Posted on 05/11/2025 8:07:00 AM PDT by RandFan
On Wednesday, the same day Palestinian Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi was released on bail pending a Habeas hearing after a judge determined that he did not pose a risk to the public, Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky blasted the Congress for pushing new speech restrictions, particularly antisemitism measures that would restrict criticism of Israel on school campuses.
“We’re either a free society governed by the Constitution, or we’re not. We need to challenge hate with reason, not censorship.”
Paul was specifically addressing the Antisemitism Awareness Act which would codify a Trump-era executive order declaring that antisemitism is a prohibited form of discrimination in schools and universities, and would use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism in assessing cases of antisemitic discrimination through the Department of Education.
Critics say that it would allow the government to conflate criticism of Zionism and the Israeli government with antisemitism and serve as a dangerous tool to shut down free speech. Paul wondered aloud if campus police would be used in enforcing new speech rules, and how.
As The Jewish Chronicle reported after the vote was postponed, Sen. Paul was part of “a testy hearing on Wednesday that covered objections to the bill ranging from whether a Christian would be barred from saying that Jews killed Jesus, to the acceptability of making contemporary political allusions to Nazi Germany and even the comedy of Jerry Seinfeld and Joan Rivers.”
Paul cited the landmark 1969 Brandenburg v. Ohio case, in which Ku Klux Klan member Clarence Brandenburg was convicted under two Ohio laws of allegedly inciting violence against Jews and African-Americans with his speech.
Brandenburg claimed that his punishment violated the First Amendment. The Supreme Court agreed with him.
(Excerpt) Read more at responsiblestatecraft.org ...
Maybe the Jews in Israel can quit putting people into Concentration camps and killing them? How is what they are doing any different than the Nazis? OK, not as big in scope, but it is the same general plan.
Keep in mind that I could care less what the Jews do IN GAZA, nor would I have cared what Hitler did to the Jews in various places. Life on planet Earth is like that, people get power, abuse power and kill people. It is the RESPONSIBILITY of the US govt to protect Americans from that happening. Not responsible for the world, and never can fix it. It is a money hole, and things keep getting worse. Do you know what is worse? We then drag home the problem people to our country, and they keep fighting here too.
The USA is not God, it is not on the side of God. He can take care of his own, and does. The US thinks it is god, and gallops over the entire world fixing things, but doesn’t take care of it’s own country correctly.
Hate speech and hate crime is a stupid idea and law.
Is anyone less dead if the killer did not “hate” them?
Punish evil action not words.
The spending of us taxpayer money is a federal issue.
Period.
Rand needs a judge in his pocket that can simply kill the bill.
At least your posting name fits so you’ve got that going for you.
“...We need to challenge hate with reason, not censorship.” Oh yeah. That really worked with Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Franco, Mao, Bin Laden...
How did America help with any of those problems. Sacrifice OUR lives, the grunts who don’t skip war. Keep in mind that Bin Laden was in Iran, and the US govt knew this. What was the actual thing that the US won, an actual physical positive out of all the warring? Debt, and loss of stature.
When a country goes out looking for monsters to slay, it is lost....maybe forever.
And unconstitutional federal spending is a legal issue and must be stopped.
Remember, THE CONSTITUTION is the Supreme Law of the Land OVER the feds (US Const., Art. VI, Cl.2).
After one group is ‘protected’ there will be another group with special protection, then another until only white Christian men remain.
Israel has bent over backwards, and been too nice..THEY SHOULD HAVE LEVELED GAZA TO TJE GROUND. Netenyahu has been far too weak.
Guess I must have missed Paul’s irateness when thousands of J6ers were charges for expressing their free speech rights or those arrested for peacefully demonstrating outside abortion clinics or the individual who’s meme got his falsely convicted and jailed..
Criticism is protected by the 1st Ammdement. Incetment to vilonce is not.If the bill is to broad, than it should be rejected.
You can’t reason with Muslims. As for leftists, they are the antithesis of reasonable. But this is all because of our immigration policies of the last 20 years or so. Cultural clashes of immigrants is a big factor that led to the downfall of Rome.
Rand does have a point, yes.
Free speech is a founding principle of our country.
BUT... we are not talking about “Free speech” on these campuses. Not
in anything approaching the pure and lofty implication of that phrase.
We are witnessing organized mob incitement, harassment, intimidation, threats, and yes in some instances even violent physical assaults -— these are criminal acts in any decent society including I believe all 50 USA states.
If we are only experiencing a peaceful, civilized speech or debate ... one lacking the threats, mob intimidation, etcetera....and a civil speech WITHOUT the provocations, “fighting words” (which are already illegal, of course), then I would agree with Senator Rand.
He is fighting for an ideal concept (one which I, support and agree with). But, regrettably, he is not addressing the actual problems we are confronted with out here “in the real world.”
Respectfully,
fhc
I agree. If we were to jail folks who riot for a long long time or at least huge civil fines and jail and wealth rescision for those who fund them, then we can protect speech like this. But it always goes way beyond speech to threats and intimidation of others. Maybe charge them with extortion and blackmail if rioters make demands to get something unwarranted and illegal in exchange for not burning down the rest of your city.
He’s right on this.
And here all along I thought he was an anti Semite.
“ Maybe the Jews in Israel can quit putting people into Concentration camps and killing them”
lol. Any other lies you believe, Mohammed?
By the way, allah is not God. He was a figment of mohammed’s imagination or even a demon. Mohammed was not a prophet, but a pedophile, a thief, a liar, a murderer, a con man and a general piece of shit.
Question:
Does enemy propaganda have freedom-of-speech” protection?
Yeah, I know Mohammed likely never existed, and the totality of Islam is a lie. That has nothing to do with how badly Israel is treating human beings. Not that I care, it is not my business. It is not the business of the United States of America. Israel is NOT OUR ALLY. What have they ever done or could they do to assist the US? They are peanut in an elephant herd.
He’s right. The first amendment was not created to protect acceptable speech.
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