Posted on 01/30/2021 4:32:39 AM PST by karpov
Most Americans learn in school about flagship political excesses in U.S. history like Joe McCarthy’s 1950s inquisitions, the post-World War I Red Scare and the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. Yet a recent Washington Post opinion piece purports to explain “what the 1798 Sedition Act got right.”
The law banned a wide range of political speech and publication. It was passed by the ruling Federalists to suppress the rival Democratic-Republicans, whom they saw as seditious. The Post piece argues that though their solution was “flawed,” the Federalists had reason to worry about “unregulated freedom of the press.”
We highlight this as one example among many of the emerging appetite for viewpoint suppression among journalists, intellectuals and Democrats in the wake of the Trump Presidency. They increasingly see domestic enemies wherever they look, and are devising ways to use levers of power to restrict, regulate and boycott opposition. It’s an extraordinary and ominous turn in a democracy.
Many calls to sanction opposition media come from voices that claimed to be most alarmed by Donald Trump’s attacks on the free press. Margaret Sullivan, the Post’s media columnist, wrote this week that “corporations that advertise on Fox News should walk away,” declaring that the outlet’s “role in the 400,000 U.S. lives lost to the pandemic and in the disastrous attack of Jan. 6” has been “deadly.”
Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times called for “pressure on advertisers to withdraw from Fox News so long as it functions as an extremist madrasa.” He added that “cable providers should be asked why they distribute channels that peddle lies.” A CNN writer asserted that providers like Comcast “have escaped scrutiny and entirely dodged this conversation.” By conversation he means political bullying from the left.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
“...Joe McCarthy’s 1950s inquisitions, the post-World War I Red Scare...”
That is so woke! It was no “scare”; real commies were killing real people by the millions by Sen. McCarthy’s time.
The Russian civil war of 1920 was a bloodbath. Followed by the slaughter of millions more by the monster Stalin.
By the 1950’s communists controlled vast swaths of the world and had infiltrated the U.S. government.
McCarthy was crucified by all those who believed that “true socialism hasn’t been tried yet”.
Like the bunch occupying the WH now.
Good grief, WSJ!
Ironic, yes. “flagship political excesses in U.S. history” were speech.
Editorial board is not truly in favor of free speech.
Yes. I saw that too. (I am in complete agreement with you!)
May I recommend this well-researched and meticulously annoted book:
https://www.amazon.com/Blacklisted-History-Senator-McCarthy-Americas/dp/1400081068
ANNOTATED.
“The Russian civil war of 1920 was a bloodbath”
And the losing Commies migrated to America.
#1984
5.56mm
Seconding that recommendation! Good book.
Sen McCarthy was an early victim of what Nancy Pelosi calls the “wrap-up smear.” “We call it the wrap-up smear. You smear somebody with falsehoods and all the rest and then you merchandise it. And then you [the press] write it, and they’ll say, see it’s reported in the press that this this this and this. So they have that validation that the press reported the smear, and then it’s called the ‘wrap-up smear.’ And now I’m going to merchandise the press’s report on the smear that we made. It’s a tactic. And it’s, it’s self-evident.”
When Pelosi was talking about it, she was accusing the Republicans of doing the “Wrap-Up Smear”, and not the Democrats.
Wow...she actually ADMITTED that she does that?
Of course. The press is always repeating smears made by Republicans. I suggest you have your meds increased.
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