You might wonder why I refer to The Washington Post as “trash”.
Here’s an example from yesterday’s edition. It’s an argument for ending the First Amendment.
“Yes, the First Amendment protects the ‘thought that we hate,’ but it should not protect hateful speech that can cause violence by one group against another. In an age when everyone has a megaphone, that seems like a design flaw.”
There you have it. In one sentence, the leftist columnist obliterates the First Amendment and turns us into Communist China.
Do most Democrats and leftists agree with this sentiment? I see no evidence to think otherwise.
The key to the destruction of free speech resides in this phrase: “CAUSE violence”.
It’s the same thing as claiming speech either you or I don’t like “incites violence”.
Leftists already have this worked out. Contrary to all available objective evidence, they label President Donald Trump (like his supporters) a white supremicist and a Nazi. Holding these ideologies is equivalent to violence, they claim. Therefore, anyone who promotes such an ideology should have his speech obliterated — because he’s promoting violence.
Does anyone remember the days when “liberals” — who advocated for socialized medicine and high taxes, just like they do now — actually defended free speech as a matter of principle? Remember the ACLU? They promoted free speech even for Nazis and white supremacists, as despicable as their speech may be.
Those days are over. The left has gone full-tyrant. They have gone full-totalitarian.
We now have to add the First Amendment to the list of things in the Bill of Rights leftists and Democrats will gleefully destroy.
The First and Second Amendments are the most important part of the Constitution. They are the things worth dying for, if anything is. These are the two things one of America’s two major parties are after. We are a single election away — not just in 2020, but in 2022 and 2024 — from those rights disappearing at the hands of Democrats. THAT is a very, very serious problem.
You are not CAUSING violence by expressing your ideas — no matter what those ideas are. If you’re guilty of fraud or property rights violations — such as yelling “fire” in a crowded theater — then of course you should be subject to legal consequences. But it’s not because you exercised your free speech. It’s because you committed fraud and you violated the private property rights of the theater owner.
I recall some Never Trumpers making the Washington Post anti-free speech argument back in 2016, when Donald Trump was seeking the Republican nomination. They claimed Trump was “inciting violence” by saying things in a strong and decisive way — things they claimed to agree with, by the way.
I wonder where those Never Trumpers stand on this issue now. Do they now agree with leftist Democrats at the Washington Post and elsewhere who say, “If I judge your speech to be hateful, it should be outlawed”? I’d love to hear their reply, but have come to understand the Never Trumpers are no more intellectually honest, objective and rational than the leftists.
Leftists refuse to understand that I do not violate your rights by saying things that make you uncomfortable. Disagreement or dissension — regardless of its intellectual content — does NOT constitute a crime. Unless you’re living in a dictatorship.
And a dictatorship is exactly what they want.
Once you come to understand this about leftists and Democrats — and I mean the mainstream of them — then you will come to understand what we’re now up against.
Follow Dr. Hurd on Facebook. Search under “Michael Hurd” (Rehoboth Beach DE). Get up-to-the-minute postings, recommended articles and links, and engage in back-and-forth discussion with Dr. Hurd on topics of interest. Also follow Dr. Hurd on Twitter at @MichaelJHurd1, and see drmichaelhurd on Instagram.