Politicians are ramping up assaults on political disagreement (with them) . . . only they call the disagreeable data “disinformation.”
The latest is a threatening letter by Democratic Representatives Anna Eshoo and Jerry McNerney to cable companies and digital providers such as Apple and Roku. Sample: “Are you planning to continue carrying Fox News, OANN and Newsmax on your platform both now and beyond the renewal date? If so, why?”
Bottom line: Do more to deprive dissidents of a forum! (Here we loosely define “dissident” as “anyone who disagrees with Eshoo and McNerney.”)
With such epistolary conduct the threat is implied. When congresspeople write a complaint like this, the “gun under the table” is understood. They can make laws or use existing laws — antitrust laws or 10,000 other possibilities in the kit bag of the federal leviathan — to pummel speech-enablers.
On Monday, I noted next month’s scheduled congressional inquisition of Twitter, Facebook and Google CEOs, the third such “hearing” in the last five months. That alone imposes a punishment of sorts . . . and to what purpose?
As Glen Greenwald cogently points out: “Congress violates the First Amendment when it attempts to require private companies to impose viewpoint-based speech restrictions which the government itself would be constitutionally barred from imposing.”
Congressmen who oppose what Eshoo and McNerney are doing should take this attack on our right to speak very, very seriously. Government must not silence voices, directly or indirectly. If there’s a battle to pick in defense of our freedom, this is it.
Freedom of speech is our first, last, and most important defense against tyranny. Tyrants have never been fans. We must be.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* It reminds me of President Trump complaining on Twitter about “Fake News out of NBC and the Networks” and asking
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3 replies on “Dissidents. Disagreement. Disinformation.”
Looks like there are between 74 and 80 million dissidents in the USA, at least according to the demonrats.
And they want us to be ‘deprogrammed’.
What about their public lies? Or anybody’s.