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Category: First Amendment rights
Former Attorney General William Barr gave a rather stark appraisal of the current politico-cultural moment, last Saturday.
Speaking at a Christian conference in Chicago, Bill Barr said that our “whole civilization” is “under sustained attack by increasingly secular forces.”
Certainly, the western tradition in which we live is “Judeo-Christian,” yet the explicitly religious aspect of our civilization is openly mocked and undermined by major progressive institutions. But is the civilization itself under attack?
Well, if you lean left you might say No.
To others, the “woke” mob that dominatesso many major organizations in America is foursquare against freedom of speech and religion, and by demanding ideological conformity on a number of issues like sexual identity and racial “equity,” seems determined to re-make society from the ground up, and have that work done under mob violence threat as well as corporate compliance and state command.
But especially interesting is what Barr said was the foundation for today’s secular revolutionaries: the public schools.
“The variety of American beliefs now makes a monopoly on education untenable,” Barr argued, as quoted by The Federalist. “You can’t finesse it anymore. You can’t pretend what’s being taught in schools is compatible with traditional religion, nor can you pretend schools are neutral any more.”
This radical a critique of government schooling is something I used to hear only from libertarians. Barr’s advocacy of school choice is not as cautious as Republicans would advance decades ago. His is an attack on government-run schools as such: the constitutional and existential crisis in American education requires,Barr said, a direct attack upon the government monopoly over the provision of education.
The culture war just ramped up a notch.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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We have another indication now that the Internet of Things can be a mixed blessing. Perhaps not every gadget in our homes should be linked to the Worldwide Everything?
The great thing about a coffee maker with a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection is that you can set things up with a few taps on your smartphone. Brewing times, strength, temperature, etc., can all be arranged without ever having to trudge from bedroom to kitchen.
The horrible thing, though — in addition to the slim possibility that a hacker will take your coffee machine hostage — is that a Wi-Fi-capable coffee maker made in China may be spying on you on behalf of the Chinazi government.
This is the conclusion of Christopher Balding, a researcher who finds evidence that coffee machines manufactured by Kalerm in Jiangsu, China, collect a diverse array of data.
About their users.
Stuff like the users’ names and general locations as well as usage patterns.
Balding doesn’t know for sure that the company simply turns over such data to the government. But Chinese companies must cooperate with any government demands, and Balding notes that China often gathers as much data as possible and figures out what to do with it later.
The data-scavenging of the Chinese government is not exactly unique. Think Ed Snowden and the program he revealed, for example. But “the breadth and depth of their data-collection efforts” are in a class by themselves, Balding says.
It seems that my lack of a connected coffee machine, coupled with my chronic dependence on Starbucks, is proving very wise indeed.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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FIRE the ACLU
The American Civil Liberties Union used to be about civil liberties — a staunch defender of freedom of speech for all, including speech that it regarded as detestable.
Now the ACLU is a changeling monster, with many at the organization arguing to ignore threats to what they regard as the wrong kind of speech. The erstwhile bastion of civil rights has even come out against restoring due process for the accused on our nation’s campuses.
Among longtime ACLU supporters discouraged by the retreat is David Goldberger. This lawyer believes that it has become “more important for ACLU staff to identify with clients and progressive causes than to stand on principle. Liberals are leaving the First Amendment behind.”
Or: progressives are no longer even a little bit “liberal.”
Fortunately, taking up the discarded banner is the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, until recently called the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. The new name signifies an expanded mission.
FIRE will — we are assured — still combat threats to freedom of speech at colleges and universities, where it has been doing excellent work for years.
“To say the least, we have not solved the campus free-speech problem,” says FIRE president Greg Lukianoff. “But we started to realize if we wanted to save free speech on campus we have to start earlier and we have to do things not on campus.”
Freedom of speech is for everybody. In its heyday, the ACLU defended people of all walks of life, and offended tyrants everywhere. Now that progressives generally and Democrats specifically have gone pro-censorship, FIRE is taking up the cause of civil libertarianism.
Someone needed to.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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The Institute for Justice (IJ) asks a question: “Does the First Amendment protect your right to criticize public officials without being subject to frivolous lawsuits?”
Kelly Gallaher is an activist in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, who provoked the ire of Village Attorney Chris Smith.
Seeking punitive damages, Smith has sued Gallaher for inflicting “emotional distress.” Her sin is penning “hundreds of posts on social media” criticizing Smith and other officials and their policies. (Hundreds! So many scribblings by just one person?)
The issue that apparently caused him to say “By Gawd, this is the last dang straw!” is term limits.
Recently, the town’s board of trustees voted to lengthen their elective term from two to three years. Gallaher and others called for a referendum to reverse the term-fattening.
To assuage concerns, Smith claimed that changing term limits had been discussed since 2018; in other words, the change wasn’t something being sprung without prequel. When Gallaher, remembering no such previous discussion, found no evidence of it, she suggested that Smith had lied.
Smith demanded a retraction. Gallaher didn’t want to retract, but did, fearing a lawsuit. Smith sued her anyway.
“The village attorney thinks he can use his law license to bully a political opponent into silence,” says Robert McNamara, the IJ attorney assigned to defend Gallaher. “But government officials are not in charge of how members of the public talk about politics, which is something we’ll be happy to explain to him in court.”
A politician so far from the spirit of American free speech is a politician who needs something more than a withering rebuttal in court. Think: recall vote.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Although a new “Artistic Expression” section in Netflix’s culture memo could be improved, I’m giving it two thumbs up instead of the customary one and a half accorded to promising but imperfect credos.
In these censorious times, why not applaud any sincere testament upholding freedom of speech?
Even if called “diversity,” in Netflix-speak.
According to the revised memo, the company supports “a diversity of stories, even if we find some titles counter to our own personal values. . . . If you’d find it hard to support our content breadth, Netflix may not be the best place for you.”
This is probably not about Netflix’s willingness to rent The Wizard of Oz no matter who objects to the spectacle of weepy tin men or broom-riding green-faced women in pointy hats.
Recently, Netflix has been roiled by employee protests against videos they find annoying, especially Dave Chapelle’s comedy special “The Closer.” Chapelle, who appears to lean more left than right, turns out not to be the type to run his riffs by a lefty censorship board.
Now let’s see how Netflix follows up on its delicate suggestion that working for Netflix “may not be the best place” for employees demanding censorship. Will Netflix show the door to all sullen saboteurs of speech-diversity?
Also, will it more fundamentally diversify its own original content?
In any case, good for Netflix for resisting the mob, for now. Until further notice, it’s two full thumbs up.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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