Hillary Clinton Fretting that “We Lose Total Control”

Hillary Clinton fretting: " . . . we lose total control." This short clip is surreal.

My reactions:

1. Who is "we"?

2. Since when is it the job of government to control the thoughts and communications of the citizens?

3. Repeal of Section 230 is transparently a ploy to incentivize a lot more censorship.

4. Who loses with more censorship? Those who believe that the power to run this country should reside with the citizens, not the politicians, the administrative state or the national security state.

5. If Elon Musk handed the U.S. power to censor X (like Google/Youtube and FB have done), they would drop this 230 threat in a heartbeat.

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U.S. Funded Censors Hide in the Shadows

If our government were proud of how it is spewing propaganda and muzzling Americans, why is it going to great lengths to hide what it is doing from concerned citizens and their representatives. Matt Taibbi did a deep dive in his most recent article, titled FOIA Files: "Arizona State UniversityOur latest FOIA disclosures reveal that the Department of State was issuing grants to "anti-disinformation" researchers at ASU."

Our latest Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) results show that the university has done significant work on “disinformation” for the State Department. But of what sort? Back in January, Gabe Kaminsky of The Washington Examiner reported that the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) had given three direct awards to ASU. But the redacted documents uncovered by Kaminsky don’t explain the purpose of the awards.

Last month, the House Committee on Small Business released a report that details the lengths to which the GEC has gone to evade congressional oversight. The committee sent the GEC a subpoena in June, only to be told that it would take the State Department another twenty-one months to produce the requested documents.

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About Fires in Crowded Theaters and Empty-Headed Candidates for National Office

"VANCE: You yourself have said there’s no First Amendment right to misinformation. Kamala Harris wants to use…

WALZ: Or threatening. Or hate speech.

VANCE: …the power of the government to use Big Tech to silence people from speaking their minds. That is a threat to democracy that will long outlive this political moment… Let’s persuade one another. Let’s argue about ideas and come together afterwards.

WALZ: You can’t yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater. That’s the test. That’s the Supreme Court test!"

Walz is almost completely wrong. He has no working knowledge of one of our nation's most important principles. His wanna-be boss Harris is equally ignorant. Despite his recent rhetoric, Trump falls far short too. The fact that the two major political parties are floating candidates of this caliber is proof of a failed legal system.

Matt Taibbi explains the First Amendment test here:

The “You can’t yell ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater” saw is not only wrong, it’s the most overused anti-speech argument of our era, surpassing even the Karl Popper “Paradox of Tolerance” cartoon that was once meme legend. In 2012, the ACLU’s Gabe Rothman wrote that the “Fire!” bit was “worse than useless in defining the boundaries of constitutional speech.” Lawyers and civil liberties activists are in danger of self-harm every time it’s mentioned. “My head hits my desk every time the ‘shouting fire’ canard is trotted out. I think I have a permanent bruise on my forehead because of it,” says Nico Perrino of the Foundation of Individual Rights and Expression, who adds the damage might prevent him from knowing how many times it’s happened.

The “Fire” saw is one of those unkillable nuggets of received wisdom blurted out by people with at least three drinks in them, repeated as fact by a Vice Presidential candidate. Why? It feels like Democrats are intentionally fumbling the issue:

“‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater” was never law, nor was it ever a “Supreme Court test,” as Walz insisted. The quote is from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who in a 1919 case called Schenck v. United States argued, “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.” ...

“‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater” not only isn’t law, it’s a symbol of one of the darkest chapters in our history, when we passed the aforementioned Espionage Act of 1917 and the similarly heinous Sedition Act of 1918, punishing utterance of “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States.” This was when Attorney General Mitchell Palmer terrorized Americans with deportations, mass arrests, even torture. “Clear and present danger” cast a shadow over expression for decades. Not until the 1969 Brandenburg v. Ohio, which established the current standard barring incitement to “imminent lawless action,” was America free of the stain of the case.

The fact that Walz thinks that abomination is still law and also hasn’t corrected his belief that “hate speech” isn’t protected is odd. He first coughed up the latter hairball in a December 2022 interview with MSNBC’s Maria Teresa Kumar . . .

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Michael Shellenberger Offers Three Questions to Ask Those who Those who “Oppose” Free Speech

What is a good way to get a real conversation going with someone who claims that free speech is a bad thing? Michael Shellenberger offers three questions. His article at Public is titled, "Why These Three Questions Change People's Minds About Censorship." An excerpt:

How you approach the topic will depend on whether you’re talking with a friend or relative or moderating a presidential debate, but it should include affirming shared values. You might say, “There’s been a lot of debate about censorship and misinformation. Most of us, myself included, care a lot about protecting vulnerable people and countering bad information while protecting people’s right to free speech. I’m curious how you think about these issues, and I wondered if I could ask you how you think about them.”

Assuming you get permission to go further, here are the three key questions I would recommend:

First, “Can you think of examples where free speech helped past movements for political independence, civil rights, and human rights succeed?”

This immediately will slow many people down. They’ll be forced to reflect on what they know about those movements. Some will say they don’t know. But it’s unlikely that many people will respond that those movements succeeded thanks to censorship since so few cases exist.

Second, “Can you imagine a future government ever abusing its powers to censor hate speech and misinformation for political reasons?

A recent Australian poll found that voters were evenly split, 37% to 38%, on whether they agreed or disagreed with the question, “Freedom of speech should be protected online, even if this means wrong, inaccurate or false information may be published.”

However, when pollsters asked voters, “How concerned are you that if ‘misinformation’ laws were to be passed, government officials would use these powers for political purposes (for example, to limit public debate and censor certain opinions)?” between 61% and 78% of voters said they were concerned. And it was young people ages 18-24 who said they were most concerned.

The first question required people to think about what they know, and the second asked people to imagine the future. For various reasons, most people do not have a hard time imagining governments abusing their power for political reasons.

Third, “Is the best solution to hate speech and misinformation free speech or censorship?”

Acknowledging that bad guys have used censorship more than good guys throughout history and that future governments might censor for bad reasons, this last question slows people down further to assess the evidence on both sides. People who endorsed censorship a few minutes earlier may have second thoughts and even reversing themselves.

I would add one more question to this list. "If we decide that censorship is OK, who should be in charge of determining what is true?" That often stops people cold, but not always. Two years ago, a law professor (to my dismay) told me that in the case of COVID, the public health officials would get to decide what is true. It didn't seem to bother him that these "experts" got almost everything wrong about COVID. I asked, "What about non-medical issues," and he (I swear he said this) the FBI and CIA should be in charge.

I like Shellenberger's suggested questions. I'm going to start using them in my free speech conversations.

Continue ReadingMichael Shellenberger Offers Three Questions to Ask Those who Those who “Oppose” Free Speech