{"id":1449846,"date":"2024-01-10T04:40:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-10T09:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1449846"},"modified":"2024-01-10T04:40:00","modified_gmt":"2024-01-10T09:40:00","slug":"the-perpetual-war-on-free-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/the-perpetual-war-on-free-speech\/1449846\/","title":{"rendered":"The Perpetual War On Free Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Perpetual War On Free Speech<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Donald Jeffries via “I Protest” substack,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Founding Fathers made the Constitution palatable by including a Bill of Rights.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The First Amendment was always a huge concern with statists of every era.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Those who thirst for power, and will compromise themselves in order to attain it, have never looked favorably upon those critical of them.<\/strong><\/p>\n

John Adams,<\/strong> the second president of the United States, passed the Alien and Sedition Acts for just this reason.<\/p>\n

He bristled at criticism.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, Thomas Jefferson <\/strong>succeeded him in office and scrapped this tyrannical concept.<\/p>\n

But the notion reared itself again in 1860, with the election of Abraham Lincoln.<\/strong> Adams was a civil libertarian compared to Lincoln. \u201cHonest\u201d Abe didn\u2019t pass any new Alien and Sedition Acts; he just shut down over two hundred newspapers that opposed any of his unconstitutional actions.<\/p>\n

Woodrow Wilson<\/strong> revived these odious acts during World War I. Eugene Debs and others were imprisoned for opposing the pointless shedding of blood, and America\u2019s participation in it. The Supreme Court, in perhaps its worst ruling ever, upheld Wilson\u2019s right to jail antiwar protesters. Great \u201cliberal\u201d justice Oliver Wendell Holmes coined the phrase \u201cyelling fire in a crowded theater\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

Franklin Roosevelt <\/strong>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 \u201ccontroversial issues.\u201d Vulgarity and \u201cextremist\u201d 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 \u201cliberal\u201d Supreme Court justice and arbitrarily awarded the 1948 Senate election to \u201cLandslide\u201d Lyndon Johnson, who was the first to court the dead vote.<\/p>\n

The Black Committee and other inquiries attempted to severely curtail the ability of journalists to criticize the New Deal. <\/strong>FDR himself is documented to have personally tried to ruin the careers of his political opponents. And all of this was years\u00a0before\u00a0<\/em>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.<\/p>\n

We must consider today\u2019s \u201cWoke\u201d authoritarianism in its historical context. The precedents are all there. <\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Cancel culture was born when Lincoln \u201ccanceled\u201d his critics in the press, and threw thousands of uncharged citizens into makeshift prisons.<\/strong> Wilson followed this precedent, but FDR expanded it into a totalitarian art form. His administration \u201ccanceled\u201d 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

The Social Justice Warriors might look different.<\/strong> Tattooed. Pink or purple hair. Transitioned into countless new \u201cgenders.\u201d Utterly addicted to name-calling. But they are the logical descendants of those who supported the Alien and Sedition Acts. <\/strong>Who threw citizens into jail that objected to our involvement in faraway wars. Who wanted to use the IRS, and the FBI, to \u201ccancel\u201d 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 \u201cCopperheads\u201d during the Civil War, and anarchists and \u201cReds\u201d during World War I, and \u201cNazi sympathizers\u201d during World War II.<\/p>\n

The crazed adherents of Identity Politics are hardly the first to want to silence their critics. <\/strong>Get them fired from their job, and rendered unemployable. And increasingly, prosecuted for their Thought Crimes. Those opposing Lincoln\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

How many of us truly believe in free speech? Almost everyone has a big \u201cbut,\u201d to quote the late Pee Wee Herman. Sure, I\u2019m for free speech but\u2026not for \u201cHolocaust denial.\u201d Disbelievers in the Apollo moon landings. Or their even more extreme bedfellows, the flat earthers. Those who think mass shootings were a hoax, or \u201cfake news.\u201d White people outraged by the Great Replacement. Just referring to the Great Replacement can get you canceled, unless you\u2019re 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 \u201cfree speech.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The symbolic prosecutions, these figurative \u201cfire in a crowded theater\u201d 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 \u201cPizzagate.\u201d 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\u2019s brother? Now Rudy Giuliani owes almost $150 million to two particular \u201coffended\u201d election poll workers?<\/p>\n

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\u2019s a slippery slope, and obviously applied in a wildly unfair manner. There\u2019s 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\u2019s Trump, not because it isn\u2019t slander. Obama, Clinton, Biden- they\u2019d all be treated much more respectfully by this hopelessly corrupt, Tik Tok \u201cjustice\u201d system of ours. Some slander is more equal than others.<\/p>\n

But slander and libel have been supplanted now by the Orwellian term \u201chate speech.\u201d <\/strong>Which has been accepted by almost everyone, even though the very term immediately destroys any concept of free speech. And now \u201cdisinformation\u201d and \u201cmisinformation,\u201d entirely subjective terms (like \u201chate speech\u201d), are being bandied about as potential \u201ccrimes.\u201d This is essentially what Jones and Trump are being prosecuted for; the notion that they are misleading others with speech that the State finds \u201coffensive,\u201d or \u201cracist,\u201d or \u201cdisinformation\/misinformation.\u201d Trump is being tried in court for contesting the results of an election. And for exaggerating the value of his assets. That doesn\u2019t seem to worry most Americans. They need to remember that whole, \u201cFirst they came for the Communists\u201d thing. Don\u2019t think they won\u2019t come after you.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.\u00a0Every\u00a0<\/em>opinion is protected under the First Amendment. Well, theoretically. If you say something \u201coffensive\u201d to any of the groups and individuals that are allowed to be perpetually \u201coffended,\u201d then you are now subject to a politicized prosecution. No one should want to go anywhere near one of our Orwellian courtrooms. They\u2019re nearly as dangerous as hospitals. Thought Criminals, by definition, are not being pursued for their actions. They aren\u2019t robbers. Or rapists. Or murderers. It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Today, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube ban, suspend and \u201ccancel\u201d those users who have unwelcome views. First Amendment be damned. <\/strong>As the \u201cconservative\u201d defenders of the cancel culture remind us, \u201cThey\u2019re private companies! They have a right to ban people!\u201d 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\u2019t need a reason, right? After all, they\u2019re 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\u2019s a selective discrimination thing, you wouldn\u2019t understand.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t easy being a true supporter of free speech, in a society that doesn\u2019t value it. Where more people than not are fine with stipulations on it. \u201cThe First Amendment doesn\u2019t protect hate speech,\u201d their nauseating mouthpieces in our state controlled media will bleat,<\/strong> as effortlessly as they will bleat \u201cOswald killed Kennedy\u201d or \u201cDiversity is our Strength.\u201d The word \u201chate\u201d doesn\u2019t 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\u2019ll be waiting for someone, perhaps a member of the loyal \u201copposition,\u201d to point that out. But fewer people have probably read the Constitution than have read the Bible.<\/p>\n

I thought the internet was beyond their control.<\/strong> They let us have unfettered access to true diversity of thought for a few decades. But the social media conglomerates gave them their opening. <\/strong>FDR \u201ccanceled\u201d the editors and radio commentators of his day. Now, the \u201cWoke\u201d 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 \u201cshadow banned.\u201d They restrict our access to a larger audience. That\u2019s 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\u2019t believe in God. So they don\u2019t value rights that the Founders said come from God.<\/p>\n

The Right, though victimized by politicized prosecutions in America 2.0, hardly believe in true free speech. <\/strong>Witness their reaction to the mostly nonwhite students on college campuses, protesting Israel\u2019s brutal retaliation against the Palestinians. At Harvard, these students were \u201cdoxxed,\u201d 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 \u201ccanceling\u201d 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\u00a0some\u00a0<\/em>speech. Who supports all speech?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We are at war. I\u2019m not referring to the continuous interventionism in other, smaller sovereign nations, which is the foundation of our disastrous \u201cbipartisan\u201d foreign policy. Our leaders are at odds with the concept of free speech. They hate it more than they supposedly hated any foreign bogeyman.<\/strong> I don\u2019t know why they just don\u2019t treat the Bill of Rights like a troublesome Confederate memorial, and remove it from the Constitution. All they\u2019d have to do is declare it\u2019s \u201cracist,\u201d and the majority of White people would start cucking and jiving.<\/strong> If sleep, and birds, and proper grammar, are \u201cracist,\u201d why not free speech? If you don\u2019t have free speech, you don\u2019t have a free country. No one to \u201chate us for our freedom.\u201d Democracy isn\u2019t threatened by\u00a0any\u00a0<\/em>speech.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0we\u00a0<\/em>are threatened by those who don\u2019t believe in freedom of speech.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Maybe we can start up a new American Civil Liberties Union. One that is, you know, actually concerned about the protection of civil liberties. <\/strong>Civil liberties begins with free speech. If you can\u2019t say what you want, it\u2019s obvious you can\u2019t\u00a0do\u00a0<\/em>what you want. The mass arrests after the truly mostly peaceful January 6 protest demonstrated that we don\u2019t have the right to peacefully assemble, as is guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. Well, some do. BLM, for instance. It\u2019s not about protest, or speech, itself. It\u2019s about what the speakers and protesters are speaking or protesting.<\/p>\n

Abridged speech is not free speech. If you don\u2019t support speech you disagree with, you don\u2019t support free speech. Some speech is not more equal than others.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nTue, 01\/09\/2024 – 23:40<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/political\/perpetual-war-free-speech<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

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