addressing the latest turn of events concerning social media platforms that suppress the speech of which they dont approve. Because the social media companies are nongovernmental actors, they are free to infringe upon the speech of their clients and customers for any reason they choose that does not violate public policy, such as infringement based on race, gender, religion, sexual orientation or place of origin.

Yet, a nongovernmental actor that enters into a symbiotic relationship with the government may lose its freedom to suppress speech and be subjected to the same restraints as the government.

Thus, Twitter, for example, is free to suppress any speech and any speaker because of the content of the speech, unless it is doing the governments bidding. If it is, if Twitter is doing for the government what the government cannot do on its own suppress speech because of its content and if sufficient evidence of this is properly before a court, the court may very well invoke the state action doctrine, which will impose the restraints of the First Amendment upon Twitter.

I use Twitter as an example because last week two U.S. senators obtained and revealed emails between officials of the Department of Homeland Security and Twitter executives contemplating how Twitter can suppress speech that the DHS believes constitutes mis- or dis- or mal-information. This is dangerous for personal liberty and, frankly, dangerous for Twitter.

The courts have ruled that when a governmental actor here the DHS and a nongovernmental actor here Twitter are so intertwined for their mutual benefit, and someone here those whose speech Twitter has suppressed because of its content is harmed thereby, the courts will impose First Amendment restraints upon the nongovernmental actor.

Lets say you are in Yankee Stadium at a Yankees/Boston Red Sox game and you go to buy a hot dog from a vendor in the stadium and he refuses to sell it to you because you are wearing a Red Sox baseball cap. (In New York, this happens!) Who has punished you for your speech, the private vendor, which is not restrained by the First Amendment, or New York City, which owns the stadium and hired the vendor and which clearly is restrained by the First Amendment?

Since the city provides customers for the vendor and the vendor provides products for the customers and your presence at the game benefits both, and because you dont know whose rule no Red Sox caps allowed is being enforced, there is obviously a symbiotic relationship between the vendor and the city, and thus the First Amendment will restrain the vendor from punishing your speech as if it were the city.

The same may very well be the case for Twitter. The emails released last week revealed the contemplation of a symbiotic DHS/Twitter relationship that, if proven, will harm Twitter severely and expose the government for its attacks on the freedom of speech.

The whole purpose of the First Amendment is to keep the government entirely out of the business of interfering with speech directly or indirectly. Moreover, if Twitter does the governments bidding, and the First Amendment is applied to Twitter, it will lose its private property-generated ability to suppress speech.

The interesting question is not what does the government gain? Governments always want to suppress the speech they hate and fear. The real question is why a social media entity would do the governments dirty work for it. The probable answer is to retain its statutory immunity from liability for what its clients post.

This is what happens when you get in bed with the feds. You wake up with a constitutional headache as well as fleas.

Andrew P. Napolitano is a former professor of law and judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey who has published nine books on the U.S. Constitution.

Continued here:
Twitter and freedom of speech - Washington Times

The Bill will ensure courts cannot interpret laws in ways that were never intended by Parliament and will empower people to express their views freely.

At the same time, it will help prevent trivial human rights claims from wasting judges time and taxpayer money. A permission stage in court will be introduced requiring people to show they have suffered a significant disadvantage before their claim can go ahead.

The Bill will also reinforce in law the principle that responsibilities to society are as important as personal rights. It will do this by ensuring courts consider a claimants relevant conduct, like a prisoners violent or criminal behaviour, when awarding damages.

The Bill will make clear that the UK Supreme Court is the ultimate judicial decision-maker on human rights issues and that the case law of the European Court of Human Rights does not always need to be followed by UK courts.

Deputy Prime Minister, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, Dominic Raab said:

The Bill of Rights will strengthen our UK tradition of freedom whilst injecting a healthy dose of common sense into the system.

These reforms will reinforce freedom of speech, enable us to deport more foreign offenders and better protect the public from dangerous criminals.

The Bill of Rights will make it easier to deport foreign criminals by allowing future laws to restrict the circumstances in which their right to family life would trump public safety and the need to remove them.

It will mean that under future immigration laws, to evade removal a foreign criminal would have to prove that a child or dependent would come to overwhelming, unavoidable harm if they were deported.

As a result, any new laws will curb the abuse of the system that has seen those convicted of hurting their own partners and children evade removal by claiming it would breach their right to family life in the UK.

The Bill of Rights will also:

This will be achieved while retaining the UKs fundamental commitment to the European Convention on Human Rights.

Read the original:
Bill of Rights to strengthen freedom of speech and curb bogus human rights claims - GOV.UK

Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

When James Madison authored the language that would become the First Amendment, he and his colleagues feared that the new federal government might enact legislation that would interfere with personal liberty. That fear was shared by many in the 13 states that had just ratified the Constitution. Indeed, five of the states conditioned their ratification on the addition of a Bill of Rights.

Madison who had been the scrivener of the Constitution in 1787, was, by 1791, a member of the House of Representatives and the Houses resident expert on the Constitution was designated by his colleagues as the drafter of the Bill of Rights.

Madisons language in the First Amendments is clear; it only restrains Congress. Yet, recognizing the natural origins of the freedom of speech and aware of the universal governmental animosity to free speech, and taking account of the 14th Amendments imposition of due process upon the states, the courts expanded the scope of the First Amendment so as to impose its restraints upon all government including the president, the judiciary, the states and their subdivisions.

During the Civil War and World War I, presidents Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson incarcerated folks for their speech and argued that the First Amendment only restrained Congress, not the president. Today, such an argument would be dismissed out of hand in any court.

Today, the First Amendment protects the freedom of speech from all government.

But the First Amendment only restrains the government. It does not restrain private persons, whom lawyers call nongovernmental actors.

The old counterpoint that the First Amendment does not permit shouting fire in a crowded theater is inaccurate. If the theater is owned by nongovernmental actors, the First Amendment plays no role whatsoever in regulating or permitting the shouting; the property owner does. There are sound reasons why shouting fire in a crowded theater is actionable under the law, but the First Amendment is not among them unless the government owns the theater.

I offer this brief background as a prelude to addressing the latest turn of events concerning social media platforms that suppress speech of which they dont approve. Because the social media companies are nongovernmental actors, they are free to infringe upon the speech of their clients and customers for any reason they choose that does not violate public policy, such as infringement based on race, gender, religion, sexual orientation or place of origin.

Yet, a nongovernmental actor that enters into a symbiotic relationship with the government may lose its freedom to suppress speech and be subjected to the same restraints as the government.

Thus, Twitter, for example, is free to suppress any speech and any speaker because of the content of the speech, unless it is doing the governments bidding. If it is, if Twitter is doing for the government what the government cannot do on its own suppress speech because of its content and if sufficient evidence of this is properly before a court, the court may very well invoke the state action doctrine, which will impose the restraints of the First Amendment upon Twitter.

I use Twitter as an example because last week two U.S. senators obtained and revealed emails between officials of the Department of Homeland Security and Twitter executives contemplating how Twitter can suppress speech that the DHS believes constitutes mis- or dis- or mal-information. This is dangerous for personal liberty and, frankly, dangerous for Twitter.

The courts have ruled that when a governmental actor here the DHS and a nongovernmental actor here Twitter are so intertwined for their mutual benefit, and someone here those whose speech Twitter has suppressed because of its content is harmed thereby, the courts will impose First Amendment restraints upon the nongovernmental actor.

Lets say you are in Yankee Stadium at a Yankees/Boston Red Sox game and you go to buy a hot dog from a vendor in the stadium and he refuses to sell to you because you are wearing a Red Sox baseball cap. (In New York, this happens!) Who has punished you for your speech, the private vendor, which is not restrained by the First Amendment, or New York City, which owns the stadium and hired the vendor and which clearly is restrained by the First Amendment?

Since the city provides customers for the vendor and the vendor provides products for the customers and your presence at the game benefits both, and because you dont know whose rule no Red Sox caps allowed is being enforced, there is obviously a symbiotic relationship between the vendor and the city, and thus the First Amendment will restrain the vendor from punishing your speech as if it were the city.

The same may very well be the case for Twitter. The emails released last week revealed the contemplation of a symbiotic DHS/Twitter relationship that, if proven, will harm Twitter severely and expose the government for its attacks on the freedom of speech.

The whole purpose of the First Amendment is to keep the government entirely out of the business of interfering with speech directly or indirectly. Moreover, if Twitter does the governments bidding, and the First Amendment is applied to Twitter, it will lose its private property-generated ability to suppress speech.

The interesting question is not what does the government gain; governments always want to suppress the speech they hate and fear. The real question is why a social media entity would do the governments dirty work for it. The probable answer is to retain its statutory immunity from liability for what its clients post.

This is what happens when you get in bed with the feds. You wake up with a constitutional headache as well as fleas.

Judge Andrew Peter Napolitano is an American syndicated columnist whose work appears in numerous publications including The Washington Times and Reason. He served as a New Jersey Superior Court judge from 1987 to 1995.

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Twitter and the freedom of speech | Opinion | journal-spectator.com - Wharton Journal Spectator

I researched and wrote a lot about white supremacy, particularly in its alt-right manifestation, throughout the course of 2017, namely Donald Trump's first year in office. I hazarded a number of guesses as to where the movement, and more importantly the reaction to it, was headed. Keeping company with this unsavory crowd over an extended period of time, I came to have a deep appreciation for how characteristically American this movement was, and how right it felt to experience it as a natural growth of individualistic capitalism run amok. But by the end of that year the alt-right panic was being subsumed by the #MeToo panic, and honest discussion about the nature of the white supremacist resurgence became more and more difficult in liberal forums.

Around that time I wrote a long essay (published only recently in three parts) analyzing the fate of the leading figures of the alt-right, and focusing on the various methods proposed to deal with the alleged existential threat, including all sorts of power applied by the state and its legal apparatus. I took an absolutist free-speech position with respect to the neo-Nazis a stance that seems almost ridiculously outdated in these self-righteous times and argued in favor of the old-line ACLU position rather than the speech compromises endorsed by critical race theory. I raised the question of watchdog biases, and the dangers of permitting such groups, which are de facto instruments of ever-shifting state policy, such great authority in deciding who gets to speak and who doesn't.

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As I reviewed the essay recently, it struck me how extensively the reaction to white supremacy has proceeded along highly undemocratic lines, and how it continues to be a harbinger of worse developments yet to come in the polity, to a far greater extent than even I expected.

Violent reaction against speech is now far more pervasive and legitimate than it was at the beginning of the Trump administration. Among millennials and post-millennials, freedom of speech was already viewed ashighly questionable. Demonizing Trumpism allowed powerful media companies to assume total control over what speech would be allowed and not allowed. It has become a truly expansive definition, and depends on the whim of the moment. The apparatus of domination and control I described with respect to the alt-right was transposed in its entirety to a thought category called "disinformation" (itself a term of disinformation) and applied to vaccine skeptics or generally anyone who disagreed with official pronouncements about any aspect of COVID-19, even those that were subject to change thanks to new information or scientific reinterpretation.

It has become commonplace for media companies to deny platforms or visibility not just to the most extreme neo-Nazi rabble-rousers like Andrew Anglin and Richard Spencer but to anyone who falls afoul of any aspect of the established liberal worldview on issues of elections, racism, schooling, historical interpretation, science, war, violence, sexuality or indeed anything and everything that doesn't sit well with the narrow spectrum of reality endorsed by the propaganda arms of the American national security state, fed on illusive notions of meritocratic wokeness.

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Was this a price worth paying for making the alt-right invisible? To have such an unprecedented level of institutional (albeit non-governmental) censorship in this country? It starts with Alex Jones, and ends up going after Palestinian activists. It always does. I knew it, and anyone with an eye on history should have known it too.

Every form of domination requires an unacceptable other in order to privilege its own power. In the circa-2017 phase of alt-right ascendance, the antagonists were all those who deployed a racist perspective to question the liberal dogma of perpetual progress by slow degrees. The alt-right enemies of immigration, racial equality and even of interracial relationships or the recognition and celebration of minority cultures were demonized as uncouth savages who had no business seeking a political platform in American democracy.

If liberals believe they triumphed over the alt-right, consider Glenn Youngkin, the Biden administration's Trumpist immigration policies and ever-increasing police violence against people of color.

Yet consider this: Despite the liberal triumphalism associated with banning controversial speakers on campus and shutting down the social media accounts of alt-right influencers, Glenn Youngkin was recently elected governor of Virginia, in large part driven by antipathy toward the (mostly imaginary) teaching of critical race theory in schools. Consider that the Biden administration has to a large extent kept in place Trump's exclusionary policies on the southern border. Consider that police violence against unarmed black men and other people of color has only accelerated.

But who supports those things? Large numbers of conservative white voters, of course, not just in the devastated Rust Belt but all over the country. But also, going by the shift of Latino voters toward Trump in 2020, a growing number of some of the liberals' most cherished constituencies as well.

It is not coincidental that once the neo-Nazis were banned, an entire liberal industry arose to teach white people to search out their most minute expressions of racism (by authors like Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo), and to turn that into a beneficent self-improvement project, such as one might approach an addiction or an unhealthy diet. Now the enemy is not the alt-right, but everyone who thinks in unpredictable directions about the current state of our political economy.

To be fair, America faces legitimate social and political quandaries: In the current climate we cannot permit more immigration, although we desperately need it from an economic point of view. We certainly can't ban it, which would be economically devastating as well as giving in to the nationalists. So the almost comical answer we have settled upon is to maintain a repressive regime toward immigration and construct as enemies everyone who wants either more or less of it.

The urge to suppress the alt-right was not about "democracy" or some other hazy, high-minded ideal. It was about maintaining the status quo, and the recent expansion of the list of enemies is part of a more ambitious campaign to maintain the status quo as it faces even greater threat, especially during the pandemic.

If censorship and legal targeting of the alt-right were supposed to banish thescourge of white supremacy, let us ask the obvious question: Did it succeed? Obviously it did not, and it arguably made white supremacy, in both its overt and covert manifestations, stronger than ever.

Imagine a situation where a confident liberalism, true at least to its principles of allowing fair market exchange and removing unnecessary obstacles to personal economic advancement, not only permitted the free play of alt-right ideas (or more extreme manifestations) but even encouraged them in order to draw clear distinctions between right and wrong, trusting the democratic public to make its own decisions. Instead, an authoritarian attitude drove the construction of an illiberal liberalism as the only viable political option. At certain points the mythology of that ideology has bordered on the absurd, as in the depiction of Jan. 6, 2021, as an unprecedented existential calamity, or the various travesties of imagination surrounding the Russiagate scandal. This happened to such an extent that white supremacy started sounding reasonable to some people by comparison.

Liberals present themselves as occupying the reasonable center of political discourse today, but in some ways they are more extreme than the most delusional and paranoid Republicans. They have reduced all of human life and its activities to strict monetary calculation, and have destroyed art, imagination and creativity in the process. Their imaginary visions of democracy, human rights and meritocracy are entirely in the service of justifying the current form of capitalism, which is trending toward eradicating life on the planet.

Despite liberals' endless self-scrutiny in search of microscopic evidence of racism, I would suggest they are the most effective carriers of the white supremacy virus.

If I haven't yet alienated all liberal readers, I would go further, to suggest that despite their relentless search for rooting out micro-racism in their minute words and deeds, liberals are in fact the most effective carriers of the white supremacy virus. Emboldening Israel at the cost of any recognition of the rights of Palestinians is white supremacy. Instigating a massively expensive and apparently endless proxy war against Russia, as a first step in checking or confronting the inevitable hegemony of China (those creepy Asians who've become too big for their boots), is white supremacy. Converting the George Floyd protests of 2020 into ultimate advocacy for more money for more police as nearly all Democrats in positions of power now advocate is white supremacy. Wanting to "save" Afghan women and children by lamenting the end of the 20-year invasion and then imposing sanctions and stealing their money is white supremacy. Which party, I ask you, is more associated with these policies today?

No one has to believe that liberals steal elections or that vaccines are more dangerous than COVID or that school shootings are false-flag events or that there's a Jewish conspiracy to replace white people. But censoring these thoughts only gives them more durability, as we ought to have learned from repeated examples over the last few years.

Here's how it works: An illegitimate thought is censored, which gives it a certain resilience as the wrong way to think, opposed to which is the correct thought. Censorship becomes the force by which the liberal-bourgeois state codifies various elements of power such as to propel them beyond the critique of power. In this dynamic, the unfairness of a two-party electoral democracy representing only narrow bourgeois interests, the unequal and even unscientific foundations of American public health, the interdependence of imperial violence with chaotic domestic outbursts, and the bipartisan consensus over the punitive treatment of immigrants become untouchable issues, precisely because quasi-state censorship has elevated them to the status of sacred truths threatened by extremists and therefore not subject to rational critique. Censorship is the process by which the illegitimate is made legitimate.

In these last days of empire, when liberalism is on the defensive and fighting for propositions that are ecologically and even economically unsustainable, we will not see an end to the violent repression of nonconformism, only its reinforcement. Thus it is that so-called wokeness which is entirely compatible with corporate globalization, and in many cases strongly aligned with it becomes the darkest force in the land. It feeds denialism, denies that denialism is real and then denies the humanity of those who aren't woke enough to accept the boundaries of correct thought, whether they are nominally on the left or the right.

Read more on the rising threat of white supremacy:

The rest is here:
Charlottesville, COVID, Trump and free speech: How white supremacy entered the mainstream - Salon

While Jehovahs Witnesses have chosen to temporarily suspend their door-to-door ministry due to the pandemic, their activity was almost permanently banned by one U.S. village in the late 1990s that is until the United States Supreme Court stepped in with a historic 8-1 decision on June 17, 2002, declaring the local ordinance unconstitutional.

As the 20th anniversary of that precedent-setting decision nears, some Tulare County residents wonder what their lives would be like if one of their neighbors had not knocked on their door and shared a life-changing message with them. Constitutional scholars marvel at the outsized impact the decision has had on the protection of free speech for all, agreeing with Justice Antonin Scalias opinion in the case, The free-speech claim exempts everybody, thanks to Jehovahs Witnesses.

Without it, I may have never heard the truth about the Bible, said Lloyd Gould, a former fire prevention technician for the U.S. Forest Service, who worked in Tulare County.

Gould vividly recalls the day Jehovahs Witnesses visited his ranch in Greenfield. It was a huge turning point, he said.

The 2002 Supreme Court decision in Watchtower v. Village of Stratton, affirmed that a local village ordinance in Stratton, Ohio, requiring a permit to knock on doors violated the rights of any person who wanted to engage in free speech with their neighbor, including Jehovahs Witnesses who practice door-to-door evangelizing. The Court overturned two lower court rulings that upheld the ordinance, and thus paved the way for all citizens to maintain open dialogue with their neighbors on any number of issues including environmental, civic, political or educational.

Looking back on the two decades since the decision, its clear to see the wide-ranging impact that Watchtower v. Stratton has had on free speech for all, said Josh McDaniel, director of the Religious Freedom Clinic at the Harvard Law School. This is just the latest of some 50 Supreme Court victories by Jehovahs Witnesses that have helped establish and broaden First Amendment jurisprudence throughout the last century.

The village of Stratton became a center of controversy in 1998 after the mayor personally confronted four Jehovahs Witnesses as they were driving out of the village after visiting a resident. Subsequently, the village enacted the ordinance Regulating Uninvited Peddling and Solicitation Upon Private Property, which required anyone wishing to engage in door-to-door activity to obtain a permit from the mayor or face imprisonment. Jehovahs Witnesses viewed this ordinance as an infringement of freedom of speech, free exercise of religion and freedom of press. Therefore, they brought a lawsuit in federal court after the village refused to modify their enforcement of this ordinance.

Our motive for initiating the case was clear: We wanted to remove any obstacle that would prevent us from carrying out our scriptural obligation to preach the good news of the Kingdom, said Robert Hendriks, U.S. spokesman for Jehovahs Witnesses. Making it a criminal offense to talk with a neighbor without seeking government approval is offensive to many people, but particularly to God who commanded Christians to preach the gospel.

That very gospel, which includes the Bible-based assurance of a resurrection, has sustained Gould since the passing of his wife and daughter.

While Gould continues to engage in a productive ministry through letter writing, phone calling and virtual visits, he is looking forward to knocking on doors again. Ive always preferred talking to people face to face, he said.

We are thankful that we have the legal right to practice our ministry from door to door, said Hendriks. When the time is right and conditions are safe, we hope to visit our neighbors in person once again.

This victory is one of more than 250 rulings in cases brought by Jehovahs Witnesses in high courts around the world that have expanded the rights of people of all religious faiths. It's hard to point to any organization, let alone a religious organization, that has had such a profound impact on the shaping of constitutional law over many decades in the Supreme Court," said Harvard professor McDaniel.

For more information on the Stratton case, go to http://www.jw.org and type Stratton in the search field.

Link:
Jehovah's Witnesses reflect on 20th anniversary of free speech decision - Porterville Recorder