The First Amendment is under savage attack from marquee Democrats, including Vice President Kamala Harris, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), among others. Who will stand up to this oppressive push?
With apologies to Obi-Wan, it feels as if Elon Musk is our only hope. Appearing onstage with former President Donald Trump on Saturday in Butler County, Pennsylvania, Musk told the audience:
“If people don’t know what’s going on, if they don’t know the truth, how can you make an informed vote? You must have free speech in order to have democracy. That’s why it’s the First Amendment. And the Second Amendment [the right to bear arms] is there to ensure that we have the First Amendment.”
And the crowd roared.
The zeal of the convert. Musk acquired Twitter two years ago for $44 billion and personally has lost close to $20 billion on it; he did this for free speech.
Only 60% know that even hate speech has First Amendment protection, the Freedom Forum Foundation says. Some 36% say preventing hate speech supersedes preserving free speech, 25% say it should be outlawed, and 37% are neutral on this idea. Anti-free-speech views are even stronger among the young.
In the vice presidential debate last Tuesday, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) made a fervent defense of free speech, telling Walz:
“You guys attack us for not believing in democracy. The most sacred right under the United States democracy is the First Amendment. You yourself have said there’s no First Amendment right to misinformation. Kamala Harris wants to use the power of government and Big Tech to silence people from speaking their minds. That is a threat to democracy that will long outlive this present political moment.”
Walz responded, “You can’t yell fire in a crowded theater. That’s the test, that’s the Supreme Court test.” Actually, you can. That old line, laid down in 1919 by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, was abandoned by the high court long ago.
Vance for the win: “You guys wanted to kick people off of Facebook for saying that toddlers shouldn’t wear a mask. That’s not ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater, that is criticizing the policies of the government, which is the right of every American.”
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, never mind her own role in the Russiagate hoax, told MSNBC last month that “there are Americans who are engaged in this kind of propaganda, and whether they should be civilly or even in some cases criminally charged is something that would be a better deterrence.” Last Friday, speaking on CNN, she said U.S. law should be altered to hold platforms responsible for the content posted by others.
“If they don’t moderate and monitor the content, we lose total control,” Clinton said. Government holds zero control over almost all content.
Fellow former Secretary of State John Kerry, at a World Economic Forum gathering in New York City late last month, said that in combatting a source of disinformation, “Our First Amendment stands as a major block to the ability to be able to just hammer it out of existence. So what we need is to win the ground, win the right to govern by, hopefully … by winning enough votes that you’re freer to be able to implement change.”
Ocasio-Cortez recently posted a video on X, saying, “We’re going to have to figure out how we rein in our media environment so that you can’t just spew disinformation and misinformation. It’s one thing to have differing opinions, but it’s another thing entirely to just say things that are false, and so that’s something that we’re looking into.”
Actually, both things are covered by the First Amendment. Deal with it.
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Oddly, the media, once self-serving champions of free speech, are fine with this. In the New York Times a few weeks ago, an op-ed carried the headline: “The Constitution is Sacred. Is It Also Dangerous?” And in the New Yorker: “Is It Time to Torch the Constitution?”
It is as if all these Demwits got the same memo at the same time. This assault on our most foundational freedom feels like an orchestrated campaign to silence the opposition, once and for all. We must stand up and fight back; we must make ourselves heard. Exercise your freedom of speech, and do it daily.
Dennis Kneale is a media strategist and host of the podcast What’s Bugging Me on Ricochet. His book, The Leadership Genius of Elon Musk, will be published in January by HarperCollins.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
