Tag: first amendment

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Accountability First Amendment rights folly media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies too much government U.S. Constitution

Our Royals Are Not Amused

Dianne Feinstein, First Amendment, free speech, censorship

“You created these platforms,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D‑CA) informed the top legal minds at Facebook, Twitter, and Google, “and now they’re being misused.”

“And you have to be the ones who do something about it — or we will.”

Take that as a threat.

But also take it as the grand moment when the Establishment showed its hand.

Consider: Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube (a Google product) are “media platforms.” So are books, libraries, newspapers and newsstands. Imagine being a king right after Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press. Very quickly, the world changed. 

People thought differently. And they began demanding change from government. The sovereigns had to make room for subjects-turned-citizens.

Royalty and aristocracy did try to regulate the new platforms of information and opinion. Censorship was all-​too-​common. The rulers killed upstarts for writing the wrong things, saying the wrong things.

So, which side would you be on, Mrs. Feinstein?

That is Scott Shackford’s basic take on this. I’m with him.

I just wish to expand: in my lifetime the media platforms of newspapers and television were regulated. Heavily. Mergers and business purchases were subject to government permission; the electromagnetic spectrum was licensed rather than treated as private property, and the actual content of radio and TV shows were regulated by the FCC.

And the Feinsteins of Washington got awfully secure in their positions. Had the regulation of American media done its trick?

Enter new media, uncorking the bottle of opinion.

No wonder the Establishment is scared.

We shouldn’t let them regulate political content on the Internet. Demand, instead, the opposite: a complete repeal of the regulation of business management — and non-​criminal content regulation — of all media platforms

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment folly general freedom ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies

Shadow Boxing with “Nazis”

Ben Shapiro, Jane Coaston, The New York Times, Nazis, violence, free speech, First Amendment

Voltaire’s prayer, “make my enemies ridiculous,” has been granted to Ben Shapiro.

The New York Times has graced its pages with the writings of one Jane Coaston, who, in “The Hollow Bravery of Ben Shapiro,” accuses the brilliant intellectual pugilist Mr. Shapiro for “shadow boxing meant to pander to his conservative fans.” 

And while she admits the truth that “campuses tend to be hostile places to conservatives like Mr. Shapiro, Charles Murray and Heather Mac Donald,” she insists that “the notion that they are the cultural underdogs is bogus.”

Failing to back up her “cultural underdog” thesis in any way, Coaston’s essay wanders off, evading the street and campus violence by leftist activists who, until recently, were given de facto license by mayors and college administrators to shout down, beat up and “de-​platform” people they called “fascists.”

By just glossing over all this, Ms. Coaston is pandering to her audience — certainly not challenging it, which is precisely what she accuses Mr. Shapiro of doing.

Amusingly, I noticed this journalist arguing earlier this year that “you should punch Nazis in the goddang face.”

But Antifa and other “Nazi-​punchers” aren’t in the habit of sending out questionnaires before planting fist to face or bike lock to noggin. 

Which brings us to the ridiculous. She minimizes the extent to which Ben Shapiro and others have been threatened (and their fans violently attacked) by mobs shouting against “fascism” and “Nazis.” And yet she provided not merely the intellectual ammunition for this practice, she provided the declaration of war.

Maybe she has a career in politics.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights general freedom media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies Regulating Protest too much government

Crossing the Twitter Rubicon

Liberty, Trump, censorship, NBC, New York Times, First Amendment

No sooner had I upbraided media folks for overreacting to various presidential peccadillos regarding Puerto Rico, when Donald J. Trump, in his running media battle, crossed a line with this week’s most notorious tweet.

He first complained, perhaps correctly, that, “Fake @NBCNews made up a story that I wanted a ‘tenfold’ increase in our U.S. nuclear arsenal. Pure fiction, made up to demean.” But then the chief executive officer of the United States of America tweeted this: “With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License?”

The answer to his question is: never.

The Federal Communications Commission licenses the network affiliates of ABC, NBC and CBS across the country — not the networks themselves — to broadcast their television signals using public airwaves. Still, through those affiliates a tyrannical FCC could no doubt damage the networks. 

Government licensing of media outlets is anathema to the First Amendment. And the thought of the POTUS actively threatening the ability of NBC or other networks to report the news as they freely decide is … well, unthinkable.

I don’t buy the accusations that Trump is undermining freedom of the press by criticizing the press — even arguing by tweet, “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @CNN, @NBCNews and many more) … is the enemy of the American People!” The president is as free to criticize the media as the media is free to criticize the president.

It might be his duty.

But considering the use of official government power to potentially “shut down NBC and other American networks,” as UK’s Independent reported, or just to temper their coverage?

Despotism.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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Accountability crime and punishment government transparency moral hazard responsibility too much government

Half a Win Is Better than None

Terrebonne Parish, Sheriff, Jerry Larpenter, free speech, First Amendment, abuse, ExposeDAT, Jennifer Anderson

Jennifer Anderson criticized her local sheriff. Her family’s home was raided in 2016 by the sheriff as a result.

Terrebonne Parish Sheriff Jerry Larpenter’s reaction to criticism was ugly and unconscionable, but it hasn’t been allowed to stand. On the other hand, the sheriff hasn’t been adequately punished, either. 

Jennifer Anderson’s pseudonymous blog ExposeDAT criticized various public figures in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, including with respect to the business relationships between Larpenter and others. Bridling at the criticism — which had to do with assessment of publicly available facts — the sheriff submitted warrants to Facebook and AT&T to track down the identity of the blogger. Then he sent men to raid the Andersons’ home and grab computers and cell phones. 

The Andersons fought back, suing in federal court. They wanted the raid and seizure and search of their private stuff to be declared unconstitutional.

Finally, this September, the Andersons reached an undisclosed settlement with Larpenter out of court. According to its terms, the Andersons aren’t allowed to discuss it any detail. But their attorney says the settlement is “a victory for citizens’ right to be critical of their elected officials without fear of retribution.” U.S. District Court Judge Lance Africk has said that “Jennifer Anderson’s speech [in her blog] falls squarely within the four corners of the First Amendment.”

All that’s fine, but why hasn’t this sheriff also at least been kicked out of his job for his blatant abuse of power? 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability First Amendment rights incumbents local leaders Regulating Protest U.S. Constitution

Homer’s Recall Odyssey

recall, election, voting, first amendment, free speech, ACLU, politicians,

Freedom of speech isn’t a free pass to avoid the consequences of what one says. Or does. Tell that to three members of the Homer, Alaska, city council — Donna Aderhold, David Lewis and Catriona Reynolds — who are the subject of a recall petition.

Well, a superior court judge just did.

Represented by the ACLU, the trio sued to block a recall petition with more than enough voter signatures. Their lawsuit challenged the city attorney’s acceptance of the legal rationale for the recall, claiming the recall attempt punishes the politicians for their speech.

“To conclude that anytime a recall petition is based in part or in whole on what a politician said is protected by the First Amendment,” Superior Court Judge Erin Marston ruled, “would be to eviscerate the recall statute to such an extent that the populace would almost never be able to seek recall of any of their elected officials.”

Now the recall moves forward.

In most of this Land of the Free, citizens lack the ability to recall their elected officials. In places that do have the process, it is rarely used. When it is used, it is often portrayed as voters throwing a temper tantrum. 

Or an unfair election do-over. 

Or mean-​spirited ‘vendetta politics.’

Not so. The petition requirements make recalls very difficult. Recalls don’t happen without some serious problems with the current officeholder(s). And once a recall is triggered, there follows a democratic vote to decide whether citizens want to keep the sitting hireling or find someone new. 

Seems pretty reasonable. 

When politicians are recalled and removed, they deserve it.*

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* The problem seems never to be that good politicians are being recalled, but that too many politicians who should be recalled are not. Back in 2003, the governor of California was recalled. He deserved it. In 2011, a whopping 88 percent of Miami-​Dade County voted to recall Mayor Carlos Alvarez. He earned it, too.

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crime and punishment First Amendment rights folly ideological culture moral hazard national politics & policies responsibility

Campus Freedom in Peril

Charles Murray, protest, violence, free speech, Bell Curve, students, intimidation
  1. What is the percentage of tenured faculty on American campuses who are still unambiguously on the side of free intellectual exchange?
  2. What is the percentage of them who are willing to express that position openly?

Sociologist Charles Murray asked those questions near the end of his reflections on Thursday’s Middlebury College event, in which his speaking engagement was interrupted by shouting mobs and he and his colleagues were physically attacked*.

Murray thinks the answer to the first question is “more than 50 percent.” He doubts that is the answer to the second.

He is pessimistic about free inquiry on campus.

And has reason to be.

College faculty members are closing ranks, as many at Middlebury did, calling Murray — famous for books such as Losing Ground and The Bell Curve — “a discredited ideologue paid by the American Enterprise Institute to promote public policies targeting people of color, women and the poor”** and “not an academic nor a ‘critically acclaimed’ public scholar, but a well-​funded phony.”

Mark J. Perry has listed many more complaints, all offered as reasons not to listen or debate with the famous intellectual.

That was last Thursday. On Saturday, a pro-​Trump, “Proud Boys” march in Berkeley culminated not only in violence, bloodied faces, destroyed property, but also in the burning of a purloined “Free Speech” placard.

The University of California at Berkeley seems uninterested in controlling the mobs. Berkeley City Police have poorly defended non-​leftist protestors. It’s open season on freedom of speech and the right to peaceably assemble.

Unless something is done, officially, mobbing will be the new normal. And our basic rights? A memory.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* His colleague Professor Allison Stanger was seriously injured in the riotous shoving and grabbing. Murray tweeted yesterday, “Everybody in the mob could be criminally prosecuted, but those who injured Prof. Stranger must be.”

** It is worth noting that his recent Coming Apart was entirely devoted to the economic performance and culture of white Americans.

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