The Supremes wrestle with government censorship while The NY Times spreads blatant propaganda.
John Stuart Mill, the great eighteenth-century philosopher who championed the rational belief in the individual, in opposition to unlimited state and social control, wrote in On Liberty:
The only part of conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part, which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.
Despite the wisdom of this deeply profound pillar of classical liberalism, states in every form have invariably continued to attempt to control body and mind since Mill first published this work (the same year that Darwin published Origin of the Species, 1859). We continue to grapple with issues of state power over individual liberty today, especially since the rise of the third internet age.
Read: Weller: Will TikTok Be Convicted Without Trial?
A series of bombshell reports over the past few years showing the United States government (including the White House, the CDC and the FBI) has, “‘coerced’ or ‘significantly encouraged’ the [social media] platforms, “in violation of the First Amendment,” to suppress speech that federal officials viewed as dangerously inaccurate or misleading.” In addition, “the FBI routinely combs through [every American’s data] to use in purely domestic cases, even in situations where the FBI lacks a factual predicate to open a full investigation.”
The attempts to coerce censorship on social networks by the current Administration will be heard today in the Supreme Court in oral arguments for Murthy v. Missouri (which is the appellate version of Missouri v. Biden). (To avoid confusion, from here, we will call the government represented by Surgeon General Murthy the Petitioner and the citizens of Missouri seeking the original redress the Respondents). Previously, two lower courts found the government in violation of the First Amendment and placed a prospective injunction on the government from pursuing such behavior, causing Surgeon General Murthy to appeal the case to the Supreme Court.
Read: Weller: Hormone Blockers Banned For Children In England
In oral arguments this morning, the Court sounded very cautious to support the lower court’s injunction. Because of the particular facts relating to the Respondent’s particular experience, Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, Jackson, and Coney Barrett questioned the validity of the Respondent’s argument against the facts. Even Justice Gorsuch asked whether this injunction should be as broad as the lower courts ruled. It sounded very much a 5-4 type decision, and did not cause one to believe there will be a landmark decision for free speech advocates in this case.
Indeed, the narrowing of the discussion down to only the particular Respondents’ experience ignored the broader bureaucracy that has been built at DHS, the FBI, CISA, and various third-party NGOs to monitor and censor American citizens’ speech on these social media sites.
Can someone please explain what Constitutional power the Federal Government believes it has to employ its officers to do such a thing? What interest of the people does the government serve by clandestinely monitoring and deleting citizen’s public utterances? Imagine a physical public square in which we are all talking in public. Should the government be secretly listening and removing speakers from the square simply because they don’t like their speech or think it is accurate? Is that a free society?
The Respondent’s lawyer made a major point of this in asking to continue the injunction – the remedy for government officials to combat speech they believe is false should be better speech by the government. The government has every right and opportunity to refute any claims publicly; any member of the government can explain why the speech is incorrect publicly. The President, the CDC, and the Surgeon General have extremely broad opportunities to speak to the American public – if the President says something, it will appear in every media channel in almost every situation. Golly, don’t they host a Press Briefing every day covered by every national news outlet?
Read: Weller: Eric Holder’s Shameful War Propaganda
The worst part of the current censorship regime is that it is done in secret – the speaker whose speech may be censored never knows the government has targeted them and is not consulted before their speech is deleted. Thus, the narrowing in on only the Respondents’ particular experiences is unwise – the government has taken every effort to hide their actions in these matters. But it is hard to refute the idea that these actions most resemble a totalitarian, Soviet-style secret police state intent on controlling information and punishing dissidents.
Recently, The current administration, many current and former politicians, and major news media held a weeklong tribute to Alexi Navalny – the Russian dissident whose speech was suppressed by the Russian government and who died in prison under suspicious circumstance – while clearly supporting such efforts at home. The New York Times lead story today put itself squarely in the camp of the censorial administration with the headline, “Supreme Court Hears Arguments on White House Effort to Combat Misinformation.” Combatting misinformation that was, in many cases, accurate. But the accuracy of speech does not matter. If asked, the Russian government would say that Navalny’s speech was misinformation that represented threats to national security. Of course.
The irony is palpable on the heels of the moronic propaganda that ran through the New York Times and every other left-leaning major media company this weekend, claiming that former President Trump said, “If he isn’t elected, it’s going to be a blood bath.” This was another in a long line of attempts by The NY Times and many other so-called news organizations to create a Trump moral panic by taking his words completely out of context. Here is the actual quote, in which he is discussing the automobile industry and how it will be severely damaged (in Trump’s opinion) if Biden were re-elected:
China now is building a couple of massive plants where they’re going to build the cars in Mexico and think, they think, that they’re going to sell those cars into the United States with no tax at the border.
Let me tell you something, to China, if you’re listening, President Xi — and you and I are friends, but he understands the way I deal — those big, monster car-manufacturing plants that you’re building in Mexico right now, and you think you’re going to get that, you’re going to not hire Americans, and you’re going to sell the cars to us?
No, we’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those cars if I get elected. Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the country, that’ll be the least of it. But they’re not going to sell those cars, they’re building massive factories.
Has the White House or the New York Times, who seem to invite the sort of social control John Stuart Mill warned us of 165 years ago, considered whether they want the next Trump Administration to have such broad powers to censor what they write, say, read or watch? Certainly the New York Times’ “bloodbath” propaganda would be ripe for deletion.
The epitome of amorality would have you censor with one hand and produce state-supporting propaganda with the other. God help us all.
Justin Weller is the Founder and Editor of The Country, and host of the podcast The Country with Justin Weller. Prior, he was a general manager and sales leader in startup and Big Tech firms, interned on Capitol Hill, and was a Contributing Editor at mxdwn.com. This piece is republished from The Country
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Tampa Free Press.
Help support the Tampa Free Press by making any small donation by clicking here.
Android Users, Click To Download The Tampa Free Press App And Never Miss A Story. Follow Us On Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our free newsletter.