Barely-there Joe Biden and his vindictive Attorney General Merrick Garland haven’t weaponized the justice system to persecute conservatives, freedom-lovers, Christians, Trump, and his voters; they have implemented “supportive framework conditions” that helpfully disarm, censor, and imprison any American who resists the Deep State. Yes siree, governing is easy when the Ethics Council condones property confiscation, coercion, and controlled speech!
Globalism Thrives on Crisis
Globalists know that nothing drives public policy so much as the fear of impending death. Nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles may have scared the snot out of anyone living through the Cold War, but they were (and still are) the gifts that keep on giving for the military-industrial complex and national security surveillance State. The more catastrophic the consequences of any perceived threat, the more likely that otherwise skeptical human beings will hand over their freedoms in exchange for the elusive promise of personal security. Political systems specialize in exploiting this “Save Me!” impulse for maximum leverage. “Looming apocalypse” is Big Government’s best salesman every year.
Ghost stories about “global warming” work the same way. If voters can be convinced that their economic freedom is leading to humanity’s extinction, then they will accept costly regulations and “green energy”-induced inflation. If they can be brainwashed into believing that hydrocarbon energy is evil, then they will actively protest for a future with intermittent yet expensive electric power. If they can be deluded into thinking that only politicians and central bankers can save the planet, then they will embrace communism in order to fight “climate change.” Given the fact that Earth’s climate is always naturally changing — whether humans are alive to notice or not — governments’ success in conditioning gullible people to fear every change in the weather has been remarkably effective in creating voluntary slaves.
It’s also no surprise that UN Secretary-General António Guterres and other doomsayer charlatans are now hyperventilating about “global boiling.” Generations who were told they would die decades ago have learned to discount apocalyptic warnings. Human experience creates a natural immunity to bullsh*t. Conversely, totalitarianism succeeds only when society’s level of anxiety can be ratcheted up well above eleventy! That’s why every iteration of the so-called “climate emergency” must sound more scary than the last. It’s also why each new season of “Climate Change: the Coming Armageddon” targets children who have never seen old episodes of the boring series. It may be the longest running television program of all time, but ignorant youths — who cannot imagine that their governments would ever lie to them — fall for the dying planet horror show every time.
This is the kind of madness that “green” false prophets perpetrate upon unsuspecting peoples — stoking irrational fears in a misanthropic and Machiavellian quest for raw power. Twentieth-century totalitarians also came to power by spreading madness and inflaming irrational fears. Whereas Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, and Mao obsessed over foreign ideas, capitalist leanings, religious beliefs, and racial impurities, today’s globalists obsess over hydrocarbons, “white supremacy,” and “hate” speech. Future generations will see no distinction. Just like the monsters of the past, today’s Deep State agents seize power by manufacturing emergencies. Dictators always arrive on triumphal chariots that run on lies.
The German Deep State is similar to the American Deep State — in that both love to lecture the world about “democracy” and “freedom” while censoring conservatives’ speech, criminalizing political dissent, spewing propaganda, and manipulating elections. Both also have a penchant for creating committees and agencies that engage in behaviors they pretend to police — disinformation boards that spread lies, humanitarian aid groups that foment war, pro-democracy coalitions that seek to ban political groups and public debate. For the German and American Deep States, language is a weapon for deceiving the people.
In one particularly laughable example, German law mandates the operation of an Ethics Council — an independent body of “experts” — that seems dedicated to finding ways to justify the government’s unethical behaviors. How do you convince people to accept unscientific lockdowns and experimental “vaccines”? Tell them that a nonpartisan crew of credentialed “experts” has checked for ethical landmines and determined that everything’s hunky-dory. A few weeks ago, the morality Star Chamber published an opinion about “Climate Justice” that lays the groundwork for a future when all German activity will be strictly monitored for carbon-rationing compliance: “On grounds of justice, it can be morally required to contribute to measures to tackle climate change. If one’s own exercise of freedom interferes in an unjust manner with the freedom and welfare of others or of future generations, for example through consumption that is harmful to the climate, the authorities may intervene with restrictions of freedom.”
As with all Deep State initiatives that say one thing while doing its opposite, Germany’s Ethics Council promises the public that it is wholly opposed to suspending “democratic freedoms” but encourages the government to create “supportive framework conditions” — including carbon taxes, personal emissions limits, product bans, and “compensatory payments” to “ongoing neo-colonial dependencies” — that will nudge Germans to do the right thing. Ahh, nothing says freedom like new taxes, forced redistribution of wealth, regulatory kicks to the groin, financial blackmail, and total personal surveillance! Just because the government holds a gun to the back of your head while you make decisions doesn’t mean you are any less free — the unethical Ethics Council says so!
There’s something so spectacularly German about the morality police redefining totalitarianism as merely “supportive framework conditions.” Who could argue against a “supportive framework”? It’s the kind of linguistic chicanery that other Western nations will readily mimic. Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau didn’t confiscate the bank accounts of Freedom Convoy protesters in order to quell dissent and chill free speech; he was merely creating “supportive framework conditions” for their abject submission. Australia and New Zealand didn’t set up Stasi roadblocks, checkpoints, and involuntary detainment camps during the Great COVID Hoax; they simply constructed a “supportive framework” for a functioning police State. Barely-there Joe Biden and his vindictive Attorney General Merrick Garland haven’t weaponized the justice system to persecute conservatives, freedom-lovers, Christians, Trump, and his voters; they have implemented “supportive framework conditions” that helpfully disarm, censor, and imprison any American who resists the Deep State. Yes siree, governing is easy when the Ethics Council condones property confiscation, coercion, and controlled speech!
At the end of the day, globalism thrives on crisis. It is a political philosophy in perpetual search of apocalyptic threats that can be used as expedient pretexts for justifying why a small cabal of financial titans and global elites should exercise total control over local communities. Crisis is its brand, its currency, and its product. For globalism to persist, no crisis can ever be solved unless a new one is on its way.
The inherently destructive nature of globalism has left the public in a permanent state of anticipatory dread. Roughly two-thirds of Americans not only expect a third world war to break out within the next decade but also believe nuclear conflagration is inevitable. The idea that the American Deep State will instigate some kind of “false flag” incident prior to the 2024 election is discussed as broadly among well-known public figures as it is among ordinary commenters online. Catherine Herridge, Ron Paul, Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, and General Mike Flynn have all expressed concern that an unforeseen “Black Swan” event will occur before the end of the year. Flynn says forthrightly that globalists will conclude, “Look, there’s no way in the world that [Biden] can win a legitimate, fair election, so let’s not have one.” And “in order to not have one,” the Deep State will “create the conditions” to produce that “outcome.”
That nuclear war, election rigging, and “Black Swan” disasters are spoken of so matter-of-factly reflects an almost fatalistic consensus that everything will soon fall apart. In other words, globalism has largely succeeded in cultivating a pervasive expectation of our impending social death. That’s an astonishing indictment of the path Western leaders have forged over the last century. As they have burned the world to the ground, their legacy is general misery. For free and happy people to live, globalism must surely die.
Image via Picryl.
JOE BIDEN'S GESTOPO MAN IS GAMER LAWYER MERRICK GARLAND WHO IS IN CHARAGE OF PUSHING THE BIDEN FASCIST REGIME AND PURSUNG BIDEN'S MANY POLITICAL AND NON-POLITICAL ENEMIES - THINK PRO-LIFERS!
It certainly worked for Biden in 2020, and his Attorney General, Merrick Garland, arguably the most corrupt and weaponized in history—that’s saying something with Obama’s “wingman,” Eric Holder in the running—is working hard to keep that organization up and running:
The U.S. government document is entitled “The Attorney General’s Guidelines on Federal Bureau of Investigation Undercover Operations.”
The FBI's Otherwise Illegal Activity
How deeply is law enforcement interfering in the daily lives of American citizens?
For example, it was recently reported that the FBI labeled Americans who “support the biological basis for sex and gender distinction as potential domestic terrorists.”
Then what? What does the FBI, and those who cooperate with the FBI, do to such Americans?
Does the FBI label FBI employees who support biology as potential terrorists? Or, is the FBI saying that no FBI employees support the biological basis for sex and gender distinction?
The FBI and local police keep their specific actions, methods, and technologies mostly secret; thus, one cannot say with certainty what occurs after the FBI labels a person as a potential domestic terrorist.
Americans might study the history of the FBI and local police cooperating with the FBI for hints about what might occur after being labeled as a potential domestic terrorist. One might closely study the “Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, 1975-76.” The secret actions of the FBI and police cooperating with the FBI were summarized as follows:
...intelligence activity in the past decades has, all too often, exceeded the restraints on the exercise of governmental power which are imposed by our country's Constitution, laws, and traditions […]
Intelligence activity […] is generally covert. It is concealed from its victims and is seldom described in statutes or explicit executive orders. The victim may never suspect that his misfortunes are the intended result of activities undertaken by his government, and accordingly may have no opportunity to challenge the actions taken against him. (Pages 2-3)
Government employees have harmed Americans – caused them “misfortunes” – in the past. American citizens did not even know such harm was intentionally done to them, nor did they know it was government employees who secretly harmed them. Would current government employees do such things?
Now, if one is familiar with the above Senate Committee from the 1970s, one might respond by saying something like, “yeah, but the FBI was going after gangsters, druggies, commies, and groups who were racist against Caucasians. They were going after some murderers. I’m not in any of those groups, I just believe a man is a man and want to watch basketball!”
It is not clear how to convince such people other than by trying to argue from common sense.
There is the phenomenon of government officials, particularly those in fear of losing their ability to control others, creating a government entity or technology initially described as being good – say, to protect the citizens from terrorists, communists, gangsters, etc.
The government entity employs millions of people, again attempting to convince the citizens that the secret policing entity or technology is a great thing.
After the technology or government entity is fully operational and widespread, and after millions of people are fully dependent on government welfare disguised as government employment in the secret policing entity, then those few people (who could be in another country) in charge of the government then are able to control the masses.
Again, it is common sense: some government officials try to convince citizens something is good (surveillance technologies, secret police entity, etc.) and then use it to control and harm the citizens.
While the specific actions and technologies of the FBI and other secretly operating entities are mostly not publicized, there is one U.S. government document which suggests possible actions of the FBI.
The U.S. government document is entitled “The Attorney General’s Guidelines on Federal Bureau of Investigation Undercover Operations.”
Those guidelines importantly mention that FBI operations might involve local police or “local law enforcement agency working under the direction and control of the FBI.”
Additionally, the guidelines mention that the FBI is apparently allowed to secretly own and operate businesses and corporations, make “untrue representations” of other peoples’ actions, and engage “in activity having a significant effect on or constituting a significant intrusion into the legitimate operation of a Federal, state, or local governmental entity.”
Does the FBI “engage in activity having a significant effect on” juries, U.S. Congress, the presidency, or the Supreme Court? Does the FBI engage “in activity having a significant effect on or constituting a significant intrusion into the legitimate” national and local elections?
The FBI guidelines apparently also suggest employees and cooperators might “supply falsely sworn testimony or false documentation in any legal or administrative proceeding” and the FBI and others might commit “otherwise illegal activity,” apparently including “violence or physical injury to individuals or a significant risk of financial loss.”
Those guidelines on FBI operations seem to imply that there are many people in cities throughout America employed as secret government operatives who present themselves as everyday citizens but might actually be participating in schemes or “mitigating opportunities.”
Finally, another potential method publicized by the FBI and others is establishing rapport, which means friendly relationship enabling communication, with people they target. FBI wrote that “Building rapport, perhaps, is the most important technique that investigators use,” and government agencies require a “staff of professional officers skilled as conversationalists and rapport developers.”
If there is a national secret police entity in America, those employees might be informed that some of the easiest people for the FBI or local secret police to establish rapport with and thus go after, deceive, and “mitigate” are their own employees or others who cooperate in secret operations, while the employees or cooperators think they are going after someone else. If your boss and co-workers require you to lie to other people, then your boss and co-workers might also lie to you.
Either way, it seems reasonable to suggest that most Americans should be taught and thoroughly study the guidelines on FBI undercover operations.
Image: Federal Bureau of Investigation, via Flickr // PDM 1.0 DEED | public domain
Obviously, Garland and his cronies know exactly what they’re doing. They’re enabling vote fraud, surely to ensure illegal immigrants can vote in the millions to put over the electoral finish line a man most legal Americans know is demented. In the process, they’re insulting America’s poor and black citizens, branding them too stupid to obtain identification necessary for daily life. Reasonable people might call that racist.
It all starts at the top. Joe Biden has made a career out of using the government and the legal system to attack his political enemies. He has the backing of the Justice Department, the FBI, and the IRS. Trump supporters Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, Rick Gates, Roger Stone, and Peter Navarro have seen their civil rights disappear. The same goes for the January 6th defendants.
Destroying the American system of justice
Some days I think I must be dreaming. Two deranged “public servants” -- the vindictive New York State attorney general and a leftist judge with a bad haircut -- are being given free rein to subvert our justice system by placing titanic barriers against the Republican nominee’s ability to run for president. What is happening to our country and who will stop it?
How is it possible that someone with Trump’s extraordinary accomplishments can be brought down by two vile and inconsequential persons such as Letitia James and Arthur Engoron? Their lawsuit has the support of, and is the consequence of, the Democratic Party’s efforts to interfere with the 2024 presidential election.
To begin with, James’ fraud case against Trump is a farce. There is no crime and no victim. No one has been harmed. It is purely a weaponization of the legal system for political ends. As Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary has observed, what Trump is alleged to have done -- overvalue his real estate properties when applying for a bank loan -- is normal business practice all over the globe. The bank made money and is anxious to do business with him again.
Thanks to a publicity-hungry, overtly anti-Trump judge, James’ phony indictment has been backed up with an unheard-of $460-million judgment. And they want it now. No one has that kind of cash floating around. Unless he comes up with an impossible-to-obtain bond, Trump is precluded from his right to appeal.
Without waiting for the outcome of an appeal, James wants to seize Trump’s real estate holdings. Adding insult to injury, Judge Engoron has ordered a court to oversee the Trump organization for a minimum of three years. This is the Soviet-style textbook for “How to Take Down a Billionaire.”
If the Democrats can get away with this partisan assault on someone like Donald Trump, imagine what they will do to you and me in pursuit of their leftist policies. The American public is no longer protected by due process and the rule of law. The rule has just changed to, “Whatever the Democrats want.”
It all starts at the top. Joe Biden has made a career out of using the government and the legal system to attack his political enemies. He has the backing of the Justice Department, the FBI, and the IRS. Trump supporters Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, Rick Gates, Roger Stone, and Peter Navarro have seen their civil rights disappear. The same goes for the January 6th defendants.
There is a glimmer of hope. The James/Engoron anti-Trump judgment could be overturned by the New York State Appellate Division. It would be a massive miscarriage of justice if it is not overturned, but given the Democratic Party’s hold on New York judges and juries, the judgment may be upheld. Even if it is overturned, Trump will have been irreparably harmed by the seizure of his assets.
If the Democrats succeed in destroying Trump, the doors will be open to perverting the legal system as required for the leftist agenda of the Democratic Party. In short, we will have a one-party state and America’s justice system will be history.
Will anyone stop them? “The whole world is watching,” said Kevin O’Leary. “Where are the adults in this crazy narrative? We need an adult in the room. This is the United States of America under siege.”
Ed Brodow is a conservative political commentator and author of two No. 1 Amazon Best Sellers, AMERICA ON ITS KNEES: The Cost of Replacing Trump with Biden, and THE WAR ON WHITES: How Hating White People Became the New National Sport.
Image: Library of Congress
It certainly worked for Biden in 2020, and his Attorney General, Merrick Garland, arguably the most corrupt and weaponized in history—that’s saying something with Obama’s “wingman,” Eric Holder in the running—is working hard to keep that organization up and running:
The DOJ sued DISH network for $3.3 billion but dismissed the suit after its chair donated to Biden
Two sayings are pertinent to this essay. The first is that correlation does not imply causation. Just because two events seem connected doesn’t mean they are. The second is that timing is everything. Think about both as you consider the Department of Justice’s decision to dismiss a massive corporate fraud lawsuit a short time after the corporation’s founder made a sizable donation to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.
DISH Network is an American satellite network. In 2015, the DOJ sued DISH under the False Claims Act. The suit was based on Whistleblower Vermont National Telephone Company, Inc.’s allegation that DISH and its affiliates were allegedly using fraud to get small business discounts for wireless spectrum licenses. As recently as November 2023, a federal judge kept the case alive in the face of DISH’s motion for a judgment on the pleadings (i.e., DISH contended that the DOJ’s complaint contained within it the seeds of its own destruction).
On December 15, 2023, less than one month after the federal court refused to dismiss the DOJ’s suit, one of DISH’s founders, Charlie Ergen, along with his wife, Candy, donated a total of $113,200 to keep Biden in the White House…and, inevitably, to keep his currently constituted Department of Justice in power.
Image: A downed DISH receiver by frankieleon. CC BY 2.0.
On January 10, 2024, only three-and-a-half weeks after Ergen sent his money to Biden, and while the fraud suit was still pending, DISH received $50 million in taxpayer funds when the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration announced an $80 million round of five grants. The other four grantees divided the remaining $30 million in grant money.
A mere two days after the $50 million grant, the attorney for Vermont Telephone, which had triggered the DOJ’s initial action against DISH, complained that the DOJ was putting pressure on Vermont Telephone to enter into “an unethical settlement” or it would dismiss the suit:
The move to dismiss the case scrapped plans to depose the Ergens about their knowledge of the allegedly fraudulent scheme, prompting Vermont Telephone’s attorneys to accuse the Justice Department of political interference.
“[I]t appears that the effect — if not the purpose — of the DOJ’s rush to seek dismissal of this case is to protect Mr. Ergen from being questioned under oath,” Ross wrote in a Feb. 8 letter to the lead DOJ attorneys handling the case, according to a copy reviewed by The Post.
“We do not believe it is a coincidence that Mr. Ergen, his wife (who also is scheduled to be deposed next week), and DISH’s Political Action Committee collectively contributed in excess of $5 million to Democratic candidates and causes between 2008 and 2022,” he added.
“With the upcoming election, this case looks like just the latest example of the DOJ’s two-tiered justice system under which the well-heeled, politically connected are treated one way, while everyone else is treated differently.”
The last item in this chronology is that on March 8, the DOJ moved to dismiss the case. You can read more details about the whole case, from its inception to the motion to dismiss, in this New York Post article. Indeed, the article is worth reading as an expose about how corporate money and politics work in D.C., with most money flowing to Democrats but surprisingly large sums keeping individual Republicans afloat.
As I noted at the start of this post, just because there seems to be a connection between things, that doesn’t mean there is a connection. The chronology suggests that, once Ergen started throwing large sums of money at a sitting president whose re-election campaign is in trouble, that same president told his Department of Justice to lay off his good friend. It could just be, though, that the case has been kicking about for years so that the DOJ decided it was time to unload it because it was hogging resources without any discernable benefit to the American people.
But as always, timing is everything, and the appearance of impropriety can be just as powerful as actual impropriety. We’ve long known that Garland’s DOJ is driven by politics, not principle. Now, we have the strong suggestion that it can be bought, too.
Attorney General Garland promises election lawfare
Who can forget October of 2020, when Joe Biden committed a gaffe? He certainly does that more or less constantly, but this one was a classic, because a gaffe is properly defined as what happens when a politician accidently tells the truth:
‘We have put together, I think, the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics,’ Biden said in the video.
It certainly worked for Biden in 2020, and his Attorney General, Merrick Garland, arguably the most corrupt and weaponized in history—that’s saying something with Obama’s “wingman,” Eric Holder in the running—is working hard to keep that organization up and running:
Speaking [in March of 2024] to a predominantly African-American crowd at a Black Selma church service, [AG Merrick Garland] said:
The right to vote is still under attack, and that is why the Justice Department is fighting back. We are challenging efforts by states and jurisdictions who implement discriminatory, burdensome, and unnecessary restrictions on access to the ballot, including those related to mail-in voting, the use of drop boxes and voter ID requirements.
No, AG Garland, the right to vote is NOT under attack. Georgia, which passed its reform laws after the 2020 election and invited a boycott of woke companies, including Major League Baseball (which canceled the All-Star game in Atlanta), reported that more voters and more minority voters participated in the 2022 elections than at any time in Georgia history. Even Stacey Abrams, the losing candidate for governor in 2018, who never conceded her defeat and became a media darling, accepted that she lost her rematch against Brian Kemp.
How is it possible the chief law enforcement officer in America doesn’t know drop boxes, refusing to enforce ID laws and mail-in ballots are among the best methods of cheating? Or perhaps he does…
Is it possible AG Garland is unaware of the Supreme Court’s 2008 Crawford .v Marion County Election Board decision? NBC was aware, and disappointed:
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that states can require voters to produce photo identification without violating their constitutional rights, validating Republican-inspired voter ID laws. [skip]
The law "is amply justified by the valid interest in protecting 'the integrity and reliability of the electoral process,'" Justice John Paul Stevens said in an opinion that was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy.
Is it possible AG Garland, and the entire DOJ is unable to use Internet search engines, like the engine that provided the URLs I’ve embedded? Or is it more likely they’re simply ignoring the Supreme Court, which they’ve proved more than willing to do? Not every state has voter ID laws. Is Garland worried there aren’t enough states without them to provide the necessary margin of voter fraud for 2024?
Beyond experience and common, adult, sense, there is substantial evidence drop boxes and mail-on balloting are primary sources of virtually untraceable vote fraud. How can it be Garland and the DOJ Voting Rights Section don’t know that? And if that’s so, if they really are that incompetent, that unaware of human and political nature, how is it there are apparently no other attorneys in the entire DOJ who have not set them straight?
Obviously, Garland and his cronies know exactly what they’re doing. They’re enabling vote fraud, surely to ensure illegal immigrants can vote in the millions to put over the electoral finish line a man most legal Americans know is demented. In the process, they’re insulting America’s poor and black citizens, branding them too stupid to obtain identification necessary for daily life. Reasonable people might call that racist.
Reasonable people might also think our republic is better off if people who can’t get identification, and can’t be bothered to get to the polls on election day, don’t vote. Obviously, people who have legitimate reasons for being unable to be present on election day, like our military serving overseas and the handicapped, must be allowed absentee ballots, but with effective safeguards and verification.
Using taxpayer resources and the power of the federal government to violate Supreme Court decisions and enable vote fraud on a never before imagined scale is among the most un-American, anti-republican acts of a thoroughly corrupt administration. Reasonable people might call that tyrannical. And they’d be right, and consistent. They’re absolutely perpetuating “the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics.”
That’s great for “our democracy—a permanent, one-party, Democrat/socialist/communist state, but terrible for our constitutional, representative republic. I wonder if Garland has heard about that?
Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.
Graphic: X screenshot
Ketanji Brown Jackson is a fascist who should be removed from the Court
Ketanji Brown Jackson, is concerned the First Amendment is “hamstringing the government.”
That’s a 5-alarm fire of a pull-quote from a sitting Supreme Court justice, and she should absolutely be impeached and removed from the Court over it. I’m as serious as a heart attack here. Nearly every sentence of this single thought of hers adds up to textbook fascism, (a hybrid economic system in which the private economy exists but under strict state regulations, and must give way to the national interest, which is whatever the government says it is.) So, let’s go. First the full quote, directly from the SCOTUS transcript, followed by seven handpicked doozies worth analyzing:
JUSTICE JACKSON: So my biggest concern is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government in significant ways in the most important time periods. I mean, what would -- what would you have the government do? I’ve heard you say a couple times that the government can post its own speech, but in my hypothetical, you know, kids, this is not safe, don’t do it, is not going to get it done. And so I guess some might say that the government actually has a duty to take steps to protect the citizens of this country, and you seem to be suggesting that that duty cannot manifest itself in the government encouraging or even pressuring platforms to take down harmful information. So can you help me? Because I’m really -- I’m really worried about that because you’ve got the First Amendment operating in an environment of threatening circumstances from the government’s perspective and you’re saying that the government can’t interact with the source of those problems.
“My biggest concern is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government….”
Really? Your biggest concern is how the First Amendment hamstrings… the federal government? No, honey. No. Your biggest concern should be the federal government hamstringing the First Amendment. You have it exactly backwards. The “charter of negative liberties” is exactly that for a reason, intentionally crafted to restrict the government’s ability to deprive the people of their essential liberties. The entire point of the Bill of Rights is to “hamstring” the federal government; how does she not understand this down to her bones?
Also, what do we not understand about censoring ideas here? Suppressing tweets is the new book burning, and how’d that work out?
2. “What would you have the government do?”
Are you kidding? Government has the biggest microphone imaginable to make her case; granted, it’s hard to make a case against the very legal foundation of the United States, but persuasion is a big part of the job one asks for when one asks to do the people’s work. Because what comes after persuasion? That’s right: force. So you’d better be good at the former. that’s the job she asked for when she asked to do the people’s work. Now if it’s compelling, the people will heed it; if it’s not, then it’s a weak argument. Don’t ask for such an awesome responsibility if you’re not up to the task, and definitely don’t ask for it if your first impulse is to suffocate it until it stops bothering you.
3. “In my hypothetical, you know, kids, this is not safe, don’t do it, is not going to get it done.”
That’s what parents are for. The end.
4. “Some might say that the government actually has a duty to take steps to protect the citizens of this country….”
Yes, from each other. From murder and mayhem. Not from ourselves. I’m a born-free American. I don’t need you to babysit me. I’m perfectly capable of sorting through information to make a reasoned decision. The solution to “dangerous” speech is more speech, not less, as Justice Brandeis so famously intoned when he said, “To expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied [to speech one does not like] is more speech, not enforced silence.”
Image created by author using public domain photo.
5. “You seem to be suggesting that that duty cannot manifest itself in the government encouraging or even pressuring platforms to take down harmful information.”
Damned right. Government is force. The simplest ask from the federal government to (any company, but in this case) a social media company to police opinions it does not like carries with it an implicit — if not explicit — “or else.” How does this have to be explained? To anyone?
6. “I’m really worried… you’ve got the First Amendment operating in an environment of threatening circumstances from the government’s perspective…”
Good. When the government feels threatened, when it fears the people, there is Liberty. And once again, we have to notice her baseline impulse is to protect government—not you, not me, and not the people. It’s not like the Feds are lacking any kind of influence whatsoever or at risk of being tyrannized by... tweets. Opinions. Good grief.
7. “You’re saying that the government can’t interact with the source of those problems.”
Girlfriend’s got the “source” wrong. It’s not social media; it’s us. In her mind, whether she knows it or not, or would admit it or not, we, the people, are “the source of those problems.” Us and all our messy Liberty. Talking to each other. Debating. Arguing. Over this, over that. Ew. No wonder she’s upset.
Sarcasm aside, that really is her problem here. We the people. Until social media came along, the institutional left had near monolithic operational control of every information dispensing organ in the country: television, print, movies, education, and the federal bureaucracy. If they wanted to propagandize us, they could quite literally go full court press, with every quarter singing from the same songbook. But with Twitter and Facebook? Our opinions could be widely shared in a nationwide town square, and maybe even go viral—the left couldn’t have that!
So what did they do? Well, as was revealed in The Twitter Files, the Feds had a 21st Century “bat phone” they could pick up anytime they saw a post they didn’t like to “encourage” and “pressure” those agreeable companies into doing the government’s bidding. Tony Soprano would’ve loved that bat phone.
Because that’s textbook mafia fascism. For reals. The real thing. F-A-S-C-I-S-M. How KBJ does not understand this, all of this — down to her bones — is breathtaking.
Americans, freedom-loving Americans, who have been properly raised to understand our Constitution and cherish our inherent liberties would never, ever, in a million years, lament that the First Amendment had “hamstrung” government.
I would suggest that Ms. Jackson be brought in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee and asked to clarify her views on the First Amendment, but we don’t want to set an abusable precedent. We don’t want justices afraid to ask questions during argument, and we don’t want them hauled before the very committee which was supposed to have vetted them thoroughly simply for asking one — albeit alarming — question.
However (and this is a big however), when that question exposes a foundational, fundamental, bedrock ignorance, dare we say inversion, of our first, most cherished principle, our soul’s right to breathe, that’s absolutely impeachable.
They’ll never do it of course. The entire Republican conference put together lacks the testicular fortitude of one Nancy Pelosi all by her diminutive self. So I guess all we can do is wag a finger and say shame on the Senate for not doing the due diligence we just did here. They could have mined her thoughts on every amendment. They didn’t. It’s too late for that, but it needs to be noted, for the record, that they gave us a Supreme Court justice whose first impulse is to worry about the federal government, and since they won’t remove her, every senator who voted for her must be removed, held accountable to us, those unruly, opinionated people.
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