It's rare that we get progressives who fully admit that they support government censorship and control of speech. Such a moment, though, occurred this week when the Atlantic published an article by two law professors calling for government control of internet speech. Here's the key sentence of the article.
In the great debate of the past two decades about freedom versus control of the network, China was largely right and the United States was largely wrong. Significant monitoring and speech control are inevitable components of a mature and flourishing internet, and governments must play a large role in these practices to ensure that the internet is compatible with a society’s norms and values.
Think about that and all that it means. These progressives want government control of speech. And it makes no difference that the speech is on the internet; they want the government to control it.
The First Amendment was adopted in the 1790s. At the time, the best way to disseminate speech was via the printed word. Newspapers and pamphlets were circulated and people got to say what they wanted. In the 20th century, Newspapers were joined by radio and television as ways to disseminate political speech. With a TV or radio, someone could get a wider audience than with a newspaper. A person could actually reach a majority of the people in the country through television. And through all this, the First Amendment protected Americans from government control of speech. What was the remedy for false speech? The answer is more speech, this time accurate. If a newspaper pushed speech that was outside society's norms and values, it wasn't the government that stopped it; no, it was the economic power of the American people. For example, if a magazine went outside accepted norms, then people stopped buying it and companies stopped advertising in it.
The problem today is not new. The reason that progressives now want government to keep speech inside "society's norms and values" is that for the first time in many decades, progressives lost control of the main outlets of speech. Those TV reporters and pundits who used to control speech in this country have been replaced, first by competing conservative media (think Rush Limbaugh and Fox News). Then once the bias in the media became widely known, the internet gave average citizens a way to get their views out to millions as well. We had truly free speech. And that's a threat to one of the main levers of power used by progressives to push their agenda.
Consider the effects of government action to make sure that speech on the internet or anywhere else "is compatible with a society's norms and values."
In the last twenty years, the acceptance of gays has changed in major ways. We now have gay marriage, adoption by gay couples, gays in the military, and the like. Yet, no one could possibly question that in 1980, all of these ideas were incompatible with the norms and values of American society. If government kept speech on TV and Radio and in the media restricted to only those ideas compatible with society's norms and values, none of the people who were pushing for gay rights would have been able to be heard. Nothing would have changed. If you go back further to the 1950s and 1960s, speech pushing for civil rights would have been suppressed. The whole civil rights movement might have failed. In the late 1970s, Ronald Reagan and the conservative movement pushed to end government over regulation of the economy. Clearly, that view was despised by media and government bigwigs. They could have and would have used government control of speech to stop that movement if such control were available.
The real truth is that the decision as to society's norms and values is one for the society as a whole to make. It is not up to the government to decide. America is meant to be a nation in which people decide their own fates, their own likes and dislikes. The government doesn't get to make such decisions except in dictatorships where that freedom is taken from the people.
The Atlantic article may be dismissed as nothing more than the musings of some misguided academics. Lord knows there are enough addled brained professors to provide a non-stop stream of such nonsense. But that isn't taking this threat to our freedom seriously. Every politician should denounce this sort of fascistic nonsense. Sadly, a big chunk of the progressive movement now accepts this view. It is an active threat to our democracy and our society. Put another way, it is a threat to the central core of our country.
In the great debate of the past two decades about freedom versus control of the network, China was largely right and the United States was largely wrong. Significant monitoring and speech control are inevitable components of a mature and flourishing internet, and governments must play a large role in these practices to ensure that the internet is compatible with a society’s norms and values.
Think about that and all that it means. These progressives want government control of speech. And it makes no difference that the speech is on the internet; they want the government to control it.
The First Amendment was adopted in the 1790s. At the time, the best way to disseminate speech was via the printed word. Newspapers and pamphlets were circulated and people got to say what they wanted. In the 20th century, Newspapers were joined by radio and television as ways to disseminate political speech. With a TV or radio, someone could get a wider audience than with a newspaper. A person could actually reach a majority of the people in the country through television. And through all this, the First Amendment protected Americans from government control of speech. What was the remedy for false speech? The answer is more speech, this time accurate. If a newspaper pushed speech that was outside society's norms and values, it wasn't the government that stopped it; no, it was the economic power of the American people. For example, if a magazine went outside accepted norms, then people stopped buying it and companies stopped advertising in it.
The problem today is not new. The reason that progressives now want government to keep speech inside "society's norms and values" is that for the first time in many decades, progressives lost control of the main outlets of speech. Those TV reporters and pundits who used to control speech in this country have been replaced, first by competing conservative media (think Rush Limbaugh and Fox News). Then once the bias in the media became widely known, the internet gave average citizens a way to get their views out to millions as well. We had truly free speech. And that's a threat to one of the main levers of power used by progressives to push their agenda.
Consider the effects of government action to make sure that speech on the internet or anywhere else "is compatible with a society's norms and values."
In the last twenty years, the acceptance of gays has changed in major ways. We now have gay marriage, adoption by gay couples, gays in the military, and the like. Yet, no one could possibly question that in 1980, all of these ideas were incompatible with the norms and values of American society. If government kept speech on TV and Radio and in the media restricted to only those ideas compatible with society's norms and values, none of the people who were pushing for gay rights would have been able to be heard. Nothing would have changed. If you go back further to the 1950s and 1960s, speech pushing for civil rights would have been suppressed. The whole civil rights movement might have failed. In the late 1970s, Ronald Reagan and the conservative movement pushed to end government over regulation of the economy. Clearly, that view was despised by media and government bigwigs. They could have and would have used government control of speech to stop that movement if such control were available.
The real truth is that the decision as to society's norms and values is one for the society as a whole to make. It is not up to the government to decide. America is meant to be a nation in which people decide their own fates, their own likes and dislikes. The government doesn't get to make such decisions except in dictatorships where that freedom is taken from the people.
The Atlantic article may be dismissed as nothing more than the musings of some misguided academics. Lord knows there are enough addled brained professors to provide a non-stop stream of such nonsense. But that isn't taking this threat to our freedom seriously. Every politician should denounce this sort of fascistic nonsense. Sadly, a big chunk of the progressive movement now accepts this view. It is an active threat to our democracy and our society. Put another way, it is a threat to the central core of our country.
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