November 29, 2023

Congress

Washington Times: Meet Josh Hawley, the Senate’s new John McCain

By David N. Bossie

.....As our government continues to grow in size and scope, it looks for new ways to siphon liberty from the American people, and McCain-Feingold was a prime example of that. I’m proud to say that in the post-Citizens United world, politicians, for the most part, now consider new attempts at limiting political speech and the amount of money being spent in our political process through the proper prism: our sacred First Amendment. 

Unfortunately, Sen. Josh Hawley didn’t get the memo. The Missouri Republican — the new John McCain of the U.S. Senate — recently introduced the Ending Corporate Influence on Elections Act of 2023 as the latest government attempt to restrict free speech and robust participation in politics. In his quest to rein in “woke” corporations and social media giants, Mr. Hawley is walking straight into a free speech buzz saw by attempting to pick who the winners and losers should be when it comes to speaking in our election campaigns.

OC Register: Ron Paul: Big Tech censorship is a problem created by Big Government

By Ron Paul

.....Government officials using their authority to silence American citizens is a blatant violation of the First Amendment. Yet some conservative elected officials and writers think the solution to the problem of big tech censorship is giving government more power over technology companies. These pro-regulation conservatives ignore the fact that it would be just as unconstitutional if a conservative administration was telling tech companies who they must allow to access their platforms as it is when progressives order social media companies to deplatform certain individuals. Furthermore, since the average government official’s political views are closer to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez than to Marjorie Taylor Greene, giving government more power over social media companies is likely to lead to more online censorship of conservatives.

Instead of giving government more power over social media, defenders of free speech should work to separate tech and state.

An excellent place to start is pushing for passage of the Free Speech Protection Act.

Free Expression

The Free Press: Where Free Speech Ends and Lawbreaking Begins

By Ilya Shapiro

.....Those who care deeply about free speech are asking themselves many questions at this urgent moment: What should we make of the calls to punish Hamas apologists on campus? After all, this is America, where you have the right to say even the vilest things. Yes, many of the same students who on October 6 called for harsh punishment for “microaggressions” are now chanting for the elimination of the world’s only Jewish state. But Americans are entitled to be hypocrites...

Much of what we’ve witnessed on campuses over the past few weeks is not, in fact, speech, but conduct designed specifically to harass, intimidate, and terrorize Jews...

The question, as always, is where to draw the line, and who’s doing the line-drawing. 

Here are some of the most pressing questions those who care about civil liberties and protecting the rights of Jewish students are asking.

The Atlantic: The Latest Victims of the Free-Speech Crisis

By Greg Lukianoff

.....Some have described the recent sanctioning of pro-Palestinian advocacy as a “new McCarthyism.” But even McCarthyism didn’t seem to cause as much damage on campuses as we’ve seen in the past decade. According to the largest study at the time, about 100 professors were fired over a 10-year period during the second Red Scare for their political beliefs or communist ties. We found that, in the past nine years, the number of professors fired for their beliefs was closer to 200. In the late 1950s, when McCarthyism ended, only 9 percent of social scientists said they had toned down anything they had written because they were worried it might cause controversy.

The Popehat Report: Punishment Envy And The Perils Of Institutional Engagement

By Ken White

.....My point is that the war has revived an old debate — should universities and other nominally non-political institutions get involved in addressing political controversies at all? Should they get involved in condemning offensive speech that doesn’t rise to the level of a violation of law? Will getting involved in that advance their missions, or impede them?

The States

ABC 15 News: Dems boycott hearing about free speech at Arizona public universities: 'Misinformation and division'

By Jackson Walker

.....Arizona Legislative Democrats announced in a statement Monday they would boycott a state-level hearing about free speech at public universities, calling the event “divisive.”

Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Arkansas AG's Opinion on Government Entities' Moderation of their Social Media Comments

By Eugene Volokh

.....From Arkansas AG opinion 2023-034, issued two weeks ago:

Voice of OC: What Should Campaign Finance Reform Look Like in The Happiest Place on Earth?

By Hosam Elattar

.....A long-awaited debate on what, if any, campaign finance reforms Anaheim officials could make to curb the influence of special interests who helped get them into office is expected to take place Tuesday in the continued fallout of one of OC’s largest corruption scandals.