Monday, September 08, 2014

The Left hates free speech

This is an ongoing theme here on this blog that the political Left hates any kind of dissent whether it's climate change or reproductive rights or any range of topics.

I think Ann Althouse has it right: "Because they don't know how to talk about the substantive merits when they are challenged."  So now we're going to go through this kabuki theater of a Constitutional amendment to reverse Citizens United to fire up the base, nothing more.

Freedom of Press is a sacred right for the NY Times, LA Times, and Mother Jones.  Fox News, however, must be destroyed.

Extra - Legal Insurrection: "Senate Democrats renew push to gut free speech."

More - Hit & Run: "If it did pass, this amendment would mark the second time in U.S. history that Americans decided the Constitution should be changed to restrict people's freedom."

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is an ongoing theme here on this blog that the political Left hates any kind of dissent whether it's climate change or reproductive rights or any range of topics.

An RIT assistant professor writes a stupid website post. The House of Representatives bars the Department of Defense from evaluating climate change or assessing its potential risk.

An a-hole California professor obnoxiously grabs an anti-abortion protester’s sign. Texas blocks funding for any doctor or clinic that speaks the word “abortion” to any patient.

“First cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.”

Eric said...

Oh yes, the list of left-leaning speakers dis-invited, or drowned out with a heckler's veto, or pelted with food stuff is....

...well, non-existent.

Anonymous said...

On the one hand, some college speakers are being drowned out. On the other hand, unlike any other crisis scenario, the Defense Dept. is banned by law from strategizing for citizens being literally drowned out along America's coastlines.

"Pelted with food stuff" wasn't the cleverest rebuttal to the beam vs. mote Bible verse.

Is it because of the Left's corrosive influence that science and history textbooks are being falsely rewritten to spec? Or that Morse v. Frederick passed the Supreme Court 5-4, the Parents Television Council orchestrates more than 99% of all complaint letters to TV stations, and the post-9/11 and smugly-named "free speech zones" have taken root?

Devaluing free speech and dissent in order to avoid enduring a hurty sad is not a partisan specialty that one side wields disproportionately over the other. Your site's "ongoing theme" of how "the political Left" opposes the First Amendment is just half of the story. Or as the chart-topping Dixie Chicks used to say on Clear Channel radio, " ."

Eric said...

Question: why is it the purview of the Department of Defense to investigate climate change? If "not funding something" is curtailing free speech, then give me a million dollars.

Eric said...

Also: tell me the story again how the Right is forcing a takeover of public schools, PBS and NPR. And the horrible censoring of the Dixie Chicks. I need a good laugh.

We can all forget about the IRS systematic delay and denial of conservative groups applying for status to exercise free speech.

Eric said...

Also: tell me the story again how the Right is forcing a takeover of public schools, PBS and NPR. And the horrible censoring of the Dixie Chicks. I need a good laugh.

We can all forget about the IRS systematic delay and denial of conservative groups applying for status to exercise free speech.

Anonymous said...

You don't seem to get that citing examples or accusations of liberal opposition to speech doesn't make the conservative examples go away.

Question: why is it the purview of the Department of Defense to investigate climate change? If "not funding something" is curtailing free speech, then give me a million dollars.

Even a ridiculous question has an answer. Part of the Dept. of Defense's mandate and function is to create contingency plans and have them already in place for a variety of situations that may arise. Specifically, their purview includes the preparation of detailed instructions for commanders about how to proceed with acquisition, contracting, interagency coordination, and so forth, in a variety of circumstances including natural disasters, both in America and overseas. These analyses affect the Department's training, capabilities, performance, facilities, vehicles, supply chains, and its budgetary bottom line.

Conservatives in Congress have decided that a single potential factor they find ideologically unappealing is out of bounds. And even if the DoD wants to consider it, well, now they can't.

Glad to have given you a good laugh. God knows we all need one these days. As you know, we are a once-strong country reeling from some assistant professor's web post.

Eric said...

Cool story, bro. So any arm of the government from Transportation to Interior can justify a study best left to the NOAA and if Congress thinks different, it's censorship.

Democrats are advancing an amendment to the Constitution because they're still pissed about a movie about Hillary. Even the ACLU is against it.

That's my example along with the "Fairness Doctrine" and IRS suppression. Your example of Clear Channel cutting off "Goodbye Earl" is good too.

Anonymous said...

Bro, it’s something that the Department of Defense literally does all the time. Don’t ask a question if you can’t handle the answer.

The Department of Defense has developed contingency strategies for a war with England, for emergency evacuation at the Sochi Olympics, and what to do when space aliens attack our planet.

But assessing the strategic ramifications of Earth’s climate, that’s cuckoo crazytown. When the Arctic becomes navigable, we’ll wing it.

It’s too bad that suppressing one specific aspect of Defense’s responsibilities conflicts with your blog’s “ongoing theme” that it's the political Left that hates free speech. It’s unfortunate that legislative clout and martyrdom isn’t the most logical combination. It’s a shame that your party weakened America’s preparedness for a partisan talking point.

You’re stuck on the Dixie Chicks. But they were just one target of many, at a time when conservatives repeatedly demonstrated their abiding honor and respect for “any kind of dissent.” The corollary to the Dixie Chicks’ problem being relatively insignificant is the pettiness of those who punished their speech.

You think that a coordinated political blackballing by three corporations is trivial, but that some student somewhere throwing a cream pie at Dinesh D’Souza threatens our republic. That’s okay, though, because narrow, self-serving perspectives are protected by the First Amendment.

Eric said...

Just so I follow your line: because the Department of Defense didn't get money for a climate change study, somebody's free speech is suppressed? That's what you're saying?

Anonymous said...

Shut up, they legislated.

Anonymous said...

Don't you know that failure to allocate taxpayer money for Democrat dogma is free speech suppression, just like requiring a Democrat candidate to remain on the ballot after he missed the deadline for quitting, is voter suppression?

Anonymous said...

You guys aren’t reading the situation correctly. The Department of Defense didn’t get turned down for some new, additionally funded, to-be-created climate change study. No extra money was requested or required. Defense was ALREADY assessing climate change. Then the House told them they had to stop.

House Republicans passed a budget amendment to block the Department of Defense from weighing the possible effects of climate change on national security, or from incorporating existing research into its military analyses:

“None of the funds authorized to be appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used to implement the U.S. Global Change Research Program National Climate Assessment, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report, the United Nation’s Agenda 21 sustainable development plan, or the May 2013 Technical Update of the Social Cost of Carbon for Regulatory Impact Analysis Under Executive Order”

This is where we're at: House Republicans are to the right of the Pentagon on climate change. The Army is a little too squishy for them.

The Republicans remain content to let the Dept. of Defense continue its routine hypothetical assessments on all other potential threats, from ISIS to Martians. But they were losing the rhetorical debate on climate change. The speech of science was beating the speech of denial. So for this one subject and this one subject only, the realpolitik adults in the room voted to handcuff Defense and diminish America’s readiness. Just another heckler’s veto.

I think Ann Althouse had it right: "Because they don't know how to talk about the substantive merits when they are challenged."

Eric said...

So is that a "yes" to my question? Or will there be five more paragraphs detailing how Mitch McConnell filed the bill with the clerk - he was wearing a brown suit at the time - and so on and so on.

Yes or no: when "none of the funds" were directed for the study = suppression of free speech.

Side question: wasn't this a great way to save money considering 95% of all climate models have since been proven wrong?

Anonymous said...

A closer look shows that Bro did answer your question, and he's made a believer of me.

"The Department of Defense didn’t get turned down for some new, additionally funded, to-be-created climate change study." This implies that if it had been a new climate change study, its refusal would not be a free speech violation.

But...

"Defense was ALREADY assessing climate change. Then the House told them they had to stop." Oh, if they were ALREADY studying climate change and were made to stop, how could you ask for a clearer case of flagrant free speech violation? And it's the most insidious and dangerous type of free speech suppression of all - when one part of the government, whose job it is to tell subsidiary parts what to do, stops the speechifying of a subsidiary part of the government. Our souls should quake at the tyranny.

It makes such perfect sense. If corporations are people, and have free speech rights, well then, by golly, various departments and sub-departments of government bureaucracies are people too, and have the right to not be stopped from whatever speech they were ALREADY planning on speaking, as soon as they get around to figuring out what speech to freely speak.

And the fact that they were planning on freely using the taxpayer's money to fund their free speech before they were stopped, just compounds the unconstitutionality of Congress stopping the climate change speechifying they were ALREADY planning on expressing some day. What else do we taxpayers patriotically pay taxes for if not to continually expand the funding of free speech by government bureaucrats?

Anonymous said...

I mean, if the Department of Defense can speak about Martian invasions, but not about climate change, where does it end?

Anonymous said...

GAO and DOD have recorded actual, observed impacts from climate change. Air Force early warning communication installations have already had damage to runways, roads and seawalls due to thawing permafrost. One of its sites is no longer useable by airplanes, necessitating more costly helicopter landings. Training at an Army base was halted because the ground became too soft to use. Changes in other facilities have seen unprecedented levels of ice buildup, drought, flooding and mud slides. In one area, live-fire ammunitiion training was halted because of the threat of wildfires; when wildfires occurred nonetheless, aircraft could not deliver ordnance due to the smoke. At a Marine Corps installation, the coral reef has become degraded, resulting in greater storm surge damage. The Navy has reported vulnerability at some of its dry docks that are absorbing severe damage from increased storm surges, and certain types of equipment repair can no longer be safely performed there. Numerous coastal military installations are already facing elevated risk from rising sea levels. Russia has begun militarizing the Arctic as previously unreachable areas become increasingly navigable, and procured the first-ever shipment of Arctic offshore oil this past spring. The well-known tree-hugger Senator Richard Shelby has spoken of the lack of a formal strategy to deal with this new climate reality, warning that the U.S may lag behind Russia in the infrastructure to process the vast oil and natural gas reserves revealed by melting Arctic ice.

The military won’t believe climate change is a hoax, the blind Leftist fools. The Republicans are refusing to hear what they don’t want to hear. But don’t call it intolerance, because true intolerance to dissent requires being rude to Condi Rice.

No worries, though. None of the above things are really happening until Wattsupwitthat says they’re happening. Ignoring them won’t waste taxpayers’ money, either, because the future, inflated upkeep and repair costs will be billed to a completely different budget.