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SHOULD THE FBI “SHUT DOWN” HATE SPEECH?
Powerline ^ | 2 Apr 2019 | John Hinderaker

Posted on 04/02/2019 6:13:22 PM PDT by Rummyfan

I don’t remember when the phrase “hate speech” came into common use, but for some time now liberals have used it as an implicit attack on the First Amendment. Contrary to all law and logic, they press the view that anything they consider “hate speech” should be suppressed, by the government (a government run by liberals, that is) if necessary.

CNN’s Christiane Amanpour engaged in an extreme form of this fallacy while interviewing James Comey earlier today. She asked Comey whether he wished that the FBI had “shut down” people at 2016 Trump rallies who chanted “lock her up” about Hillary Clinton:

Of course, “Lock Her Up” was a feature of the 2016 Trump campaign. Do you in, retrospect, wish that people like yourself, the head of the FBI, the people in charge of law and order, had shut down that language, that it was dangerous potentially, that it could have created violence, that it kind of is hate speech? Should that have been allowed?

Video at the link. The fact that a veteran journalist could ask such an insane question is shocking. (Comey explained that in the United States, it is not the job of the FBI to “shut down” political speech.) The phrase “hate speech” is the magic talisman. But for the last two years, it has been impossible to assemble a group of three or more Democrats who didn’t call Donald Trump a traitor, or worse. Is that hate speech? Should the Democrats’ crazed smears against President Trump be “shut down”? If not, why not?

I think the real answer is that Democrats know that Republicans respect the Constitution and value free speech. Democrats can say whatever they want; there is no risk that Republicans will try to shut them down, no matter how often they claim, absurdly, that Donald Trump is a would-be dictator. But when they gain power, the shoe will be on the other foot.

Democrats have already succeeded in driving “hate speech,” as defined by them to serve partisan ends, from most social media outlets. It is only a matter of time before they make a serious effort to shut down speech in public places that is critical of their leaders, and lock up people who have the temerity to engage in it.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: amanpour; bloggers; fascist
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To: Rummyfan

Hate speech. Hate crimes. Making some words okay for some demographics to use but punishable when others use them. Criminalizing the use of other than the pronouns that others demand be applied to them.

All part of a clear march to stop speech in, of all places, the political arena.


41 posted on 04/03/2019 3:48:50 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: Junk Silver

Easy, I’m sure: lock the doors to the arena until the FEMA buses come take them away to FEMA reeducation camps.


42 posted on 04/03/2019 3:49:47 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: fieldmarshaldj

Eggzackly...


43 posted on 04/03/2019 5:48:08 AM PDT by trebb (Don't howl about illegal leeches while not donating to FR - it's hypocritical.)
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To: Rummyfan

Rap is hate speech and must be shut down. No NAACP official can ever say anything because they say nothing absent hate.


44 posted on 04/03/2019 5:50:20 AM PDT by bert ( (KE. NP. N.C. +12) Honduras must be invaded to protect America from invasion)
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To: Rummyfan

“and lock up people who have the temerity to engage in it.”

That will never happen. You’d first need to convince wimpy weenies to crawl out of mommy’s basement and engage in martial training. You’d also need to convince 50-IQ bureaucrats to spit out the jelly doughnut from their craven jellyfish mouths and engage in combat patrols.

Not gonna happen. Don’t believe me?

Take a walk thru any federal bureaucrat office and observe the fat, squishy mopes stuffing their moribund faces with potato chips and two-liter bottles of pop. It’s an army of overfed, low-IQ, entitled brats living on government check welfare.


45 posted on 04/03/2019 7:39:31 AM PDT by sergeantdave (Teach a man to fish and he'll steal your gear and sell it)
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To: clearcarbon

Who defines what is hate speech? As I always say. Today you ban the Nazi Party, next day they will ban the Republican Party—it is the road to tyranny.


46 posted on 04/03/2019 8:31:35 AM PDT by Forward the Light Brigade (Into the Jaws of H*ll Onward! Ride to the sound of the guns!)
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