Freedom of speech is a protected right, but also a complex issue

February 21, 2023

One of the founding principles of the United States that Americans cherish is the right to freedom of speech. Its origins date back to ancient Greece. The Greeks considered free speech, meaning to “speak candidly,” a democratic principle.

America is one of the nations where this is considered important. Our Founders thought it was so important as to earn inclusion in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Americans have the protected right to criticize the government and speak their minds without fear of being censored or persecuted.

Through the two-plus centuries of America’s existence, the courts have ruled on this right. For example, in 1919, the Supreme Court ruled in the case Schenck v. United States that individuals are not entitled to speech that presents a “clear and present danger” to society. On the other hand, in1969, the court declared in Brandenburg v. Ohio that, generally, even inflammatory speech, such as racist language by a leader of the Ku Klux Klan, should be protected unless it is likely to cause violence.

So, dangerous language is not protected, but inflammatory speech that is not dangerous is protected.

In a free society, all citizens must be able to think for themselves, to choose their goals and pathways to achieve them. In America, people are free to express their ideas, even if those ideas are unpopular, or wrong. And, as we have seen, those “wrong” ideas may sometimes be proven right. 

But on the world stage, just how free is speech in America? World Population Review in 2020 listed the “Top 30 Countries with the Most Freedom of Speech/Expression.” And the United States ranks near the bottom of that list, along with Luxembourg and Peru, with a rating of .74 on a 1.00-point scale

Leading the world are: Denmark at .95; Belgium at .87; and Finland, Switzerland and Uruguay at .86. In between those high marks and the U.S. position are 22 other nations who rated higher than we did. Lowest of all nations is Panama at .65. We are closer to the bottom than we are to the top.

Interestingly, while the U.S. ranked at the bottom of the top 30 nations for free speech, a Pew Research Center poll ranked the U.S. at the very top of the list of “Whose Citizens Value Free Speech the Most.”

Why would the nation whose citizens value free speech more than any other nation not have the greatest degree of free speech?

“We the people tell the government what to do. It doesn’t tell us,” former President Ronald Reagan once said. “We the people are the driver; the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast. 

“Almost all the world’s constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our constitution is a document in which we the people tell the government what it is allowed to do. We the people are free,” he said. 

Obviously, if the American people value free speech more than any other people, and if they have told the government through the Constitution that we will have free speech, then government isn’t doing its job on this subject.

There is incontrovertible evidence that some social media platforms play favorites with political opinions. Platforms have the right to control content. They can control “misinformation” or “disinformation,” and “false information.” But it is not okay to term things as “misinformation” or “disinformation,” or say that something is “false” because it is contrary to their political opinion.

A New York Post opinion piece by Miranda Devine said that a “little-noticed federal lawsuit, Missouri v. Biden, is uncovering astonishing evidence of an entrenched censorship scheme cooked up between the federal government and Big Tech …” Sixty-seven officials and agencies are accused of pressuring Facebook, Twitter and Google to censor users for alleged misinformation or disinformation. The Post was one victim of this alleged malfeasance.

Former Hawaii Democrat Congresswoman and former presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard appeared before a new subcommittee of the House of Representatives that is dedicated to probing the weaponization of the federal government earlier this month. She expressed the necessity of maintaining free speech in the United States, even when some of that speech is objectionable to some, and that includes hate speech, she said.

She cited efforts by social media to control the information that users could see, including her accounts on some of those media sites that were suspended or blocked without explanation. 

This action has social media, and perhaps also federal government agencies, putting themselves in place to decide what the rest of us can and will see, hear and read. Having some ideas blocked by social media — or worse, government agencies — is not freedom of speech. It is, in fact, un-American.

In addition to the previous quote from Reagan, he also offered these, which are fitting: “Government is not the solution to our problem, government IS the problem." And, “freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”

All of those who are elected, appointed or hired to work for the people in the federal government need to stop being politicians and start being Americans.

The State of the Union speech was more like a campaign appearance

February 14, 2023

President Joe Biden continues to set records as President of the United States of America. His State of the Union (SOTU) message of February 7th set a record. It was the least-watched SOTU since viewership has been tracked, beginning in 1993, with only 27.3 million viewers. 

This year’s SOTU was 30 percent lower than last year’s 38.1 million. The only one with lower viewership was his unofficial one in 2021, which was termed an address to a joint session of Congress, and drew only 26.9 million.

Contrast those numbers with Bill Clinton’s 1993 unofficial SOTU of 66 million viewers, and George W. Bush’s 2003 address of 62 million viewers.

This year’s SOTU was the second longest one since 1964 at 1 hour, 12 minutes, and 44 seconds. That’s about 16 minutes shorter than Bill Clinton’s SOTU of 2000.

Perhaps this disappointing showing reflects the public’s dissatisfaction with the Biden presidency, of which only 41 percent of Americans approve, according to the latest Reuters poll. And currently, only 37 percent of Democrats want him to run for reelection in 2024. Worse, only about 25 percent of Americans think the country is heading in the right direction.

Perhaps the fact that Vice President Kamala Harris earned an even lower approval rating helps Biden feel a little bit better about his numbers.

In the interest of what the actual State of the Union is, here are some pertinent items, in no particular order:
* The inflation rate of 1.4 percent when Biden took office is now 7.0 percent.
* Thirty-year mortgages have risen from 2.7 percent to 6.5 percent.
* Prices of goods have risen, too. Eggs are now $7 a dozen, steak is about $15 a pound, and plywood is $95 per sheet.
* Biden’s war on fossil fuels ended America’s recently realized energy independence, and has killed nearly 70,000 jobs since 2021.
* Gasoline prices rose from $2.39 a gallon to $5 a gallon in some states, and while prices have dropped, gas still costs on average $3.42 a gallon.
* Natural gas prices have tripled over the last year.
* In his two years as President, more than 5 million people have illegally entered the country over the southern border.
* The disastrous pullout from Afghanistan left 13 American military personnel dead, stranded dozens of friendly Afghanis and left an estimated $7 billion in American military equipment behind for the Taliban.
* During his tenure, we have given away so many of our weapons from our arsenal to Ukraine without replacing them, and lowered the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to a dangerous level to try and lower gas prices.

The SOTU was marked by some unusual and objectionable things. Perhaps the most frequently mentioned is the “raucous” and “rude” behavior of Republicans reacting to Biden’s comments.

Congress members normally are quite polite and reserved in reaction to a speaker who speaks with dignity. That was not the case this year. Both the President and the Republican members of Congress strayed beyond the normal, acceptable and expected behavior.

While not excusing this aberrant behavior, we must recognize that it was in reaction to “misstatements” and “errors” in the President’s remarks.

For example, Biden claimed to have created 12 million new jobs, but neglected to say that most of them were people going back to work after the Covid pandemic killed 22 million jobs. 

He also didn’t mention the millions of Americans who lost jobs and aren’t looking for another job, due to over-generous and unnecessary government payments. These people who dropped out of the workforce make the unemployment figures look much better than if they were still in the workforce looking for a job.

He falsely accused a group of Republicans of wanting to sunset Social Security and Medicare, which drew the loudest rebuke from them.

He also asserted his confused understanding of taxes paid by people and businesses. Criticizing businesses and wealthier Americans for not paying “their fair share” appeals to many people. But such a tactic ignores so much of the sad reality of our broken tax system, our too-big government, and the 42 percent of total taxes that the wealthy actually pay.

And, he carefully avoided talking in detail about China spying on us. Beginning before the SOTU and ending after it was the situation where the administration allowed a Chinese spy balloon to float across the nation for days before taking it down. 

News of this balloon first became public when airline passengers saw something odd, and a civilian on the ground saw it, had a co-worker photograph it, sent the photos to the government, and published the photos. The Department of Defense then announced it had been tracking the balloon for a few days.

Since that fiasco at least four other unidentified objects have been spotted in our airspace and taken down. These objects have apparently been visiting us for some number of years without the Defense Department’s knowledge. 

Hopefully, Biden will do something to get the Defense Department to focus all of its attention on its critical mission of protecting the country.

The State of the Union is not good. And it is getting worse. 

Federal agents raid home and arrest father, while family watches

February 7, 2023

Imagine a husband, wife and seven children are at their Kintnersville, Pennsylvania home early one day when loud banging on their front door occurs. They look out the window and see as many as 15 big trucks and cars in their yard, and up to 25 uniformed FBI agents wearing helmets and carrying shields, with weapons drawn, and some of the agents pointing their weapons at the house. This would be characterized by many or most people as a SWAT team.

Cooperating with demands by the FBI agents to open the door or they would break it down, the husband opens the door and finds several guns pointed at him. He is then arrested, shackled, and taken away, as reported by his wife. All of this occurred with the wife and children near-by and scared to death. 

The FBI later denied the SWAT Team claim, saying “There are inaccurate claims being made regarding the arrest.” “No SWAT Team or SWAT operators were involved.” The FBI agents merely knocked on the door, identified themselves as FBI agents and asked him to exit the residence, which he did, and was taken into custody without incident, the FBI’s response said.

The husband is Mark Houck, and his wife is Ryan-Marie Houck. She said that her husband, a pro-life advocate and author, “drove two hours south every Wednesday to speak outside of abortion clinics for six to eight hours at a time and at times [took] their 12-year-old son” with him. 

While Houck was in Philadelphia near an abortion clinic providing pro-life counseling with his son present, he said he was repeatedly approached by a 73-year-old abortion clinic volunteer, Bruce Love, who criticized Houck with vulgar and harassing language and even addressed Houck’s son in that manner. The son was frightened of the man, and Houck told Love to leave his son alone.

When Love once again approached the boy, Houck shoved him away. Although local authorities did not charge Houck, Love filed suit. The suit was dismissed by the District Court.

However, more than a year after the incident, the Department of Justice decided to pursue charges against Houck, even though local authorities did not regard the incident as a crime. 

The DOJ accused Houck of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act), a 1993 law that outlaws “violent, threatening, damaging, and obstructive conduct intended to injure, intimidate, or interfere with the right to seek, obtain, or provide reproductive health services.”

In his recent jury trial Houck was found not guilty on each of two counts, as the jurors understood that his action against Love had nothing to do with interfering with those seeking services, or those providing the services. He was protecting his son from Love’s confrontation in the boy’s personal space.

Why did the DOJ file charges that local authorities realized were not deserved, and which they failed to prove in court?

“Defense lawyer Brian McMonagle said it was a case of the Department of Justice using a minor street scuffle between Houck and a Planned Parenthood volunteer, Bruce Love, to trounce Houck’s First Amendment rights to peacefully protest, pray and ‘sidewalk counsel’ at abortion clinics,” according to Phillyburbs.com. “They made a federal case out of a shove,” he said.

Peter Breen, senior counsel at the Thomas More Society, and Houck’s attorney, condemned the arrest as an abuse of power from President Biden’s DOJ during a “Tucker Carlson Tonight” interview on Fox News. He accused the department of trying to intimidate pro-life Americans.

“This was not a federal crime. We have controlling case law on that, strong defenses, but instead, they’ve taken an innocent man and made an example out of him, presumably to send a message to pro-life people and people of faith across this country,” he said.

“This was reckless and outrageous,” Breen told Carlson. “It put the Houck family in unnecessary danger. We’ve offered to bring him in. Didn’t get a response. Even if you’re going to arrest a regular person, you just send a couple of agents, they knock on the door, not dragging the head of the family out, violating the sanctity of the home, pointing guns at them. This was outrageous and uncalled for.”

Catholicvote.org reported last June that “At least 81 pregnancy resource centers and pro-life groups have been attacked and vandalized since a draft Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked in early May. Pro-abortion domestic terrorists have claimed responsibility, and delivered on their promise of a ‘summer of rage.’ The attacks have continued into the fall and winter.”

“The pregnancy resource centers, which provide free medical and financial support to pregnant and new mothers, have been spray-painted with pro-abortion and anarchist messages and symbols. Several have been set on fire. Other pro-life groups which advocate for the right to life have also had their offices vandalized.”

Why did the DOJ not arrest these criminals?

The DOJ indicted two Florida residents in January for attacks on crisis pregnancy resource centers, said a CBN News website story. These arrests were the first arrests for crimes against pro-life centers. What took the DOJ so long?

The United States of America faces serious problem

January 31,  2023

The United States has many problems with which to deal. Problems with the government. Problems with other countries. Problems within society. 

The federal government itself is a serious problem. Yes, we have managed to keep going with things as off the rails as they are. But if these problems continue to grow, our lives will become progressively less pleasant.

We need the federal government to be returned to its proper size and scope. Over the years and decades, the separation of powers and the system of checks and balances, so thoughtfully designed by the Founders, have been weakened, and the balance between the three branches of our government — Legislative, Executive, and Judicial — has been heavily altered. 

Actions by the Supreme Court, the Congress and the many US presidents have gradually shifted the government’s balance, and given the it much more power and a broader reach than intended.

The Executive Branch has become far more powerful than it should be, with unelected bureaucrats in administrative agencies implementing regulations with the force of law, rather than the Congress making those laws and the Judiciary ruling on their constitutionality and legality.

The National Debt continues to grow. Every year since the 1950s has seen an increase in the Debt, regardless of which political party the sitting President represented. As of December, 2022, the National Debt stood at approximately $31.42 trillion. According to Statista.com, the national Debt in 2021 worked out to $80,885 per person. It has increased since then.

Some of that growth resulted from additional funding for crisis situations, and some of it merely from the desire for additional spending without having the funds to pay for it.

As with every business and household, government spending should not exceed income. And borrowing when extra money is needed has to be paid back. Our government has not been doing this.

To raise required funds, we first need a realistic budget, based upon only the absolute necessities of the government, and then we need a sensible and fair system of taxation to raise those funds. 

Taxes should not be punishingly high and treat everyone equally. They should be high enough to fund the needed functions of a lean and efficient government.

The Libertarian Republic published an article in 2015 titled “Top 10 Government Agencies We Should Eliminate Immediately.” The article focused on the magazine’s opinion of elements of these agencies that exceed the boundaries of a limited government like that set forth in the U.S. Constitution, and which infringe on the personal liberties of Americans.

Perhaps this perspective does not match that of many or most Americans, but it paints a libertarian picture of just how much our government has expanded.

Those in denial of just how horrible a job the government is doing to stop illegal immigration on the southern border tell us the immigration system is to blame and needs to be revised. But if the government would merely follow the guidelines of that system, we would have far fewer deadly drugs, human trafficking, criminal immigrants and other things coming across the border each day.

And then we have issues involving both China and Russia. 

Some say that we are headed into a conflict with Russia over our support of Ukraine against the brutal and unprovoked Russian war. The more we support Ukraine, they say, the greater the chance that Russia will regard us as an enemy, leading to a nuclear conflict.

And, there is criticism both of the amount of money spent for Ukraine that some believe could and should be used for problems here at home, and for the idea that we really don’t know how Ukraine is using those funds. Further criticism comes from the idea that by sending Ukraine military weaponry that we are weakening our own level of military readiness.

China has made no secret of its desire to replace the U.S. as the world’s dominant economy. However, one Simon Baptist, global chief economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” that “I think it’s very unlikely that ... China will get to U.S. levels of GDP per capita — that’s our measure of wealth — for at least the next 50 years if ever.”

That may be true, or not, but it does not relieve the tensions between the two nations over Covid, the fentanyl crisis, and economic issues. So many things that the U.S. once produced, or could now produce, are strongholds of the Chinese economy, and could be used against us.

President Joe Biden weighed in on this topic. “I see stiff competition with China. China has an overall goal — and I don’t criticize them for the goal,” he said. “But they have an overall goal to become the leading country, the wealthiest country in the world and the most powerful country in the world.  That’s not gonna happen on my watch.” Time will tell.

There will always be problems and things not going as planned or hoped. But if we respond to all of them with the same degree of disinterest as the Biden administration has shown for the border, energy, and the other current problems, the country will pay a very heavy price.