To make important decisions, all points of view should be heard

December 2, 2025

The earliest drafts of the U.S. Constitution did not include a bill of rights. Among those working on the Constitution who thought a bill of rights was important were Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, now known as the “father of the Constitution.”

When the delegates of the Constitutional Convention provided the document to the states for ratification, they realized that without a rights declaration, ratification could be difficult.

Some states quickly ratified the document, however, others had hotly contested debates. When those states did ratify the document, they included features that they wanted to be added.

Eventually, the elements of the Bill of Rights were added to the Constitution as amendments.

What ultimately became the First Amendment to the Constitution was the one protecting the establishment of religion, and its free exercise; the freedom of speech and the press; the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Of those First Amendment items, the idea of free speech is the one that is currently the most prominent.

Over the past several years, the charge has been that various sources — including newspapers and magazines, radio and television news organizations and social media — had been censoring what they regarded as “misinformation,” “disinformation,” “false information,” etc. 

There is no doubt that certain things were banned, as the censors admitted as much. But whether they should have banned those opinions and contrary ideas is still being defended.

Those who censored comments claimed they were protecting the public from false information, as if it was their duty, and within their ability to make such judgements. In a country with a constitutional defense of a right of free speech, it was neither of those things.

However, the ability of the people to express their thoughts and ideas about what is happening, what should happen, or what should not happen should be banned only under very special circumstances.

Throughout our history there have been many explanations of why even unpopular speech should not be regulated or banned.

Here are some of them:

* “If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” George Washington (1783)

* “We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavouring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.” – John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859)

* “He who stifles free discussion, secretly doubts whether what he professes to believe is really true.” – Wendell Phillips (1870)

* “Some people’s idea of [free speech] is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage.” – Winston Churchill, (1943)

* “If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear…” – George Orwell (1945)

* The U.S. Supreme Court in Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. said, in part, “We begin with the common ground. Under the First Amendment, there is no such thing as a false idea. However pernicious an opinion may seem, we depend for its correction not on the conscience of judges and juries but on the competition of other ideas.”

* “Freedom of speech is indivisible; unless we protect it for all, we will have it for none.” Law professor Harry Kalven

* “If you are afraid to say it, that is exactly why it needs to be said.” Journalist Andy Rooney

* “If you had to pick one freedom that was the most essential to the functioning of a democracy, it has to be freedom of speech. Because democracy means persuading one another, and then ultimately voting, and the majority, the majority rules. You can’t run such a system if there is a muzzling of one point of view. So, it’s a fundamental freedom in a democracy.” Former U.S Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, speaking at the National Press Club

* Yet, historically, the greatest threat to citizens has come not from those who state falsehoods but those who claim the right to regulate what is true and false.” Jonathon Turley, law professor and author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage”

However, even the First Amendment to the Constitution does not protect certain types of speech. These categories are types of speech that may be dangerous. These include obscenity, fraud, child pornography, speech integral to illegal conduct, speech that incites lawless action, speech that violates intellectual property law, and true threats.

Speech that may be obviously untrue, but not actually harmful, as are those in the preceding list, may not be banned.

Notice that political speech by Democrats or Republicans or whomever, are not included in the list of speech which may be banned.

So, let’s be honest and open about the differences in ideas. We should combat ideas that we find unpopular, but not with cowardly censorship, but with better and more sensible ideas.

Freedom of speech is one of the several ideas that sets the United States of America above other nations, and we must not allow it or the others to be taken away.

Are they defending democracy? Or, eliminating democratic principles?

October 8, 2024

Many of those on the left have been observed using the term “democracy” when talking about the United States of America. And some activities, and some individuals are often termed “threats to our democracy.”

Of course, our nation does operate on democratic principles. Our Founding Fathers came here from other countries, and were familiar with how things were done in other countries. Some countries may have been democracies while others may not have been. They developed our system to avoid the problems they witnessed in other countries. 

The first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution — the Bill of Rights — exist for that very purpose. And, notably, the first of those amendments is the one guaranteeing us freedom of speech and other things. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Despite this very clear statement, from day one of our republic there have been efforts to limit free speech, and many of those actions were exercised by those in the federal government.

And that effort continues today, as those who are objective and have been paying attention have witnessed. During COVID, and on controversial subjects, speech is frequently limited by the news media and social media, and yet again, by some of those working in and for our government.

When you are trying to control a nation, people being able to say whatever they are thinking is not a good thing. Some ideas that do not agree with the status quo are out there for the public to consider. And the controllers cannot prosper under those conditions.

To combat these alternative ideas, they are labeled as false, misleading, disinformation, misinformation, etc., and are removed, or requested to be removed, from communication vehicles and thrown into the trashcan.

Last month John Kerry, former Secretary of State and former Special Presidential Envoy for Climate in the Biden administration, took part in a World Economic Forum panel discussion on Green Energy. Near the end of the event an audience member asked what could be done about the disinformation being heard surrounding the climate change fracas.

"You know there's a lot of discussion now about how you curb those entities in order to guarantee that you're going to have some accountability on facts, etc.,” Kerry said. “But look, if people only go to one source, and the source they go to is sick, and, you know, has an agenda, and they're putting out disinformation, our First Amendment stands as a major block to be able to just, you know, hammer it out of existence,” he continued.  

“So, what we need is to win the ground, win the right to govern, by hopefully winning enough votes that you're free to be able to implement change."

"The dislike of and anguish over social media is just growing and growing. It is part of our problem, particularly in democracies, in terms of building consensus around any issue. It's really hard to govern today. The referees we used to have to determine what is a fact and what isn't a fact have kind of been eviscerated, to a certain degree. And people go and self-select where they go for their news, for their information. And then you get into a vicious cycle," Kerry said.

In another comment, Kerry remarked, "Democracies around the world now are struggling with the absence of a sort of truth arbiter, and there’s no one who defines what facts really are."

So, our First Amendment gets in the way of people like Kerry being able to easily shove their ideas down our throats with no opposition. It is a major block to combating other ideas, which they label as “misinformation.”

They want the government to be the “truth arbiter” and define what the facts are. And they need the Democrats/socialists to win the presidency and both houses of Congress so that they will have the power to rid the nation of the First Amendment that allows challenges to their chosen course of action.

The reason for this is that Kerry and his comrades believe they know all that is needed, and that climate change is going to end humanity and all plant and animal life on Earth. And they know exactly what is needed to prevent that. 

Other opinions — even those of scientists or science professors — are “disinformation,” and must be prevented from becoming public knowledge.

However, it ought to be obvious to any thinking individual that what Kerry and others are trying to do is precisely why there is a First Amendment, and why that amendment is the very first one in our guaranteed Bill of Rights. 

Without free speech government can do whatever it pleases, and anyone expressing a contrary opinion is subject to criminal charges, even death.

The Bill of Rights and the rest of the Constitution are designed to limit what the government can do, so that the United States of America will not become just one more oppressive totalitarian state.

Elon Musk’s releasing of Twitter files proves what so many thought

December 13, 2022

It is possible that there is a new person atop the left’s “Most Disliked Person” list. And that person, replacing former President Donald Trump, is the new owner of Twitter, Tesla owner Elon Musk. Or maybe Musk will merely be added to the list below Trump’s name.

Twitter and Facebook have long been criticized for censoring certain kinds of tweets and posts, including those of conservatives and those whose opinions run counter to liberal thinking. Now that Twitter is not owned and operated by someone who believes in censorship, things are changing. And evidence to support the long-held beliefs that social media sites were infringing on free speech is coming to light.

Not only is the censorship of certain topics now shown to be fact, but some, perhaps many, of the items censored were valid and important.

One conservative user, “Stanford University's Dr. Jay Bhattacharya — a longstanding opponent of a COVID groupthink during the pandemic who expressed opposition to lockdowns" was placed on the site’s secret blacklists, as reported by Fox News, which is as bad to the left was Twitter was good.

This man is no average guy expressing an uneducated opinion. Yet, in its efforts to protect a faulty narrative, Twitter blacklisted him.

Bari Weiss, founder and editor of The Free Press, posted on Twitter earlier this month that, “A new #TwitterFiles investigation reveals that teams of Twitter employees build blacklists, prevent disfavored tweets from trending, and actively limit the visibility of entire accounts or even trending topics — all in secret, without informing users.”

Her revelations are all based upon information provided by Musk from Twitter files he has released.

"Twitter denied that it does such things," Weiss noted. "In 2018, Twitter's Vijaya Gadde (then Head of Legal Policy and Trust) and Kayvon Beykpour (Head of Product) said, ‘We do not shadow ban.’ They added, ‘And we certainly don’t shadow ban based on political viewpoints or ideology.’" Former Twitter owner Jack Dorsey said as much in a Congressional hearing.

One technique used is visibility filtering, a senior Twitter employee told Weiss: “Think about visibility filtering as being a way for us to suppress what people see to different levels. It’s a very powerful tool.”

 A post on msn.com offered the following: “Liberals on Twitter panned the latest ‘Twitter Files’ revelations from Elon Musk and journalist Matt Taibbi Friday which showed the internal communications of Twitter leading up to the decision to ban former President Donald Trump from the social media platform in early 2021.

“The third ‘Twitter Files’ installment – this time dubbed, ‘THE REMOVAL OF DONALD TRUMP,’ presented documents showing that Twitter staff banned Trump not solely based on tweets he made during January 6th, but on the ‘context surrounding’ Trump and his supporters’ actions ‘over the course of the election and frankly last 4+ years.’”

And more inside information: A member of Facebook’s Oversight Board and former Prime Minister of Denmark Helle Thorning Schmidt, said, “Free speech is not an absolute human right,” at a Politico Europe event. “It has to be balanced with other human rights.” Schmidt may have said what’s what in Denmark, but that’s not the way things are in America, where free speech is guaranteed in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. And that includes unpopular speech.

What we know and are learning shows that the mindset of Twitter’s boss and employees was one of cheating, censoring speech by deplatforming, suspending users, and other techniques to achieve its liberal/progressive goals, including winning the election of 2020.

“Deplatforming is certainly an effective tool when it comes to countering terrorist and like-minded extremist groups online. But the fact that this tactic is being used against individuals and organizations that do not fit these categories is a terrifying abuse of power,” reported The Washington Times.

“Such a tactic has proven to be just as effective in manipulating mainstream electoral campaigns. One of the most egregious examples of this was when Facebook and Twitter censored the New York Post over the paper’s exposés about Hunter Biden’s emails and corruption. In other words, social media platforms baselessly characterized the Post’s investigative journalism as ‘misinformation’ and blocked it.”

The Times story goes on to say that a news report from the Media Research Center shows that some voters “would not have voted for the Biden-Harris presidential ticket if they knew at least one of the eight news stories that were suppressed by big tech and mainstream media outlets.”

Twitter was and is a platform owned by a private company. According to webopedia.com, “Social media platforms are interactive digital channels that focus on the creation and sharing of thoughts, ideas, and information through virtual networks. These platforms enable users to take part in social networking by creating content, sharing their thoughts, commenting on other user content, and reposting it.”

Twitter and Facebook can control what is on their platform. They can prohibit truly dangerous language. But to take a political side, without a public statement to that effect, and then secretly censor the other political side is dishonest, and un-American.

Elon Musk has a good start to cleaning up Twitter, and hopefully will keep it politically neutral. Maybe Facebook will clean up, too.

Free speech: “Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice.”

September 13, 2022

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

The rights guaranteed in the Amendment were selected first among the ten amendments in the Bill of Rights because of their importance to the well-being of the new nation. And free speech was the second of those freedoms to be listed.

John Milton, English poet and intellectual of the 1600s, understood the importance of the concept of free speech to individual and national freedom. He wrote, “Let truth and falsehood grapple … in a free and open encounter.” 

Under Milton’s sensible vision the American people must get information from a variety of sources to help them understand issues and craft informed opinions. This includes both speech that is liked and accepted by some individuals and groups, and speech which is not liked or accepted by some individuals and groups.

This idea is one of the most important in the founding of the United States of America, and one which has played a critical role in its success among the nations of the world throughout its history.

The rub comes when some people dislike certain points of view, and will not tolerate their existence in free discussion. Milton’s point, however, is that all points of view must be available for those interested in knowing them. 

In 1927, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis provided this advice: "The remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."

In 1969 the U.S. Supreme Court held in Brandenburg v. Ohio that “inflammatory speech -- and even speech advocating violence by members of the Ku Klux Klan -- is protected under the First Amendment, unless the speech ‘is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.’"

Only the most severe and dangerous ideas should be overruled, which means not merely ideas that are disagreed with or that anger some people, but those which actually try to incite violence or endanger people. 

Yet many Americans work hard to thwart free speech. Worst of all is if and when the government tries to stifle dissent or controversial language, or participates with non-governmental entities to oppose some speech. 

On social media platforms, claiming posts and comments are “misinformation” or “disinformation,” these targeted offerings are deleted, and the writer often blocked from further participation. 

Author Salman Rushdie offered this opinion: “The moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible.” Rushdie was recently the victim of a vicious attack by an armed man, who may have been prompted by Rushdie’s “Satanic Verses,” and wanted vengeance for a message with which he disagreed.

In the campaign for the 2020 election, some posts and comments were labeled as false by these platforms, and removed. After the election, however, some turned out to be correct. But because ideas that should have been freely available were censored, participants were denied knowing this pertinent information.

Imagine a world where only some information is allowed. Who gets to decide what is and is not allowed for anyone to see? Who has that power? Who has that right?

Some prefer to advance their narrow ideas without the troublesome problem of having to prove those ideas are the best through open and free debate. After all, who does not understand that with only one idea being offered, it will be accepted by many people who might not have accepted it had contrary ideas been available to consider.

In addition to social media platforms, other places where different ideas should be open to discussion, such as opinion sections of the news media and schools, must be bastions of the free exchange of ideas.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) recently released the results from its 2022-2023 College Free Speech Rankings survey. This survey questioned 44,847 college students currently enrolled in four-year degree programs at 208 colleges and universities in the United States about their institution’s degree of speech freedom.

The highest score on a 100-point scale was 77.92, ranking it in the “Good” level of speech freedom. Depending upon which grading scale you apply to 77.92, it is only a C-plus, at best.

Five other institutions also were rated “Good.” Sixteen institutions were rated “Poor,” two were rated “Very Poor,” and one was rated “Abysmal,” with a numerical score of 9.91. Only 76 of the 208 institutions in this survey scored above 50.0, only 27 scored above 60.0, and just 6 scored above 70.00.

This is far below the level of free speech and open debate of ideas that should be occurring in institutions of higher education in the United States. 

An objective view of the free speech environment will clearly show many efforts to discourage and even ban ideas that some people or some groups do not like.

This is not healthy for our country, and it clearly violates the intent of the First Amendment.

Thoughts on cancel culture, and the freedom of religion and speech

There seems to be no letting up in the manic drive to change everything in the country. From vestiges of the country’s founding, to the War Between the States, to being dissatisfied with one’s gender, to millions of relatively tiny things that trigger somebody’s feelings, such as calling a toy potato “Mr. Potato Head.” A stunning amount of emotional energy is spent on trying to satisfy the myriad of hyper-sensitive displeasures that some Americans agonize over.

One recent change involves the Randolph Township Board of Education in Morris County, New Jersey, where the Board unanimously voted to remove the names of all holidays from the school calendar.

“If we don’t have anything on the calendar, we don’t have to have anyone [with] hurt feelings or anything like that,” board member Dorene Roche told Fox 5 NY.

The board unanimously voted to remove the names of all holidays from the school calendar earlier this month. This decision was prompted by protests of an earlier decision to change the name of Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s Day.

Some of the people who object to these changes, that are being made to protect the feelings of a few that are upset, are pursuing some cancellations of their own.

“Now they’ve cancelled our holidays,” wrote Laura Assante of Randolph Township, “how will students learn about the significance of these days if our board doesn’t even deem them important enough to keep on the calendar? Enough! It’s time now to cancel the BOE and get a new, honest administration in place who values our children and community.”

And now that “Juneteenth” has been officially declared a national holiday, it will just be a “Day Off” on the school calendar.

The School Board has decided to review the decision.

***

Baker Jack Phillips is being punished by a Colorado court for refusing to design a cake that celebrates a person’s gender transition. His reason is that doing so violates his Christian beliefs.

So, if a person born a male believes he is a she, or a person born a female believes she is a he, the rest of us are expected to accept that, and in Phillips’ case, he must recognize it through his work. But a person’s religious preferences that do not recognize gender fluidity opens that person to legal action. Somehow, that doesn’t compute.

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution begins: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …” If Phillips is prohibited by a court order from acting according to his religious beliefs, isn’t that actually “prohibiting the free exercise” of his religion?

***

Things get cancelled because some group — however large or small — dislikes them. Realistically, few things, perhaps nothing, can escape being disliked by someone. Thus, if we keep allowing this foolish cancelling of things, since nothing will be acceptable to everyone, therefore everything will be cancelled, and we will all just become dust in the wind.

***

The concept of free speech is one of the hallmarks of the United States of America. It separates us from the tyrannically ruled countries across the globe. Humanity benefits from the free exchange of ideas, as demonstrated by the very existence of the United States.

When an idea is brought forth, it will be accepted by some and opposed by others. It just makes sense that in a free country the opposition’s ideas are available to be considered by anyone and everyone. That is how a free people become informed and able to make decisions that are based on a variety of opinions on important topics.

How ironic that huge and popular organizations such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, et al, operate under the protection of the First Amendment’s free speech protections, and then use that protection to arbitrarily deny free speech to expressing other ideas.

Yes, some ideas expressed may not be truthful, or might be harmful. That can occur in a new idea, or in the responses to it. Who gets to decide: the issuer of the new idea, which may be flawed, or a respondent, whose point of view may be flawed? That is why speech must remain free, in all but the most undeniably dangerous cases.

What we have today is a political faction that doesn’t want the concepts it supports to be measured against differing opinions that might lead many people to oppose its concepts. When you fear that your ideas will not win the day, what more effective way to ensure that those ideas will win than to make them the only ideas people can know about?

Such anti-American behavior is the gold standard of Marxism and Communism, among other venomous, malicious and oppressive ideologies. The difference between those regimes and the USA is that here it is not the government that is cheating to get its ideas accepted by controlling what people have access to, it is private companies.

Interestingly, it was the freedoms of America — the very ones they are working so desperately to subvert — that enabled them to become the successful entities that they are.

Big Tech has grown too big, and is a true threat to our freedoms

America’s Founders recognized that certain rights existed that were absolute and unassailable, and that those rights were fundamental to the nation they had created. Before some states would ratify the new Constitution, they insisted that these rights be specifically detailed. And they were, in the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights.

Back in the day, we learned important elements of our nation’s founding in school. We studied the Bill of Rights, and learned that the First Amendment cited the five freedoms of religion, speech, the press, peaceful assembly, and petitioning government for the redress of grievances.

Religion and speech have been under attack off and on for a long time. Religion has been under strong attack lately, and now free speech has also become a target.

In many countries, what the people say and do is controlled by a dictatorial government. In America, where the Constitution limits what the government can do, the current attempt to kill free speech is being carried out by a political faction that has among its members the fat-cats who own the Big Tech companies.

The Big Tech companies whose disrepute has blossomed of late — Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Amazon — have grown too big for their britches. The oligarchs who own and run these giants have gained such riches that their over-fed egos persuade them that they can and should control the rest of us for their own narrow purposes.

The level of control of Big Tech reaches into the news we read, see and hear; information we find online; the ads we see and the things we buy; and discussions in the political sphere.

These platforms gather information on users about their likes and dislikes, the websites they visit, videos they watch, issues they are interested in, and their political party affiliation.

This information is used to make money and to influence how users think about many things. Even the results of online Google searches are determined by this user information.

The arrogance of Big Tech has produced the censoring on their platforms of a story in the New York Post on the questionable behavior of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden. Social media platforms Facebook and Twitter banned the now-former President of the United States Donald Trump from their platforms. And Big Tech took down the upstart social media site Parler, which has now been reborn.

There are continuing issues regarding the censoring of political posts and comments by Republicans and conservatives. Things that do not favor the leftist/liberal side of things are frequently blocked or removed on the grounds that they violate some internal policy.

These policies supposedly protect the public from dangerous speech, which is not the job of social media platforms. They originally were available for users to have their say about any topic, except for things like promoting violence or illegal activities.

The vast majority of speech, even that which is highly offensive to some, has been determined through litigation to be protected by the First Amendment. Nevertheless, Big Tech owners and employees, who should not be the judges of the appropriateness of their users’ comments, continue to do so. And they condemn language like what has been determined by law to be okay. 

Since these “platforms” frequently abandon that realm in favor of behaving like “publishers,” which are expected to control speech to a higher degree, they should lose the protections of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which protects platforms from lawsuits over content generated by users on their sites. It gives them the right to moderate content, but does not give them the responsibility to do so.

This allows platforms to operate without needing to moderate content, therefore, platforms must not go too far if they do moderate. Despite this, they continue censoring conservative speech.

Allum Bokhari, an author and technology correspondent, speaking to a conference of the Center for Constructive Alternatives at Hillsdale College, had the following comment in his address: “If Big Tech’s capabilities are allowed to develop unchecked and unregulated, these companies will eventually have the power not only to suppress existing political movements, but to anticipate and prevent the emergence of new ones. This would mean the end of democracy as we know it and place us under the thumb of an unaccountable oligarchy.”

Big Tech platforms are such a sham, I do not like them, Sam-I-Am.
They cheat, and censor what people say, but only those who don’t think their way.
They think they are king of what they do, but they must also be red, and not just blue.
Their egos swelled as they gained power, and now Big Tech needs a really cold shower.
They have gained the throne and now they are woke, but justice will be done if they go broke.

Freedom of speech must be protected. Big Tech should be sanctioned, regulated, or broken up into smaller, less powerful and less harmful units with little ability to control free speech. This would allow the public to express all but the most truly dangerous ideas, as platforms originally were.

Censorship is a growing problem in our news and other media

Adolph Ochs, former publisher of The New York Times, back in 1896 adopted the slogan “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” and insisted on reportage that lived up to that promise. That phrase appears in the upper left corner of the paper’s front page every day.

He might be appalled today to find that The Times, among other media, sometimes operates on the motto “All the News That Fits,” as some news media move steadily toward advocacy over objectivity.

We now find two major newspapers censoring conservative opinion on their opinion pages, where traditionally newspapers published a variety of editorial opinion in order to give their readers a diverse mixture. It’s the one place in a newspaper where opinion is appropriate.

The New York Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer both had editors resign their positions recently because of staff objections to editorial decisions they made.

Several days ago, The New York Times editorial page editor, James Bennet, resigned following a revolt among employees over an op-ed the paper had requested from Senator Tom Cotton, R-AR, on George Floyd’s death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer.

Some of the staff called in sick one day in protest, and the paper said later that a review found the piece “did not meet its standards.”

Just a week later, however, the Times published an op-ed from a person who is a fellow at George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, and who is a far-left activist. No editors resigned and no standards were violated.

The Floyd matter was at the center of another newspaper editor’s sudden departure. The Inquirer’s top editor resigned after his choice for a headline on an article addressing the mob violence which evolved from protests over Floyd’s death produced a revolt among employees.

Lamenting the senseless destruction and damage from the riots, Stan Wischnowski titled the article “Buildings Matter, Too.” The totally accurate headline was too much for the staff to swallow, so Wischnowski decided to step down.

The one place where opinions are proper in a newspaper — pages containing editorials and commentary — in those two papers now presents only that narrow set of politically biased ideas that have the approval of the newspaper staff. Ladies and gentlemen, this is precisely the opposite of what press freedom is all about.

An older tendency among news providers is for them to be politically guided in what they report and what they don’t. This tendency towards advocacy-over-objectivity is much more widespread than many realize. The reaction of the news staffs of the Times and Inquirer support that this journalistic breakdown exists.

However, such shenanigans are not limited to newspapers. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union” with Jake Tapper, said about President Donald Trump, “First, we were hearing that it’s [the coronavirus] a hoax...” referring to Trump’s describing the way the Democrats used the coronavirus. Tapper later admitted he knew it was a lie, but chose not to say anything. “I thought about it, because the president did not call the virus a hoax,” he said.

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which the press is quick to throw out to defend against challenges to its work, guarantees the press the necessary freedom to do its job of telling the people what is going on. That is a very valuable thing, and a rare thing in our world.

But the freedom the press enjoys is accompanied by the essential obligation to do that job honestly, without fear or favor, accurately and objectively. When those things are missing from what the news media is doing, it has abandoned its press freedom protections.

The press is a very different animal today than in the days of the Bill of Rights, and now includes broadcast media and Internet media in addition to print media.

While online social media sites are not the same as news providers, they are extremely popular communication instruments. Ostensibly an open forum for participants to post and comment whatever they choose, some have begun to monitor and over-ride participants’ posts and comments. Sometimes that action is used for improper language. Sometimes it is used to censor undesirable political content.

MSNBC producer Kyle Griffin took a quote from Trump’s Fox News interview with Harris Faulkner out of context to make it look like Trump was approving of chokeholds. “Trump on Fox: ‘I think the concept of chokehold sounds so innocent, so perfect,’” he tweeted, making it appear that Trump condones chokeholds. He doesn’t.

Contrary to its policies that “catch” so many conservative tweeters, Twitter did not flag this lie.

There are many instances of such malpractice. Either you have an open forum that leaves people alone to express themselves as they choose, or you don’t.

If you do, no problem. If you don’t, you become a different animal, one which purports to be open, but which covertly censors only some users, and may thus be subject to legal action.

Why does the left cheat like this? Because it’s much easier to gain support for your ideas when there is only one set of ideas to choose from. Why confuse people with extraneous stuff?

News journalism badly needs self-correction

As we consider the state of things in America today, we see important areas of American life that have weakened as the years have passed. Among them are the nuclear family, public education, higher education, and the general sense of what America is all about.

This devolution has also affected news journalism. Today, quite a few of those practitioners are persons who, rather than being committed to professional ethics, are instead folks who pay allegiance to their personal inclinations. And generally they seem to be in some of the most visible and influential news outlets in the country.

Following the dramatic dustup in the White House’s James S. Brady Press Briefing Room last week that got all the news folk talking, Al Jazeera’s Jeffrey Ballou said President Donald Trump's remarks to CNN’s Jim Acosta and others "may be free speech, but beyond the pale of respecting the constitutionally enshrined role of journalists."

That statement brought this from a long-time news journalist, Wesley Pruden, editor emeritus of The Washington Times, and a man who worked his way up from beat reporter to editor: “That was a new one to me, though I have been in this business, man and boy, for a lot of years. I never knew I was someone so grand as to be "constitutionally enshrined."

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees a free press, and that might be seen as enshrinement of journalism’s role, but the Amendment does not enshrine any person or set of individuals, not even reporters.

Watching the behavior of some of the media personalities in the Brady Briefing Room of late clearly demonstrates that some reporters believe they are personally enshrined. And this fit of egomania explains how someone can cast off the restraints of professional ethics in favor of one’s own political agenda when doing the hard and important work of reporting what is really happening in the country and its government.

News journalists defend an important element in America: They are to provide true, accurate, timely and important information to the people, so that they are properly informed and able to make intelligent decisions.

“The Journalists Creed” is a statement of “the principles, values and standards of journalists throughout the world,” as described by Fourth Estate, and is displayed in the National Press Club in Washington, DC. The Creed is the product of Walter Williams, the first dean of the Missouri School of Journalism in 1914.

It reads, in part: “I believe that the public journal is a public trust; that all connected with it are, to the full measure of their responsibility, trustees for the public; that acceptance of a lesser service than the public service is betrayal of this trust.”

The failures of news journalism have been termed “fake news” by the president. That includes which topics are presented or not, taking things out of context, exaggeration, and outright falsities.

The existence of “fake news” and the episode in the Brady Press Room last week are evidence of the waning of professionalism and the advancement of ego among the big names in news.

With television and now the Internet, the face of news journalism has changed. Network news personalities are sometimes viewed as stars, and some have egos to match their celebrity status.

Pruden weighs in on this aspect: “The real reporter is happy to answer to ‘reporter,’" he wrote, and “knows better than to try to make himself more important than he is by becoming part of the story.”

“Newspapermen never aspire to celebrity, even the cheesy celebrity accorded by television,” Pruden commented, “and are willing to abide rebuke and worse, even by a president, if that's what it takes to get the story.”

Tough questions are fair and expected from reporters in all areas of news media. What is not expected or acceptable is what happened that day.

CNN White House reporter Jim Acosta became not just part of the story, but its star, with his statement challenging Trump’s characterization of the alien caravan as an invasion. Making matters worse, he refused to cease and desist his flurry of questions as instructed by the president, who was trying to move on to other reporters.

As he kept shouting follow-ups after being dismissed by Trump, a White House intern, whose job is to get the microphone from one reporter and deliver it to the another reporter, found Acosta refusing to let her have it.

He, and others, as well, either forgot or have not learned that the White House person that is providing the information and answers to questions is in charge of the event, not the reporters. They are not above the rules of good conduct, even as they press for answers.

Freedom of the press is a critical element in our country and must not be infringed. That does not mean, however, that reporters and other news people can do anything they please without being called out for it and/or disciplined.

Continued breaches of the important duty of reporting news will bring about responses that journalists will not like. Therefore, some serious self-correction is advised, and the sooner, the better.

Leftists take protected rights to their illogical extreme

Gertrude Himmelfarb, a brilliant observer of society and culture, had this to say about the state of American society many years ago: “The litigious temper of the times is a consequence of the decline of civility and the concomitant proliferation of ‘rights’ — legal rights in place of the manners and morals that once arbitrated disagreements and disputes. In this sense the law has become not so much the aid and abettor of manners and morals as a substitute for them.”

Those who want to focus on “rights” as if they are sacrosanct and exist in a vacuum will instantly jump upon this insightful piece of reality. Do they truly believe that the mere fact that a person has the right to do something absolves that person of the repercussions of exercising that right, particularly when they push the limits beyond reason?

The answer is “yes.” That is precisely what they believe, because nothing is as important to these folks as their own desires. It’s okay, they say, to have a “society” as long as what’s good for the many does not interfere with what’s good for “me.”

Such a philosophy makes it impossible to maintain a society that, by definition, requires individuals to sacrifice a “few” of their abundant rights for the good of the many, or for a few, or even for one. For example, maybe Dan doesn’t have to remind his friend Julie at her mother’s funeral that her mother had too much to drink over the last three decades, even though he has the right to do so.

Personal selfishness and the assertion of individual rights to the exclusion of what is good for the whole of society, or parts of it, is a recipe for societal collapse, and we see substantial movement toward that frightening possibility every day.

And there is likely no better example of this than the atmosphere surrounding the nomination and confirmation hearing of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Such behavior has been on the increase in recent years, and peaked – hopefully – in this disgusting display of individual rights being taken to their ridiculous extreme.

I’m not arguing here about the nomination itself, or whether the judge should have been confirmed or not, but about the crazed behavior of those poor, misguided souls who not only oppose the confirmation, but who do so from a position of ignorance of civics and fairness, and the idea that they can do as they please.

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees us “the freedom of speech … and the right of the people peaceably to assemble.”

None of which guarantees anyone the right to say anything they want at any time or at any place, or do anything they want in the name of free speech, and it specifically limits assembly to being peaceable.

It does not, for example, encourage people to attend a formal proceeding of the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives, or a function of a committee thereof, and scream and interfere with the conducting of a formal process.

It also does not protect a group that confronts a peaceable assembly and attempts to intimidate the group, or worse to commit violence against its members, such as what the fascist Antifa gangs do, particularly when private property is destroyed. Prosecution is needed.

Many of these folks are factually challenged, having insufficient knowledge of our system and how it works.

The #MeToo movement is prime territory for serious errors. In response to inexcusable sexual assaults against females, society has largely accepted an accusation as truth. Many times – perhaps most times – such an allegation is true and accurate, but not always.

Let’s travel to Zelienople, Pennsylvania, where five female schoolmates accused a high school boy of sexual assault on two separate occasions in a 27-page complaint filed against him. One instance was said to have occurred at the Zelienople Community Pool where he worked, and the other at a private home.

The boy was fired from his job at the pool, endured multiple court appearances, was placed in a juvenile detention facility and also in home detention, was subjected to months of bullying from kids at school, had his reputation forever damaged, and faced the possibility of criminal penalties.

After some time had passed, some of the girls admitted that they had conspired to mount false accusations against the boy.

In this instance, some of the worst that could happen did happen. Fortunately, the boy’s parents have taken action to deliver justice to the parties who slandered their son, and to hopefully restore his reputation.

They have filed a civil lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh against the Seneca Valley School District in Butler County (which did nothing after learning that the charges were false), District Attorney Richard Goldinger, and the parents of the five teenage girls who falsely accused the boy of sexual assault.

Perhaps some criminal statutes were also breached.

Let us hope for this unfairly damaged family that all of these scoundrels are severely punished. Perhaps the news of severe and just punishment against false accusers will serve to dampen future false accusations.

Do we still have freedom of speech? Well, yes; sometimes we do.

 

Thank goodness for the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which protects what our Founders viewed as our God-given rights to free exercise of religion, free speech, freedom of the press, peaceable assembly, and to petition the government for redress of grievances.

However, while efforts to infringe upon those and other rights are not unheard of, the attacks on them currently form a far more serious threat than perhaps at any other time, and certainly the most serious in many decades.

There has been ample news coverage of instances where Christian bakers and florists were forced to bake cakes or produce flower arrangements for gay weddings, contrary to their religious beliefs.

A decorated Army chaplain is facing what his attorneys are calling a “career-ending punishment” after he explained to a soldier that he could not conduct a marriage retreat that included same sex couples, but was willing to find someone else to do it.

Somehow, no matter how many people are available and willing to provide these services, those wanting a particular service view it as a horrible crime if a person refuses to perform it on religious grounds.

These days, certain “preferences” held by relatively small groups are thought to be of even greater importance than those rights set in stone by our Founders.

Some small efforts at balancing these breaches have occurred, but one’s ability to practice his or her religion in the customary fashion is only sometimes protected, these days.

These breaches of the First Amendment’s protections are serious enough, but what is happening on social media, on college campuses and elsewhere regarding free speech and free access to information is much worse, if for no other reason because of its broad swath of free speech encroachments that are being slashed through our culture.

Burgess Owens, a conservative African-American entrepreneur and 10-year veteran of the NFL, appeared at Hobart and William Smith Colleges recently. He told the audience, “I grew up in the Deep South during Jim Crow segregation laws. I can tell you how racism looks, how it feels, and what it means. You guys today can go anyplace you want to — any restaurant, any college.”

Well, that was too much for the audience. A female attendee asked him to repeat his first name, and after he did so, she said, “Oh, I thought it was ‘Tom,’” as in Uncle Tom. Cute.

Student activists at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, made good on their threat to disrupt an address by conservative Christina Hoff Sommers. What makes this one worse is that it was at the Law School. Yes, that’s right: students studying the law denied Sommers her free speech right.

The Leftist operators of Google, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube social media platforms think the way to persuade people to their ideas is to cheat them out of contrary opinions. 

The Media Research Center has produced a report titled “Censored” on how and to what extent popular social media are trying to “persuade” people to their way of thinking, not through the common sense of their ideas or the power of their argument, but by keeping people from seeing other points of view.

Authors Ashley Rae Goldenberg and Dan Gainor tell us that social media influences our worldview and can even influence elections. “Americans are seeing the results everywhere online. Conservative spokespeople, political candidates, even members of Congress, are falling victim to censors and the top tech firms are to blame.”

The article addresses claims of liberal bias and censorship against Twitter, Facebook, Google and YouTube individually, listing the claims and evaluating them, showing that the claims are supported by evidence.

These include such things as that Twitter censors conservative tweets pro-life ads, and censors content that governments find objectionable.

Liberal attitudes are at the core of Facebook and it censors pro-life advertising. Facebook’s algorithms filter what things its members can see, and it also blocked the “Diamond and Silk” girls’ posts, calling their content “dangerous.” Have you ever seen Diamond and Silk? Dangerous?

Google’s fact-checking system and algorithm contain an anti-conservative bias, and its News Lab partners with the radical Southern Poverty Law Center to identify “hate.”

Charges against YouTube mirror those previously mentioned for the other three media.

Is it that these folks have so little faith in their way of thinking that they don’t trust it to stand up against contrary ideas? Or do they not want to go to the trouble of actual debate and take a chance on losing in the marketplace of free ideas?

Whatever the motivation, using their ability to control what their customers or users see is truly otherworldly.

Liars, cheaters and cowards, oh my!

Faced with unpopular ideas, so many in our country are convinced that the appropriate reaction is to hold their breath, sob uncontrollably, stomp their feet, run to their safe space and demand that the speaker of these ideas shut up.

Private businesses or organizations can control what their Websites show. No argument there. The question, however, is not whether they can, but whether they should? Politics and business is a bad combination, and in these instances is quite dangerous.

When the rights of one person conflict with the rights of another

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …” So reads, in part, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The amendment forbids government from acting to promote or establish any religion, and from acting to discourage or ban religious behavior. In essence, government should have a hands-off policy where the practice of religious activities, or abstinence from them is concerned.

No constitutionally guaranteed right is absolute, however, and practitioners of a religion who commit felonies – such as assault, robbery, homicide, rape, kidnapping, etc. – or misdemeanors because of their beliefs will suffer the same consequences as other law breakers.

When religious beliefs come up against other rights, however, problems may arise. One such issue is whether a religious person can be, or should be, forced to do something that is against his or her religious beliefs when not doing so would result in the violation of the rights of another person or other persons.

The United States Supreme Court is currently dealing with just such a case. The Court has before it the case of a Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. The Court must decide how the religious rights of the baker stack up against the couple’s right to equal treatment under the law.

But should someone have his or her rights denied because they are in conflict with someone else’s rights? It is a sticky issue.

A gay couple that has previously been a customer of Mary’s Delights bakery asks her to bake a cake for their wedding, but Mary says that homosexuality goes against the beliefs of her religion and therefore she cannot participate in this wedding by baking the cake. Mary suggests they find another baker for the cake. Perhaps Bob’s bakery? Bob has baked cakes for gay weddings before, she said.

But the couple feels their rights have been violated. Gay marriage is legal and they believe that by refusing to participate in their marriage, Mary has discriminated against them, so they take action against Mary.

However, discrimination is a common and natural part of living; people discriminate against things and people everyday. They choose to buy an SUV instead of a pickup. Or vice versa. We order seafood instead of a steak. We decide to order a cake from Mary’s Delights instead of Joe’s Bakery.

Do we not occasionally see a sign on the entrance to a commercial establishment that reads: “No shirt. No shoes. No service?” Isn’t that discrimination against shirtless or unshod people?

All of these are matters of discrimination, which is merely a matter of making conscious choices of one thing over other things. It is a question of degree, and even then not every act constitutes actionable discrimination.

Years ago, businesses not infrequently had signs on their doors or windows reading: “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.” The right of the proprietor to control their business was unquestioned. If they wanted to serve only black people, or only white people, or only Christians or Muslims or atheists, why is that wrong? Or if they want to not serve blue-eyed blondes, or short men, why is that wrong?

As long as services are available to everyone through some provider, why is it necessary that every provider be required to serve everyone?

Carried to its illogical extreme, the owner of a French restaurant could be accused of discrimination by people whose heritage is from another country because the restaurant doesn’t serve German, Scottish, Italian or Mexican food.

America is founded on principles of freedom and guaranteed rights. We have the right to vote for whomever we choose, and to not vote for other candidates. We have the right to associate with whomever we like and to not associate with those with whom we choose not to associate.

People have the right to invest thousands of dollars in their businesses, but if they are religious, they can be forced to violate the tenets of their religion, and their right to religious freedom can be denied, in this case only because someone wants to force them to acquiesce to their wishes rather than go find another baker.

It is no accident that the First Amendment guarantees the right to religion, free speech, a free press, to peaceably assemble, and to petition for a governmental redress of grievances. It is because these were thought to be most important of those basic rights by the Founders. And, it is no accident that first among those items in the first of the amendments is religion.

The American character has been such that when things don’t go the way we want or expect, we work around the problem, whenever possible. So when one service provider is unable or unwilling to accommodate our wishes, we simply find another one who will fill the order. A baker with a religious objection to supporting a gay wedding should not be a problem for anyone. And it should not be a matter to be decided by the United States Supreme Court. Or of any U.S. court.

Passing laws is not always the best solution to our problems

The Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, addresses rights that are secured in the body of the Constitution, but in general, less specific terms. The Bill of Rights came to be because the rights it detailed were considered so important that they should be specifically acknowledged, so that there will be no doubt as to their importance, and to make it crystal clear those rights are guaranteed to the people.

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution solidifies the right of the people to own firearms. Today, this is the most controversial of the ten. There is an on-going effort to pass more restrictive gun control laws, and every time a gun is used in a crime the loud protests crank up again.

Emotions or bad reasoning, and sometimes-ill motives, are behind this movement. Somehow, many or most of the anti-gunners blame not the shooter’s evil intent and illegal acts, but the gun. They not only disbelieve, but ridicule the oft-used expression, “a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun,” which gives a strong clue to their actual intention: to rid the country of all guns. Given the laws that already exist that make killing illegal, just like the laws against illegal drug use that are routinely ignored, more gun laws will fail to achieve their goal.

The NRA and its members are the favored boogeymen. These folks are often blamed for the actual gun violence as well as for opposing more stringent gun restrictions, despite the fact that none of them have ever actually been the ones responsible for any of these atrocities.

It is not irrelevant that in the case of the evil cretin who killed and injured some 50 church goers recently, was not an NRA member, but it is important that it was a former NRA instructor that intervened after the attack, shooting and disabling the killer, and likely saving a few lives. A good guy with a gun DID stop a bad guy with a gun.

The real problem that we have is not that the Second Amendment needs to be rewritten, reinterpreted or repealed, but that the impulse to attack, maim and kill be controlled.

Similar problems exist with the First Amendment’s protection of free speech.

There are some restrictions on free speech. For example, you can’t yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater, as the age-old saying goes. And some speech is illegal because it harms individuals. Libel is one: a published false statement that is damaging to a person's reputation; a written defamation. Slander is another: making a false spoken statement damaging to a person's reputation. And inciting violence is illegal, and so-called “fighting words” may be illegal.

The First Amendment protects most speech, especially unpopular speech. So-called “hate speech” is not illegal, unless it incites violence. Political comments challenging the government or government officials is also protected speech.

And it protects freedom of the press, which is a long-standing and important function of the First Amendment. It is crucial that news media be free to provide important information to the people so that they can be well informed and prepared to make knowledgeable decisions. It is particularly important that the press be free to publish factual information about government and those who serve the people in government, no matter how much they may dislike it.

But that protection presupposes the media will discharge its critical duty honestly, following the principles of accuracy, fair play and impartiality.

The First Amendment guarantees freedom of the press, but does it also guarantee that the people and organizations that provide the news will behave themselves? Unfortunately, as does the Second Amendment, it assumes honest and upright behavior, but it cannot guarantee that people will do the right thing.

What about those episodes when media organizations and their employees fail in their duty to the people and instead produce distortions, exaggerations, and errors that are not adequately corrected, as well as sometimes providing outright false information? The First Amendment protects the people who commit these wrongs, unlike those private individuals who commit libel and slander? But there is a reason for that.

Both the First Amendment and the Second Amendment represent our Founders recognition of principles of freedom. We are bound to honor the Constitution, making changes very infrequently, and only in response to a great need that does not weaken the founding principles. Changes must not be made merely to achieve some supposed current need that may fade away in a few years.

We can pass laws against guns to keep them out of the hands of bad guys, and at the same time keep them out of the hands of good guys who won’t kill anyone, but will use them for legal purposes, including self-defense.

And we can pass laws to punish news people who abandon ethical standards, but will also cast a pall on the dissemination of important information, as news folk carefully walk a thin line.

More laws will not correct the character flaws of killers and incompetent news people, so let’s focus on that problem.