FBI Director James Comey: Lapse of America is All Twitter’s Fault!

Here’s how leftist-progressive CNN commentator Sally Kohn defended attacks on freedom of speech against libertarians and conservatives on college campuses:

“Feelings are valid,” she mused. “I’m never going to argue with people’s feelings.”

Contemporary leftists are not only tyrants; they’re plainly stupid.

Does Kohn actually believe and hear what she’s saying? The basis for squelching free speech: People are entitled to their feelings. But everyone has feelings. And everyone is passionate about their views. Whether you’re Thomas Jefferson, Karl Marx, Ayn Rand, Adolf Hitler — or just about anyone — you have feelings about your views. If feelings are the standard, then everyone should be permitted to speak and, more than that, nobody should be challenged. This includes the viewpoints Kohn dislikes and detests.

Yet that’s not how it works. In Kohn’s world, and in the world college campuses and even government increasingly create for us, feelings are valid, so long as they’re particular feelings. Feelings, that is, of the socialist-leftist-progressive variety. No other feelings need apply.

FBI Director James Comey lamented last week the loss of public trust in government institutions like the one he runs and blamed “echo chambers” like Twitter for making his job more difficult.

Said Comey: “I’m not going to talk about the [Hillary Clinton] email investigation but I see some of the things people say about this thing, I’m like, ‘really?’ But it becomes truth to so many people. And I don’t know how to unring that bell,” he said. “So I do think it’s become enormously challenging for people in institutions that depend upon the trust of the citizens to recapture trust where it’s been lost, explain ourselves in a way that allows them to resist demagoguery or the Twitterverse.”

In the words of a reader of mine: Oh, and did you see Comey this morning, lamenting the loss of trust in government?  That’s from the d*** who wants a back stage pass to the contents of your cell phone.

Comey, like his ally in the media, Sally Kohn, clearly dislikes people whose feelings are not the same as his. If the “echo chamber” of Twitter and Facebook contained only discussions about how great and innocent Hillary Clinton is, he would not be criticizing Twitter. In fact, there are plenty of places for people with his views and feelings to express themselves, not only on social media but throughout society, in most of the media, nearly all of academia and all of the government. It’s only people with dissenting views — those who criticize powerful, corrupt people like Comey and his friend Hillary Clinton — whose bells must somehow be “unrung.” What “unringing” will ultimately look like is left to the imagination, but centuries of governments persecuting people for what they say, think, believe and — yes — feel will tell you all you need to know.

Trust in government, like trust in anything or anyone, must be earned. To those who care about their individual rights, today’s federal government — particularly as epitomized by Hillary Clinton, Obama and their henchmen like Comey — has little to do with the preservation of individual rights and everything to do with their violation. This is kind of like how America started out, for those who take the time to read about America’s struggle against the British monarchy in the decades leading up to 1776.

Man does not live by feelings alone. Not Comey’s feelings, not Sally Kohn’s feelings, not anyone’s feelings. As important as feelings are to the human experience, rights and laws can only be upheld by objective standards and principles, like those laid out in America’s original Constitution and Bill of Rights. Comey’s and Kohn’s feelings simply won’t do the job.