FreeSpeech and Censorship: Thread

[grarpamp]

The Perpetual War On Free Speech

by Donald Jeffries via "I Protest" substack,

https://donaldjeffries.substack.com/p/the-perpetual-war-on-free-speech

The Founding Fathers made the Constitution palatable by including a
Bill of Rights.

Without the First 10 Amendments, the Constitution is just what its
early critics, including Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson, said it
was; a dangerous consolidation of power far less representative of
liberty than the Articles of Confederation.

The First Amendment was always a huge concern with statists of every era.

Those who thirst for power, and will compromise themselves in order to
attain it, have never looked favorably upon those critical of them.

John Adams, the second president of the United States, passed the
Alien and Sedition Acts for just this reason.

He bristled at criticism.

Fortunately, Thomas Jefferson succeeded him in office and scrapped
this tyrannical concept.

But the notion reared itself again in 1860, with the election of
Abraham Lincoln. Adams was a civil libertarian compared to Lincoln.
“Honest” Abe didn’t pass any new Alien and Sedition Acts; he just shut
down over two hundred newspapers that opposed any of his
unconstitutional actions.

Woodrow Wilson revived these odious acts during World War I. Eugene
Debs and others were imprisoned for opposing the pointless shedding of
blood, and America’s participation in it. The Supreme Court, in
perhaps its worst ruling ever, upheld Wilson’s right to jail antiwar
protesters. Great “liberal” justice Oliver Wendell Holmes coined the
phrase “yelling fire in a crowded theater” to justify such heinous
oppression, placing an ugly asterisk on free speech. Apparently no
concerned American asked at the time, just how protesting a war could
be construed as yelling fire in a crowded theater. This expression
gained great renown across the land, and is forever on the lips of
those who seek to censor dissent.

Franklin Roosevelt built upon the actions of Wilson, who was inspired
by the maniacal despot Lincoln. One of the countless unconstitutional
agencies created under the New Deal, the Federal Communications
Commission was in effect a national Alien and Sedition Act for the
radio stations, and would go on to control content in Hollywood and on
every television network. It banned selling advertising that discussed
“controversial issues.” Vulgarity and “extremist” opinions were
strictly forbidden. FDR pushed several inquisitions in Congress, most
notably the one chaired by then Senator Hugo Black. You know, the
former KKK member who went on to become a “liberal” Supreme Court
justice and arbitrarily awarded the 1948 Senate election to
“Landslide” Lyndon Johnson, who was the first to court the dead vote.

The Black Committee and other inquiries attempted to severely curtail
the ability of journalists to criticize the New Deal. FDR himself is
documented to have personally tried to ruin the careers of his
political opponents. And all of this was years before the Pearl Harbor
false flag. Once America entered the war, FDR went after draft
evaders, and memorably incarcerated American citizens in concentration
camps. Not just Japanese Americans, but German and Italian Americans,
too. The Roosevelt administration also stole billions in personal
property from these poor souls. Much as Lincoln had locked up any
northern antiwar voices without any due process, FDR imprisoned those
opposed to his war. In 1945, his successor Harry Truman had antiwar
poet Ezra Pound arrested, and he spent a decade in a mental
institution.

We must consider today’s “Woke” authoritarianism in its historical
context. The precedents are all there.

Cancel culture was born when Lincoln “canceled” his critics in the
press, and threw thousands of uncharged citizens into makeshift
prisons. Wilson followed this precedent, but FDR expanded it into a
totalitarian art form. His administration “canceled” its critics in a
variety of ways. FDR used J. Edgar Hoover to target some of them. His
administration confiscated millions of telegrams to and from Roosevelt
opponents. Long before Richard Nixon’s laughable efforts to use the
IRS to monitor his critics, FDR had the fledgling agency audit almost
everyone who opposed him. Indeed, FDR led a veritable crusade against
free speech.

The Social Justice Warriors might look different. Tattooed. Pink or
purple hair. Transitioned into countless new “genders.” Utterly
addicted to name-calling. But they are the logical descendants of
those who supported the Alien and Sedition Acts. Who threw citizens
into jail that objected to our involvement in faraway wars. Who wanted
to use the IRS, and the FBI, to “cancel” critics of the political
elite. Not enough tried to stop this onerous censorship in 1860. Or
1918. Or 1939. And too few are trying to stop it now. The January 6
political prisoners are a testament to that, subjected to the cruel
and unjust punishment explicitly prohibited by the Constitution, which
was inflicted on northern “Copperheads” during the Civil War, and
anarchists and “Reds” during World War I, and “Nazi sympathizers”
during World War II.

The crazed adherents of Identity Politics are hardly the first to want
to silence their critics. Get them fired from their job, and rendered
unemployable. And increasingly, prosecuted for their Thought Crimes.
Those opposing Lincoln’s mad war and suppression of civil liberties
were the Thought Criminals of their time, long before Orwell gave a
name to them. Everyone reading this little missive is a modern day
Thought Criminal. There are millions of us. Is there room in their
overcrowded prisons for all of us? As Lord Acton, the great lover of
liberty who was friends with Robert E. Lee, not Ulysses S. Grant,
reminded us; power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Those
in power in America 2.0 are absolutely corrupt.

How many of us truly believe in free speech? Almost everyone has a big
“but,” to quote the late Pee Wee Herman. Sure, I’m for free speech
but…not for “Holocaust denial.” Disbelievers in the Apollo moon
landings. Or their even more extreme bedfellows, the flat earthers.
Those who think mass shootings were a hoax, or “fake news.” White
people outraged by the Great Replacement. Just referring to the Great
Replacement can get you canceled, unless you’re supporting such a
thing. Which all of our horrific leaders do. Try mentioning how the
average American woman today weighs what the average American man did
sixty years ago, and see what happens. There are a lot of caveats to
the mainstream ideal of “free speech.”

The symbolic prosecutions, these figurative “fire in a crowded
theater” abridgements of free speech, are in full swing. Alex Jones
supposedly owes nearly a billion dollars to selective Sandy Hook
parents. And now any mention of Sandy Hook is even more anathema to
public discourse than the Great Replacement is. Jones also apologized
for “Pizzagate.” Which was ridiculous; look at those disturbing
pictures on Instagram, and the Podesta emails published by Wikileaks.
If Donald Trump had paintings of children with freshly spanked bottoms
on the walls of Mar-a-Lago, do you think it might be reacted to
differently than it was in the case of Podesta’s brother? Now Rudy
Giuliani owes almost $150 million to two particular “offended”
election poll workers?

The only acknowledged exceptions to free speech at one point were
overtly slanderous or libelous comments. This is understandable;
people do have a right to protect their reputation. But it’s a
slippery slope, and obviously applied in a wildly unfair manner.
There’s a fine line between libel and justified criticism. Donald
Trump, think whatever you want to think of him, has been the object of
slander from numerous national figures. This includes physical and
even death threats. But if Trump ever brought a slander suit against
the Fake Media he rages against, it would be laughed out of every
courtroom. Because it’s Trump, not because it isn’t slander. Obama,
Clinton, Biden- they’d all be treated much more respectfully by this
hopelessly corrupt, Tik Tok “justice” system of ours. Some slander is
more equal than others.

But slander and libel have been supplanted now by the Orwellian term
“hate speech.” Which has been accepted by almost everyone, even though
the very term immediately destroys any concept of free speech. And now
“disinformation” and “misinformation,” entirely subjective terms (like
“hate speech”), are being bandied about as potential “crimes.” This is
essentially what Jones and Trump are being prosecuted for; the notion
that they are misleading others with speech that the State finds
“offensive,” or “racist,” or “disinformation/misinformation.” Trump is
being tried in court for contesting the results of an election. And
for exaggerating the value of his assets. That doesn’t seem to worry
most Americans. They need to remember that whole, “First they came for
the Communists” thing. Don’t think they won’t come after you.

If we were really protected by the First Amendment, then there would
be no possibility of being prosecuted for our views on an election. Or
a virus. Or a vaccine. Or any historical event. Every opinion is
protected under the First Amendment. Well, theoretically. If you say
something “offensive” to any of the groups and individuals that are
allowed to be perpetually “offended,” then you are now subject to a
politicized prosecution. No one should want to go anywhere near one of
our Orwellian courtrooms. They’re nearly as dangerous as hospitals.
Thought Criminals, by definition, are not being pursued for their
actions. They aren’t robbers. Or rapists. Or murderers. It’s a
difficult task to prosecute the thoughts of others. But our
authoritarian leaders are up to that task. And millions are complicit
by their silence.

Today, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube ban, suspend and
“cancel” those users who have unwelcome views. First Amendment be
damned. As the “conservative” defenders of the cancel culture remind
us, “They’re private companies! They have a right to ban people!” As I
would respond, you mean like restaurants, for instance? So did
business owners in the segregated south have a right to deny service
to certain people? They don’t need a reason, right? After all, they’re
private companies! What exactly is the difference between denying
admission to a restaurant, or a store, or a neighborhood, on the basis
of skin color, or on the basis of political philosophy? Or even simply
wearing a MAGA hat? It’s a selective discrimination thing, you
wouldn’t understand.

It isn’t easy being a true supporter of free speech, in a society that
doesn’t value it. Where more people than not are fine with
stipulations on it. “The First Amendment doesn’t protect hate speech,”
their nauseating mouthpieces in our state controlled media will bleat,
as effortlessly as they will bleat “Oswald killed Kennedy” or
“Diversity is our Strength.” The word “hate” doesn’t appear anywhere
in the Bill of Rights, or the Constitution itself. But there is no one
there to counter them when they make these statements, which are
disinformation if anything is. I’ll be waiting for someone, perhaps a
member of the loyal “opposition,” to point that out. But fewer people
have probably read the Constitution than have read the Bible.

I thought the internet was beyond their control. They let us have
unfettered access to true diversity of thought for a few decades. But
the social media conglomerates gave them their opening. FDR “canceled”
the editors and radio commentators of his day. Now, the “Woke”
leftists can get big tech to deny access to crucial internet platforms
to those who write or say discouraging words. Many in the alt media
cheered the de-platforming of Alex Jones. YouTube and Facebook are
shells of their former selves. Many like me are “shadow banned.” They
restrict our access to a larger audience. That’s one way to control
the competition. FDR and Lincoln would have loved it. What they
ideally want is an FCC to control internet content. Millions of
Americans don’t believe in God. So they don’t value rights that the
Founders said come from God.

The Right, though victimized by politicized prosecutions in America
2.0, hardly believe in true free speech. Witness their reaction to the
mostly nonwhite students on college campuses, protesting Israel’s
brutal retaliation against the Palestinians. At Harvard, these
students were “doxxed,” just like so many right-wingers have been.
Their names were published, and powerful Jewish businessmen tried to
blacklist them from employment. Most conservatives, being Zionist
defenders of Israel, applauded this particular “canceling” on campus.
It was educational to watch the Ben Shapiros and Meghan Kellys of the
world display such obvious hypocrisy. Everyone seems fine with
suppressing some speech. Who supports all speech?

We are at war. I’m not referring to the continuous interventionism in
other, smaller sovereign nations, which is the foundation of our
disastrous “bipartisan” foreign policy. Our leaders are at odds with
the concept of free speech. They hate it more than they supposedly
hated any foreign bogeyman. I don’t know why they just don’t treat the
Bill of Rights like a troublesome Confederate memorial, and remove it
from the Constitution. All they’d have to do is declare it’s “racist,”
and the majority of White people would start cucking and jiving. If
sleep, and birds, and proper grammar, are “racist,” why not free
speech? If you don’t have free speech, you don’t have a free country.
No one to “hate us for our freedom.” Democracy isn’t threatened by any
speech.

But we are threatened by those who don’t believe in freedom of speech.

Maybe we can start up a new American Civil Liberties Union. One that
is, you know, actually concerned about the protection of civil
liberties. Civil liberties begins with free speech. If you can’t say
what you want, it’s obvious you can’t do what you want. The mass
arrests after the truly mostly peaceful January 6 protest demonstrated
that we don’t have the right to peacefully assemble, as is guaranteed
by the Bill of Rights. Well, some do. BLM, for instance. It’s not
about protest, or speech, itself. It’s about what the speakers and
protesters are speaking or protesting.

Abridged speech is not free speech. If you don’t support speech you
disagree with, you don’t support free speech. Some speech is not more
equal than others.