Walz Wants To Decide What Is Hate Speech Or Disinformation

Tim Walz in 2022 stated: "There's no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy," Walz

Actual Hate speech of course is unpleasant and often uncouth and untrue, but it often serves a useful signaling purpose as it reveals the character of the speaker to all.

However, statements are often labeled hate speech when they are not “hate speech” to instead chill it when the speech is adversarial to whoever is trying to silence the speaker. Indee, as Democrats like Walz tend to label anyone who doesn’t agree with them as Hitler or a fascist, it’s not hard to see them calling their opponents’ speech hate speech to block and ban it when it suits them.

So the problem is who decides what is considered hate speech?

As to "misinformation", the problem is Democrats have labeled as misinformation what was actually true, such as Hunter Biden’s laptop

Democrats have also labeled as true things that were misinformation such as the Steele Dossier.

In short, Walz’s statement would let the government (meaning fellow Demo) simply ban speech they don’t like if they can claim it is hate speech or misinformation to protect “our democracy”.

That kind of speech control and politically opportunistic discrimination is downright un-American and in fact is harmful to democracy.

In The Place Where Great Britain Used To Be

In Great Britain, where speech deemed to be offensive or hateful can get you thrown in jail there's apparently an unwritten exception to permit hate speech by Islamists and their supporters.

Express: Moment Met Police officer tells Jewish woman swastikas 'need to be taken in context'

A video has captured the moment a Met Police officer tells a Jewish woman that the use of swastikas during a pro-Palestine march needed to be "taken into context".

The footage shows an activist at Saturday's protest in London embroiled in a heated exchange with the officer over the Nazi symbol being displayed by protesters.

The officer is filmed debating the use of the symbol, that will forever be associated with Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party in Germany.

 Determining who gets free speech is a very subjective thing in formerly Great Britain.

That Pesky First Amendment Keeps Getting In The Way

An opinion writer bemoans that Michigan's latest hate crime bill, the penalizes someones acts based on the subjective impact on another person, is delayed, and had it been in effect, it would criminalize conduct such as displaying a KKK flag in view of a Black person.

Detroit Free Press:  Michigan lawmakers are supposed to protect us. Why are they letting hate crime bill wither away?

I blogged on this situation before.   A White and a Black neighbor got into a dispute, and White neighbor thought it would be just the thing to fly a KKK flag in view of Black neighbor's house.

Now, the writer of the op-ed bemoans this and would want the neighbor charged with a hate crime.

Now, flying a flag, even one of a very repugnant organization, is protected by the First Amendment. Note that this is going on in Michigan, a state, while of the North, and which oft looks down on the Southern states as backwards, racist and discriminatory, has always had quite a major backwards and racist KKK presence.

However, charging the jerk with a hate crime because a third party is offended is not appropriate and makes this hate crime bill far too overbroad and exactly what most people were warning it could be used for - punishing views people don't like. It is far better for the guy to display to all and sundry that he's a complete, presumably racist, idiot than for it to be hidden.  In short this idiot certainly showed his ass to the world. After all, when someone flies a flag on their own property, you know exactly who they are, and what they support, and you can judge them accordingly.

Again flying a KKK flag is absolutely the act of a jerk and a moron, and not to be condoned. But, being an absolute jerk is not a crime, nor should flying a flag on your own property even when it represents a reprehensible organization. After all, it tells everyone far and wide that the flier of that flag is a moron and not to be associated with in civilized company.

No Public School, You Don't Get To Pick And Choose Which Political Speech You Like

Dear Public Schools, If you're going to allow students to wear LGBT gear, you going to have to allow wearing LGB gear.

You're not allowed to have viewpoint discrimination on political speech, as the Tri County Area School Board is about to find out.

The Detroit Free Press:  Students sue Michigan school district for banning 'Let's Go Brandon' sweatshirts

After all, if the Supreme Court has acknowledged you have the right to wear "F the draft" on your shirt in a courthouse, and armbands protesting national government public policy can be worn schools, Let's Go Brandon fits the protest of public figures and policy speech in schools rather nicely.

Since Let's Go Brandon is not profanity,  indeed it is rather trite political commentary not just about Biden, but the media at large, and there's been no showing of any actual disturbance the school's argument to keep it out should not work.  

To top it off, the school, while claiming they do not allow clothing with political speech, does apparently allow kids to wear clothing with their favored political speech:

On May 26, 2022, the assistant principal had X.A. summoned to his office, where he ordered him to remove the sweatshirt, allegedly telling him "the school does not allow students to wear clothing with political speech."

X.A. complied, but the brothers' lawyers are now crying foul, alleging the school district in fact allows political speech by letting students wear gay pride and LGBTQ T-shirts to school.

Yep, assuming the allegation is true, that viewpoint discrimination is should sink the school's case right there.  

After all, you can't have LGBTQ without LGB.  Indeed, what happens when a student wears an LGBTQ shirt with a rainbow that then reads below it "Let's Get Brandon To Quit"?

Turns Out, The DHS Disinformation Board Didn't Exactly Go Away

The censoring functions in the name of "fighting disinformaiton" just carried on without the name.

It now turns out that while they got rid of the board name,  DHS continued the censoring functions of controlling the narrative and flow of information on social media sites, just without a "Disinformation Board".

The Intercept: Truth Cops Leaked Documents Outline DHS Plans to Police Disinformation.

Even without the board, DHS and agencies continued to work to shape the narrative and remove information they did not like form social media.

So much so that Twitter and Facebook gave the government special access to remove posts they found objectionable.

 

Among other things, Hunter Biden's laptop anyone?

So, The Biden Administration was using social media sites as their agents, with government agents themselves flagging and censoring content they did not like and requested the sites to remove.

This is at most likely, if not de facto and de jure absolutely, given what is being revealed about this program so far, to be a major ongoing First Amendment violation by these government agencies in censoring speech. 

Remember when the Left and Democrats were in favor of free speech and against government censorship?  Good times.

Biden's Objectively Fascist Min Tru Is Run By A Pro-Censorship Nutter

Matzav.com: Biden’s Disinformation Chief Nina Jankowicz: Online Mockery of Kamala Harris a Threat to Democracy and National Security

Contrary to the rantings of this Marxist pro-censorship bint, I daresay that mockery of Kamala Harris and other politicians is instead vital for both democracy and national security.

The day you can't publicly mock a politician of whatever stripe is the day this is not America.

Attention the Biden Administration: 1984 is not supposed to be a how-to guide.

Proggies fail to realize that creating a government entity with the friendly name of "Disinformation Governance Board" (makes one think they will be promoting disinformation, doesn't it?) with the power of law to censor or ban speech in the name of prevention of disinformation or gender equality could ever be used against them when they're out of power. Lack of foresight, that.

Just imagine how proggies' heads would have exploded had Trump announced he was creating a disinformation board to censor the actually fake Russia, Russia, Russia, nonsense, and the many other lies the Prog's made online and elsewhere during is Presidency. Not to mention imagine their reaction to Trump announcing a board that urged censoring of first-amendment protected speech like the Prog's multiple acts of mockery of Trump they made at the time, and still do for that matter.

Social media companies, she [Nina Jankowicz] argued should “make the shift toward believing women” allowing them to identify and censor content. Jankowicz also called for tech companies to stop “a tacit pile-on instruction” from influential people with a lot of online followers.

Jankowicz said online mockery of women was a threat to democracy, warning that “gender disinformation” could prevent women from running for office.

Yeesh. With the "believe all women" line, one would expect she's on board for banning the investigative reporting that led to lots of Kavanaugh's accusers being shown to be frauds or less than believable. Or that she's supporting Amber Heard, perhaps.

Mockery of politicians of all parties is a time-honored American tradition, and Kamala Harris and other politicians male and female alike, certainly deserved to be mocked for their incompetence. To shelter female politicians from rather deserving mockery would certainly be rather sexist and even discrimination based on gender now wouldn't it?

That the Biden Administration even came up with this idea reveals how bad of a job Biden, Kamala, Whitmer and the rest of the gang are doing as they seek to censor criticism of their actions and idiotic pronouncements.

Being A Racist Jerk Is Not A Crime . . . But, In The End, You're Still A Racist Jerk

Yes, you can indeed do stupid, racist, thoughtless, and jerk-like acts and speech and still not commit a crime.

The Detroit Free Press: Grosse Pointe Park man who displayed KKK flag won't be charged with ethnic intimidation

The Detroit News: No charges against man who hung KKK flag at his Grosse Pointe Park home

In short , this is the correct result no matter how stupid and offensively people are behaving in this incident.

The story:

Neighbors are having a dispute, one is Black, one is White.   They are clearly not getting along.

So things escalate - Black homeowner aims cameras at White person's home.  

So, White person gives camera something to look at by putting up a KKK flag in view of the neighbor and the camera.   Much uproar ensues.

Is this offensive?  Heck yes.  

Probably racist in intent?  Yep.  

Clearly done to upset or to get a rise out of the neighbor in return for her offensive (yet legal) aiming of cameras at his house? Most definitely. 

Makes the one hanging the flag up look like a racist douchebag?  Why yes, yes, it does.

In short this is two neighbors behaving badly and being idiots, with lots of social uproar, but neither one is committing a crime, at least not yet.

I'm rather impressed that Wayne County prosecutor Kym Worthy followed the law and didn't charge the goofball, even as the elements of ethnic intimidation were not met, just to send a message and have the process be the punishment. 

But, I'm not surprised upon reading the articles to see that she's advocating criminalizing what the jerk is doing.  It is clearly First-Amendment protected behavior, no matter how very distasteful, offensive, and stupid that it happens to be.

It's not criminal to be an offensive jerk, at least not yet anyways.  But he's still got to live with the fact that he's an offensive jerk.  

Perhaps the publicity will get these warring neighbors to chill out a bit and step back from stupid, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Cambridge's Progressive Double Standards

Verily, If A progressive person or institution didn't have double standards, they'd have no standards at all.

Cambridge University, the rather historic British institution got very woke and earlier this year and rescinded an invitation to Jordan Peterson over protests at allowing him to speak on their hallowed grounds.

That was met by applause by the the Cambridge Student Union who said

“We are relieved to hear that Jordan Peterson’s request for a visiting fellowship to Cambridge’s faculty of divinity has been rescinded following further review. It is a political act to associate the University with an academic’s work through offers which legitimise figures such as Peterson.

Meanwhile, the very same Cambridge University yesterday hosted and feted Malaysian Prime Minister and antisemitic moonbat Mahathir Mohamad, who used the opportunity to speak to make at least one anti-Semitic joke, to the delight of those attending the Cambridge Union Speech.

The Telegraph: Cambridge Union audience laughs at anti-Semitic 'joke' by Malaysian prime minister

Note how Cambridge defended inviting Mattahir:

Dr Mohamad's invitation to speak had already proved controversial, but Cambridge University said he should not be banned because they respect freedom of speech.

Ah, so Cambridge is all for free speech for anti-Semitic progressive scum -- and applauding it no less -- but not for a world-famous rather centrist University professor that disdains and demonstrates the fallacies of leftist cant.

The Thugs' Veto Strikes Again

Daily Nous: “Credible Threats Of Personal Violence” Lead To Retraction of Colonialism Paper

Following a number of complaints, Taylor & Francis conducted a thorough investigation into the peer review process on this article. Whilst this clearly demonstrated the essay had undergone double-blind peer review, in line with the journal’s editorial policy, the journal editor has subsequently received serious and credible threats of personal violence. These threats are linked to the publication of this essay. As the publisher, we must take this seriously. Taylor & Francis has a strong and supportive duty of care to all our academic editorial teams, and this is why we are withdrawing this essay.

So a scholarly article is fast going down the memory hole, not because it was false or lacked academic merit, but because people didn't like it enough to threaten violence over it.

Why did it work? Because people know the Left will in fact do violence when they make these kinds of threats.

The paper itself was pretty darned innocuous, arguing that colonialism had some benefits to the colonized, but of course its now rather hard to find a copy of it extant to argue for or against the author's claims in the paper and to see if its detractors had anything to substantiate their violence-inducing butt-hurt beyond having the word colonialism associated with some positive benefits.

After all, what did the Romans ever do for us?

Of course the thugs' veto, with its threat of violence is being justified by those on the left with the very peculiar theory that "speech is violence". Yes, his detractors actually claim his paper is "violence against their [the colonized] respective communities and cultures." Thus, once the Left has decided that speech, in this case written speech in a scholarly peer-reviewed article no less, is violence, the Left uses this leap of logic to justify threats of violence and actual violence as an appropriate response.

So far, as seen by the cringe-worthy and cowering retraction of the paper, it is working.

This can backfire on the Left rather badly, especially if the Right takes up this "speech is violence" idea and climbs onto the thugs' veto bandwagon.

Just imagine Universities being told:

Look, Communism has killed over 100 million people, Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto is therefore clearly violent speech and violence against "its victims respective communities and cultures", so any professor teaching it is clearly enabling and inspiring mass murder. If you continue to teach this violence at your university . . . . . .

Well, that's a lovely university you got here, too bad if something were to happen to it.