In a recent column in The Hill, Jonathan Turley observed that the Biden-Harris administration is the most anti-free speech administration since that of John Adams. At the Wall Street Journal’s All Things with Kim Strassel, her guest Scott Rasmussen reported that America’s elite, to include those in management positions in the U.S. government, overwhelmingly favor restrictions on free speech and favor government censorship of what they consider harmful speech. Taken together, they reveal that the ruling elites of the United States do not support one of the most important fundamental rights guaranteed in our Constitution. Further, it shows a complete ignorance of the views of the American people, who contrary to the ruling elite, overwhelmingly support robust protection of free speech, even of offensive or allegedly harmful speech.
How did we come to this state of affairs? How did it come about that seventy percent of those with Masters degrees or higher credentials, earning at least 150,000 dollars a year, and representing a significant majority of the management class in our state, local, and federal government are ignorant of or have disdain for one of our fundamental rights? Is it simply a gross ignorance of history? For history reveals that when free speech, in particular of speech you dislike, even of appallingly vulgar or offensive speech, is not guaranteed, then all our freedoms are in danger.
Professor Turley make the point that most recently it is Democratic Party leaders and activists who have always justified assaults on free speech as preventing harm that they allege will result from allowing speech. Turley did not note the irony that currently it is the Democratic party’s Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates accusing Mr. Trump and his running mate Senator Vance of being a threat to Democracy, yet using accusations of lying to justify calls to censor and suppress the free speech of Trump and Vance, and their supporters.
Rightly, Mr. Turley will have none of it, declaring forcefully that all speech, short of incitement to violence, which is quite different from speech, is protected under the U.S. Constitution as affirmed by numerous Supreme Court decisions.
But the problem is not unique to America. In the land of Magna Carta, political and police authorities are calling for actions to punish citizens for re-posting videos depicting the violent protests that have taken place in England, with one Police Commissioner asserting the British legal system’s authority to police speech made by Americans or nationals of other nations. The EU warned Elon Musk that hosting an interview with the Donald Trump risked coming afoul of EU regulations on spreading falsehoods and hate speech, declaring solemnly that hate speech is not protected speech under free speech laws and regulations.
Which brings us back to the US government’s managers who agree with the well-to-do elite of America that censorship is a good thing. At all levels of government, most regulators and rule-makers operate from a mindset that shows nothing but disregard for a fundamental freedom enshrined in the Constitution that those government managers swore an oath to protect and defend. But how can that oath-taking be sincere if they do not understand the nature of the Constitution’s guarantee of the right to free speech? Likewise for the members of the top 1% in the media, academia, and the professions.
The problem goes very deep - they simply do not recognize that freedoms (or rights) are not conferred by the government or elected officials or even the consensus of the people, but that fundamental freedoms - of speech, of association, of religious expression, of self defense, of ownership - are natural freedoms, natural rights, that each human being enjoys simply by being a human being. Whether from a Humanist or Theistic perspective, human rights are not conferred by the state, but are inherent from our humanity. The Constitution does not establish rights, but only guarantees that those inherent rights must be respected by the government. To swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution is to swear an oath to respect the inherent rights that the Constitution guarantees.
At the top of federal government officials sits the President of the United States, the chief executive officer of the United States. Note, not the CEO of the government, but the CEO of the United States, the one person most responsible for the faithful executions of the laws of the United States, including of course the guarantees of the right to free speech, as well as the other rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
To date, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have manifested disdain for the Constitution’s guarantee of the right of free speech in numerous statements. In the case of Governor Walz, that disdain for free speech was demonstrated by his actions during the COVID pandemic. Ironically, by their own words, they have revealed that voting for Harris-Walz equals voting for censorship, suppression of open discourse, and control of information. Most worrying, most journalists in the U.S. have blithely given away their former principled defense of free speech in an effort to stop the re-election of a former President more aligned with the defense of free speech than the current administration and its supporters in the American elite and among government managers.
Insightful piece!