Posted on 05/03/2020 11:43:13 AM PDT by gattaca
Jonathan Turley, a liberal constitutional scholar at George Washington University, wrote Saturday that some Democrats were using the coronavirus pandemic to demand China-style restrictions on free speech.
In the op-ed, published in The Hill, Turley criticized “the politicians and academics who have called for the censorship of social media and the internet,” including Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Hillary Clinton, and others:
The only thing spreading faster than the coronavirus has been censorship and the loud calls for greater restrictions on free speech. The Atlantic published an article last week by Harvard Law School professor Jack Goldsmith and University of Arizona law professor Andrew Keane Woods calling for Chinese style censorship of the internet.
They declared that “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” and “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 society norms and values.”
The justification for that is the danger of “fake news” about coronavirus risks and cures. Yet this is only the latest rationalization for rolling back free speech rights. For years, Democratic leaders in Congress called for censorship of “fake news” on social media sites. Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube have all engaged in increasing levels of censorship and have a well known reputation for targeting conservative speech.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Turley is sounding red-pilled of late.
A liberal leaning legal scholar in the old sense of the word liberal, but with principles. He gets what’s going on, and how the ground has shifted under his feet.
Democraps are nothing but re-branded Communists. They want Soviet/Maoist Communism. Period.
If implemented, this has a good chance of being the tipping point.
Then the reason for the 2nd Amendment will become obvious.
Then the liberals can experience the pleasure of sheltering in place.
Forever.
I will go one further Professor Turley - democrats want to wield the same power as the CCP does in China over our population and nation.
Turley is finally waking up to how dangerous the left is getting.
They are against the speech for personal freedom.
“...democrats want to wield the same power as the CCP does in China over our population and nation.”
As Orwell explained in the novel 1984, it is power. Power for the sake of power. Nothing else matters.
Turley needs to wake up that it is no longer the party of Hubert Humphrey. The infiltration by the CPUSA was obvious to me in 1972 during the McGovern campaign. I was only 17 then and considered myself to be a Scoop Jackson Democrat.
He’s an old-fashioned liberal, not a totalitarian leftist type.
Time has passed him by in today’s Democrat party.
Many here have asked the rhetorical question as to where JFK would fit into today’s Democrat Party. We could ask similar questions about people like Jonathan Turley. We could ask why are they still officially Democrats, when that party has moved far beyond what they themselves say they believe.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get how far gone they were until Clinton was selling out our missile tech to China.
Always voted Republican but until then considered Democrats as countrymen.
After that and the Kenyanesian Usurpation, not much.
Among other things.
Their restrictions on free speech and one party rule and control. See what they’ve done in California as exhibit A.
These are the types of people who in an ideal world would be the type of people Democrat Presidents nominate as judges. We wouldn’t agree with all of their rulings, but they would not be written to make sweeping new laws as a super legislature, nor would they be designed isolate and demean people who disagree with them. Alas, those days are long gone...if they were ever here to begin with.
When you’re trying to be sneaky and oppressive, free speech is the first necessary step of opposition.
When you’re trying to be sneaky and oppressive, free speech is the first necessary step of opposition.
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The first time I became aware of the movement to legalize the absurd concept of hate speech it was obvious to me that the ultimate goal was the suppression of our 1st Amendment rights.
The justification for that is the danger of “fake news” about coronavirus risks and cures.
Was the government right or wrong in its projections about the coronavirus? Was the government right or wrong in its reaction to those projections? Just what do we need to be protected from, ourselves or the government that has itself engaged in fake projections, perverse restrictions and "fake news?"
The Atlantic authors promote censorship to ensure that speech on the "Internet is compatible with society norms and values." But is it not the effect of the give-and-take within this new virtual public square to work out what "norms and values" will be for society? Will not censorship of that give-and-take stifle the outworking of our norms and values?
To censor social media to protect societies "norms and values" is to engage in a virtual oxymoron.
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