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Notes -
Inspired by this tweet, a thought experiment:
Imagine a a country with a two-faction democratic political system. Faction A is anti-free speech. Faction B is (currently and historically) pro-free speech. In the current environment, both factions are approximately equally matched, with majorities in government seesawing between either faction much like in our own government.
Question: Should Faction B also become anti-free speech?
I am interested in both, “would this be good for the country?” and “would this be good for the party?”
Some arguments I would imagine to hear as part of Faction B’s internal debate over the subject:
“We’re suckers for letting Faction A speak when we control the government. They don’t let us speak when they are in charge, so why should we let them speak when we are in charge?”
“We already get half the vote letting Faction A speak openly in favor of their policies. Imagine how much better we could do in the next election if we didn’t let them speak!”
“When people aren’t worried about consequences for their speech it makes them feel more free. We get more votes when voters think we will make them feel more free than Faction A will.”
“It is important for us to have honest feedback on our policies and the state of the country. If we didn’t let Faction A speak we would be flying half-blind.”
In case you need me to spell-out the subtext: a lot of discussion has been treating the free speech issue as a bargaining chip, rather than a straightforwardly good policy. I’m not sure how much I buy that argument. It sounds a little convenient, like people are looking for excuses to descend into an orgy of vengeance.
I have been happy to see right-wing commentators call our Pam Bondi on her "hate speech" comments:
https://x.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1967948684886450235
https://x.com/realchrisrufo/status/1967950157095530518
Bondi later clarified that she meant incitement to violence: https://x.com/matt_vanswol/status/1967939882980085980
I have also seen push back on Libs of Tiktok posts where she calls on people to cancel those who simply didn't like Kirk.Unfortunately, those don't have as many likes as her posts calling for the cancellations.
Thank goodness for this blowback. What a dumb statement by her.
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What did she mean by this? I guess she’s referring to posting somebody’s address online, but that isn’t illegal! It’s not even about constitutional issues, you could probably get a narrowly-tailored anti-doxing statute past judicial review (factual circumstances have changed since Cox Broadcasting v. Cohn), but nobody’s done that yet. Does she think posting someone’s address is incitement to violence?
In context, I guess? But right wing commentators are calling for Trump to ax her over all this mess.
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