{"id":1774087,"date":"2022-12-13T15:32:30","date_gmt":"2022-12-13T20:32:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1774087"},"modified":"2022-12-13T15:32:48","modified_gmt":"2022-12-13T20:32:48","slug":"the-first-amendment-is-dying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-first-amendment-is-dying\/","title":{"rendered":"The First Amendment Is Dying"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">10<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fthe-first-amendment-is-dying%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1774087&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The First Amendment isn\u2019t dying because state actors and a political party colluded with giant tech platforms and media outlets to censor speech and sabotage elections. All of that is just a byproduct of a corrosive trend. <\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s clear to me that many Americans have stopped idealizing free expression. They don\u2019t view it as a neutral value or societal good. Not even a platitude. They definitely don\u2019t believe in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/first-amendment\/article\/940\/counterspeech-doctrine\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">counterspeech<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/first-amendment\/article\/940\/counterspeech-doctrine\"> doctrine<\/a>. Some of them are fine with <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/12\/05\/the-future-of-the-first-amendment-hinges-on-the-303-creative-case\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">compelling<\/a> you to say things, in fact. <\/p>\n<p>Technocrats, \u201cjournalists,\u201d the president, and self-styled experts often view unfettered speech as a cancer that threatens \u201cdiversity\u201d or \u201csocial justice\u201d or \u201cdemocracy\u201d or \u201cthe environment\u201d or \u201csafety\u201d or \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/2020\/04\/send-the-nlrb-back-to-the-salt-mine\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">unions<\/a>\u201d or dozens of other issues that are perched high above speech in the hierarchy of modern values. The First Amendment doesn\u2019t work because guys in powdered wigs wrote down words \u2014 as Scalia once <a href=\"https:\/\/www.americanrhetoric.com\/speeches\/antoninscaliaamericanexceptionalism.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">said<\/a>, every \u201cbanana republic in the world has a bill of rights\u201d \u2014 but because society embraces its underlying values, as they did due process or property rights. The spirit of the thing matters.<\/p>\n<p>You don\u2019t have to be a free-speech absolutist to believe that banning the president from tweeting on an allegedly neutral platform undermines the spirit of open discourse. <\/p>\n<p>We are now often a society of self-censors, which, as Orwell noted, is <a href=\"https:\/\/orwell.ru\/library\/novels\/Animal_Farm\/english\/efp_go\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">as pernicious as any other variant<\/a>. Sure, you can have your say, the leftist assures you. You just can\u2019t have it on any platform or outlet with wide reach. Just look at the thermonuclear meltdown on the left over the sale of Twitter to Elon Musk \u2014 a man whose sin is professing to believe what any self-respecting liberal did a decade ago. <\/p>\n<p>Orwell, though, was concerned that independent journalists and publishers would \u201ckeep certain topics out of print\u201d not because they were \u201cfrightened of prosecution but because they are frightened of public opinion.\u201d The illiberal ideologues being churned out by j-schools these days aren\u2019t nervous about consumer blowback. I suspect reporters and producers at ABC, CBS, and NBC are not <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/tomselliott\/status\/1602386532043718676\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">refusing<\/a> to cover the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/12\/06\/why-elon-musks-twitter-files-matter\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Twitter Files<\/a>\u201d because they\u2019re trying to hide the truth, but because they can\u2019t comprehend why social media colluding with the FBI, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/news\/leaked-documents-reveal-dhs-collaborated-with-facebook-to-target-disinformation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Department of Homeland Security<\/a>, and the <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/09\/01\/bombshell-emails-show-the-biden-administration-colluded-with-big-tech-to-censor-covid-misinformation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">White House<\/a> to quash stories in the preservation of \u201cdemocracy\u201d is newsworthy to begin with.<\/p>\n<p>It is. In 2017, I <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2017\/10\/11\/even-if-trumps-threat-against-nbc-isnt-serious-its-still-dangerous\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">wrote<\/a> about Trump\u2019s threats to revoke NBC\u2019s broadcast license for spreading fake news. Of course, NBC News has no constitutional right to that license, but threatening your critics clearly conflicts with once-accepted principles of free discourse. The same goes for Trump\u2019s executive order <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-twitter-trump-executive-order-social\/trumps-executive-order-targets-political-bias-at-twitter-and-facebook-draft-idUSKBN2340MW\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">empowering<\/a>\u00a0the White House to collect complaints of \u201conline censorship.\u201d Oh, how distressed liberals were over this attack on free speech. <\/p>\n<p>Yet, when, in July of 2021, Jen Psaki casually <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/briefing-room\/press-briefings\/2021\/07\/15\/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-and-surgeon-general-dr-vivek-h-murthy-july-15-2021\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">noted<\/a> that the White House had been \u201cflagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation,\u201d there was not a peep from any of them. Biden Communications Director Kate Bedingfield<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You can\u2019t force people to be free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":831,"featured_media":1774090,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[4935,8667,6919],"class_list":["post-1774087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist","tag-amendment","tag-dying","tag-federalist"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1774087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/831"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1774087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1774087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1774090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1774087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1774087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1774087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}