"Let Facts be submitted to a candid world..."
As John Adams said a few years earlier, "Facts are stubborn things..."
Some cretin in the neighborhood here hadn’t dispensed with the veritable war zone that is created in our hometown on the 4th of July, and last night was not as peaceful as I’d hoped. More explosions and cracks as the light died out on an unusually warm night here in the PNW. I’m cranky enough that I’ve come full circle, to a degree I suppose. Fact is, I never loved fireworks and I’ve always been unnerved by the noise. The lights are nice on the big professional ones, but the noise—and at this point in my life, a man surrounded by dogs much of the time, I could just do without them.
No, I don’t want to ban them, nor call for an end to a sacred tradition. Ugh—there goes another one, though so far, Seamus the beagle has not been too moved by the sounds. The 4th of July is a sacred thing, and to paraphrase Charles Dickens, my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it.
Speaking of not disturbing sacred things, let’s get back to the most important business of our time—the First Amendment. I start with the “s” word again here. The First Amendment is sacred, and simply so. Thankfully, we have fresh proof of this and a district court judge in Louisiana made a key ruling in a case called Missouri vs. Biden. No matter your opinion on the matter, it is a landmark case that is still winding through the court. During the discovery phase, you may have read, that extensive evidence was uncovered showing the U.S. government, with encouragement of the last two Presidential administrations, coerced social media companies into violating a number of people’s First Amendment rights. That is the fact—and it is incontrovertible. You may agree with the government’s view that it should do so because covid. And you have a right to believe that—but please understand that it is a violation of U.S. Constitutional law. It is illegal and it makes a president who does it unfit for office. In this case, the lawsuit is against the current White House occupant and the judicial ruling reaches far and wide into the administration’s ability to communicate directly with social media companies.
Addendum: The New York Times covered the court case with incredulity that a sitting judge would accept with “little skepticism” claims that the vaccine did not prevent covid transmission. I was so befuddled, I wrote the co-author of the piece, reporter Michael Shear, who has a very fine reputation as a reporter. But apparently, I’m not the only one to call this out. Here is the fact—whether you agree or not is immaterial, because it is true: the covid vaccines do not now, and never did prevent transmission of the virus, making the vaccine mandates suspicious at very best. Does the Times have a right to print nonsense? Absolutely—but since its entire reputation rests on being “the paper of record,” one would think that printing facts and truth would be one of its paramount values. Apparently not.
I struggle at times to fill content beyond what is written above. I’m no political writer, and I don’t pretend to be. It is more than self-evident that the government has no right to control the speech of American citizens, no matter what is said. As I’ve said, I’m not really interested in trying to change anyone’s political views, but limiting First Amendment rights, or “cancelling” them altogether, while certainly a political act on the part of the people committing the crime, has a direct impact on every single one of us and it is the beginning of the end of individual liberty.
In a previous post, I mentioned this and cited a number of historical perspectives about the dangers of limiting speech. The only answer to speech you don’t agree with is more speech. Now that we have a ruling from a judge on the case, it appears headway is being made back to this basic American freedom, we will see. As the author wrote in the article linked above, the government has appealed the decision because covid (and other dangers from which you and I should not have the right to protect ourselves according to “they that know better…”). But they will most likely fail in that pursuit in my view, no matter what judge hears the appeal. Free speech means more speech, not less. More debate, not less and just because debate has become vitriolic, mean and nasty, it does not follow there should be less of it. What’s needed is more education on what civil discourse looks like. All ideas are open to debate, whether one agrees with them or not.
In his testimony before Congress about covid, Dr. Martin Makary, professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, said that the greatest perpetrator of misinformation during the pandemic—was the U.S. government, and he brought the receipts. If the government is deciding what can be said, and what cannot—and then using its power to assert only its own beliefs, ideas and policies, then we no longer have a First Amendment. One judge, at least, has called that issue to account. Let’s hope more follow suit.
It is time to talk—a lot, and about everything. No stone unturned, no debate too “risky.” It’s all on the table—and it all should be.