“The government must be allowed to seek to persuade people of its views”
In response to efforts to stop the government from censoring the speech of people it opposes, the censors keep arguing that they have the free speech right to censor. Here’s how I originally described it.
When Judge Terry Doughty issued an injunction in Missouri v. Biden that banned the government from “specifically flagging content or posts on social-media platforms and/or forwarding such to social-media companies urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner for removal, deletion, suppression”, all hell broke loose.
Laurence Tribe, a lefty constitutional law professor, co-authored an op-ed complaining that the injunction “seems to maintain that the government cannot even politely ask companies not to publish verifiable misinformation.”
“The First Amendment certainly doesn’t prevent them from merely asking,” Tribe contends, and preventing the government from doing so “would turn the Constitution’s protection of free expression in an open society into an obstacle course for some of the most valuable exchanges of information and ideas we can imagine.” The most valuable exchanges of ideas apparently involve asking social media monopolies to take down content mocking the president.
The Biden administration has doubled down on Tribe’s argument that it has the right to “persuade” companies to censor.
In a filing Tuesday evening with the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the administration argued that a lower court judge’s July 4 decision was overly broad and would hurt the government’s ability to fight misinformation on platforms in a crisis.
“The government cannot punish people for expressing different views,” lawyers for U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration wrote. “But there is a categorical, well-settled distinction between persuasion and coercion. The government must be allowed to seek to persuade people of its views, even where those views are the subject of controversy.”
If the government wants to persuade people of anything, it should speak to them. Talking behind their backs to monopolies with vast censorship powers and then ‘persuading’ them to use those powers to censor its opponents is a violation of the First Amendment.
Persuasion is Biden giving a speech. Coercion is Biden officials telling companies what materials should be taken down. However it’s worded, it amounts to the government coordinating on removing speech against the will of the speaker.
somehistory says
It was long a practice that the government would have PSA’s and advise people of what the government thought best. Such as the Surgeon General’s warnings about tobacco.
Now the government uses speeches to *threaten* us…such as a little rifle or handgun is not enough against biden’s military airpower.
The administration creeps say they can’t punish people for a different view…and yet, that is exactly what they are doing. for one example
Lee Greenwood wrote:
“I myself was “canceled” from the National Endowment of the Arts by President Joe Biden just one year into his administration. A curt letter was sent to me, and no explanation was given. Oddly enough, I had served presidents on both sides for over a decade – first appointed to the NEA by President George W. Bush, then served 8 years under President Barack Obama, and 4 years under President Donald Trump before receiving the news I was being terminated. I presume the reason I was canceled is due to my song “God Bless the USA” being played at former President Donald Trump’s rallies and my refusal to “demand” he stop using it, as some critics have suggested I do.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/cancel-culture-mob-attacked-jason-aldean-they-came-for-god-bless-the-usa-but-they-can-t-cancel-all-of-us/ar-AA1ey4PS?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=083391de849f481ab4151f003fd2c7d0&ei=10
࿗Infidel࿘ says
I’d really like some future entity to censor the Dems! I know, I know, it violates the First Amendment, so maybe not the government, but I’d like other platforms to censor them. It’ll be fun to watch them scream bloody murder, even while they continue on their everlasting jihad to censor the rest of us
Wellington says
In recent years no entity is a spreader of more misinformation than the government. Look at the entire Covid fiasco and how it was handled by governmental authorities from the federal level the whole way down to the most local governmental levels. Biden’s utterly despicable speech last September 1st in Philadelphia wherein he demonized and lied about MAGA Republicans is yet another example of massive misinformation. Yet a third example is how the FBI pushed the fake Steele Dossier (which it knew was fake) in order to get FISA warrants and which led to the farcical Mueller investigation. And let’s not forget government officials aplenty, some 51, who told us that the Hunter Biden laptop story was “Russian disinformation.” Many more examples could be provided of government lying, yet another is the way the Biden Administration keeps telling us the southern border is secure.
Government should clean up its own act (it won’t as long as the decrepit Biden Administration remains in power) before lecturing others about where the truth resides. What a cruel and ominous joke American government has become. It is sickening and reeks of hypocrisy and it is destroying America from within.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
I used to trust some experts – particularly the ones in fields that I am weak in, and biology/medicine is tops among them. But after seeing recently how the CDC announced that men can “chestfeed” their babies, I have lost trust, even though it’s still true that I know next to squat about medicine. It is depressing to have nobody one can trust on a particular subject
James Lincoln says
Infidel,
As a physician, board certified in two specialties with an MPH, I also feel your same frustration.
Factual evidence-based information on nonpolitical medical topics such as bronchitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, glaucoma, etc., has not been affected.
What has been greatly affected are topics that have some kind of political slant:
Topics like Covid prevention, diagnosis and treatment, gender dysphoria / gender affirming care, abortion, etc., have been greatly affected. I can still find the truth about topics such as these, but I have to dig very deeply into sources that I trust.
And if the actual truth goes against the prevailing political narrative, physicians can become shunned, de-platformed, reported to their respective state medical boards,, etc.
Bottom line: factual evidence-based medicine – mainly topics with a political slant – has taken a huge hit in just the last five years.
Not sure where this is ultimately going, but it cannot continue on this glideslope
Mike says
Biden can not kill us all to shut us up
DazzleMe says
Mike -He will try, he wants control!
somehistory says
What about people such as this creepy male…who is stopping his actual threats?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/lifestyle-buzz/go-out-buy-a-gun-trans-activist-warns-women-who-try-to-stop-her-from-using-ladies-toilet-it-will-be-the-last-mistake-you-ever-make/ss-AA1eyqA5?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=be34baf0d6314647b2b576cb871b8fa8&ei=27
He posted the video on tiktok and threatened to kill anyone who “stands on a hill of righteousness and morality”
James Lincoln says
According to the feature article:
“the censors keep arguing that they have the free speech right to censor.”
So let me get this straight:
The US government maintains that the act of censorship is “free speech”.
1. Censoring is free speech.
2. Up is down.
3. It’s “1984” every year…
somehistory says
“evil for good, bitter for sweet, darkness for light.”
࿗Infidel࿘ says
In that case, everybody has the right to censor anybody else, & soon, as a nation, we’d all have to shut up!
Memo to the Dems: be careful what you wish for: you may get it!
somehistory says
The punishment and censoring are not just things in the U.S. A famous scientist doesn’t believe in the “climate change crisis.”
“After speaking out against this manufactured crisis, Dr. Clauser was denied his previously-approved speaking engagement at the International Monetary Fund (IMF).”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/nobel-prize-winning-scientist-gets-canceled-for-what-he-just-said-about-climate-change/ar-AA1eyC3S?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=df9d4a4936d443eb8bafea471bc00d89&ei=12
somehistory says
Will the doj do their job?
“Rand Paul files criminal referral to DOJ over Dr. Fauci’s gain-of-function claims”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/rand-paul-files-criminal-referral-to-doj-over-dr-fauci-s-gain-of-function-claims/ar-AA1ezfor?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=e4c888fe62e044a892177f026ed3a6b9&ei=20
Walter Sieruk says
…
George Washington .,rightly and wisely , had declared “If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”
Walter Sieruk says
If Joe Biden could be best compared to either tyrant , Adolf Hitler or Vladimir Lenin , the terrible reality is that Biden is very sinister and dangerous.
DazzleMe says
Walter, should he be allowed to stay he will have us in WW111.
Walter Sieruk says
Big Brother Biden “ is a villain and traitor to America and the American people. So much so, let us not be naïve about him, that if possible he would inflect upon American and Americans a socialist /Marxist tyranny if he could.
As the type of tyrannical government as in, the classic novel 1984 by George Orwell that was later made into a movie. In which , is headed by “Big Brother,” who issued a new speak dictionary with taught “Peace is war” and “Love is hate” and “Freedom is slavery” and that the State headed by Big Brother declared that if it says “2+2 = 5 then it is 5.”
Likewise, Big Brother Biden says that “Inflation is strength.”
Likewise, this is the same basic idea as Joe Biden “Big Brother” calling concerned parents and American patriots “Domestic dissidents” and even “domestic terrorists.”
As is the calling of brutal cruel and even murderous thugs in uniform by the unfitting title of “Capital police.”
To add to this folly the Patriot pro – Trump rally in Washington DC on January 6th what is now very inappropriately called an “insurrection.”
As the news commentator on Fox news, rightly, said, “That was not an Insurrection”
The mayhem that started was because of instigated by Antifa infiltrators and even the politically correct corrupted FBI. Likewise the real patriots at that rally are, By Biden leftist new speak are called “domestic terrorist.”
Many on them with being without being officially charged are still languishing in Federal prison and treated terribly under Biden , Big Brother , is doing his upmost , by abusing his presidential position and cover up such horrendous Constitutional human rights violations of those American citizens.
As the awfully treated character, Winston,, in the novel and movie when asked how he “feels about Big Brother ?’ Winston very understandably replied, “I hate him”
Likewise “Big Brother Biden” is responsible for wrecking America and depriving Conservatives of their basic civil and human rights , that Big Brother siting in the White House might not be worth the energy to hate, he surely deserves no respect and does deserve , by all informed Americans a strong feeling of contempt.
Walter Sieruk says
It’s completely unconscionable and totally terrible, those peaceful, non-violent pro-Trump patriots who were unjustly and falsely arrested on January 6th 2021 at Washington DC and then became and still are political prisoners under the Biden regime are treated much worse than those dangerous violent bloodthirsty Jihadists that are held at Gitmo.
This is awful wrong and outrageous.
With that leftist Biden regime having so much power in the US government is a situation is horrendous.
The actual year is 2023 but in spirit it’s “1984.”
gravenimage says
Yes–the only one killed was an unarmed woman protester.
somehistory says
A second unarmed woman protester was beaten to death by a female cop at that protest outside the building, on the steps, while some tried to save her and were pushed back.
Two women, one forgotten by most people; and her name hardly mentioned….if at all. I cannot recall that II read it.
Walter Sieruk says
Joe Biden among the many terrible things about him one of his specific awful negative characters flaws that he’s Machiavellian tyrant and not a genuine, real US President.
Proof enough of this claim is his political prisoners who had been so very unjustly and falsely arrested at Washington DC on January 6, 2021 in that unconscionable and despicable leftist schemed set up.
Those American patriots who are now languishing in the Biden gulag who are his political prisoners are kept in solitary confinement 23 out of 24 hours a day in dark moldy cells ,with no working plumbing therefore they have only useless dirty toilets to use.
Given little food to eat and what they are given is of rancid quality, denied proper medical care and brutally beaten by the cruel vicious leftist guards.
They are denied their basic human and US Constitutional rights.
The murderous jihadists held at Gitmo bay are treated far better than those non-violent American patriots’ prisoners of the Biden regime are treated, a better word, would be mistreated.
Likewise, Biden has even sent the socialist /Marxist corrupted and infiltrated FBI track down and harass law abiding United States Citizens who attended the patriot rally and stayed outside ,meaning they hadn’t even entered the Capital building.
For Biden has shown his true colors as a Machiavellian dictator by sending the American public a silent message which is “Don’t oppose me in any way or suffer terribly severe consequences.
As Nicolo Machiavelli had written in his book The Prince if a question is asked is it better for a ruler to be loved or feared ?, the answer is it’s better that he is feared.”
Joe Biden is a Machiavellian villain as observed by his tyrannical prison and harassment methods to silence his political opponents by government duress intimidation coercion.
Truly, Biden is a fiendish Machiavellian despot.