Alex Jones has free speech. You don't.
How Trumpist conservatives at American Greatness think about defamation and 'speaking freely.'
Photo by Pixabay
At the Trumpist website American Greatness1, Gavin Wax argues that Alex Jones was wrong to malign the Sandy Hook parents. But…
In our age of ever-increasing Orwellian repression, anyone who deviates from the deep state narrative must be castigated, rebuked, scorned, and canceled. Free speech has been replaced as a value by political correctness, with strict thought control from the social media mob enforcing this new regime. It requires moral fortitude to defend the First Amendment rights of someone who makes odious remarks, as Jones clearly has. But even if Jones’ opinions were based on falsehoods and did result in animus fomenting against the Sandy Hook parents, it is his right as a free American to speak freely and, one can argue, speaking freely is an obligation of all journalists covering current events.2
Questioning the circumstances related to school shootings is a service that intrepid members of the media provide to the public.
Jones was reckless, Wax concedes, but he’s a free speech martyr now.
No really.
Now, he has become a full-blown martyr for free speech. That the Biden regime and deep state had to conspire against Jones so blatantly, rewriting long-standing rules of defamation law, and creating a new legal standard to crucify him, only proves his overriding thesis that shadowy elites operate in unison to control American citizens’ thoughts, minds, and lives.
I find this interesting, because the folks at AmGreatness and their Claremont Institution cousins don’t always love free speech.
The real threat to America’s democracy is not the at-times boorish behavior of Donald Trump who, for all of his foibles, has already begun making America’s economy and foreign policy great again. But rather, it is those “partisans in nonpartisan clothing” in the media who threaten the republic. Sadly, short of revoking some of the media’s broadcasting licenses and smothering them in civil action, I cannot think of any way the president could effectively resist what amounts to a media-induced coup attempt.
For President Trump to have a chance at effectively governing, he needs to start firing a large cohort of government employees and either shutting down or repurposing their agencies. He should also request significantly reduced budgets for most government departments. Meanwhile, if the press continues its disgusting and partisan attack, the Trump Administration should threaten to revoke their FCC licenses. The press and much of the bureaucracy has taken an unconstitutional stand. In the name of the Grand Old Republic, the Trump Administration must fight to preserve our institutions (and our constitutional government) from the excesses of totalitarian Statists run amok.
There is no requirement for the government to protect injurious speech. In fact, punishing injurious speech is a means of protecting the natural right to free speech. Such false speech that harms others is punishable. And it is the province of the government to protect the natural rights of individuals in such cases. As Thomas G. West has noted, “freedom of speech is not freedom for licentious speech.” Injurious speech includes injury to the character or reputation of an individual. To engage in such an act is to abuse the liberty an individual possesses.
Far from protecting the First Amendment and exercising it in the manner it requires, the media and the elitist press have continuously flaunted the intent of that protection and absconded in their duty. With each fake news story, they have engaged in licentious speech harming not only the president in his reputation, but those of people who are associated with him.
Donald Trump’s talk of “opening up” libel laws during the 2016 campaign, for instance, is consistent with the founders’ approach of taking injuries done to reputation seriously. The speech regime that has been established since New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) has undermined the freedom of speech rightly understood because it allows libelous speech concerning public officials to go unpunished. If the main duty of government is to protect persons and their property from violence and harm from others, as the Equal Protection Clause suggests, then the government’s abdication of the duty to enforce such laws is a threat to the stability of government itself.
You get the idea.3
You also get the real idea here from the Trumpist Right: When we “speak freely” it is an obligation and responsibility, even when it is utterly false and malicious. When you speak freely, it is injurious and should be penalized.
Don’t let these guys bullshit you into thinking they want liberty. What they really want is privilege.
Full disclosure: I was once a writing partner and good friends with one of the editors. Things changed, obviously.
Emphasis added.
In 2017, I was keeping notes on AmGreatness’ enthusiasm for restricting criticism of Donald Trump. I lost the plot somewhere along the way, but this is definitely part of the website’s history.