Killing the Political Right
- CCGN Pushes Back on “Free Speech is Killing Us” Article
October 24, 2019
Reader Comments
Andrew Marantz, a New Yorker staff writer, recently wrote an editorial asserting that online hate speech is producing violence and should be discouraged using a nonpunitive approach (“Free Speech Is Killing Us - Noxious language online is causing real-world violence. What can we do about it?”). He poses as the voice of reason against ‘free speech absolutism’, but what he is actually doing is proposing is a number of ways to suppress the political Right.
Marantz proceeds from a flawed premise - that hate speech causes violence. He backs this up by citing a parade of what he undoubtedly considers right-wingers - Modi, Duterte, Trump, Richard Spencer, and the Charlottesville, Pittsburgh, Christchurch and El Paso perpetrators - for the proposition that noxious online speech metastasizes into physical violence. There’s only one problem: “there is no clear link between hate speech and violence.” Therefore, any moves to curb hate speech for this reason are unsupported by the data.
Moreover, “As Robby Soave has pointed out in a piece for Reason, rates of violent crime in the US have continually fallen since the 1990s, even though during that same period the Supreme Court has been increasingly insistent on upholding protections guaranteed by the First Amendment.”
But never let the facts get in the way of a good rant. Marantz plunges merrily on, proposing that hate speech be curbed by generating taxpayer-funded government counter-speech. His proposals include a national news literacy campaign, federal library programming, public media outlets like the BBC, and the creation of a new rival to compete with the tech giants online. Nowhere does he discuss what his proposals would cost or what new problems they would create. Nor does he discuss free speech considerations found in Supreme Court cases to the effect that we really do not want the government in the business of deciding what truth is. The government would routinely engage in viewpoint discrimination under Marantz’ proposals - pushing certain views and disfavoring others - thus distorting the marketplace of ideas.
His first four proposals, as a group, show a preoccupation with growing the government, governmentizing speech, and devoting taxpayer funds to pet left-wing causes - ‘doing something’ about hate speech, among them. However, a news literacy campaign would put the government in the business of deciding what is and what is not fake news. Government-funded library programming would grow another largely government institution - libraries - and increase the dependence of local libraries on federal money. Where federal money goes, federal control follows - not good, but Marantz does not discuss this problem. The creation of publicly-funded media outlets is another pet project of the Left. One of the main proponents of public funding for media is the avowed Marxist professor Robert McChesney. Not surprisingly, Britain’s publicly-funded BBC is notoriously left-wing. To give just one example, it tried to destroy anti-sharia activist Tommy Robinson, who deftly turned the tables and exposed the BBC’s lies and fake news machinery. The U.S. already has publicly-funded media outlets - the left-leaning NPR and PBS. There is no reason to think that additional government-funded journalism in America would not also tilt to the left. Efforts to rein in left-wing bias at NPR and PBS over the years have all failed miserably.
Left, Left, Left - Marantz is a creature of the Left. A quick review of his articles at the New Yorker turns up knocks on Tucker Carlson and President Trump, and romances dedicated to Washington State’s leftist Governor Jay Inslee and ‘stylish socialists’.
Marantz’ heroes include John A. Powell, a law professor at the University of California, former legal director of the left-wing ACLU and Susan Benesch, a lawyer swimming in the left-wing human rights milieu. Her credentials include left-wing Amnesty International and the Dangerous Speech Project where the qualifications of her colleagues include gender studies and social justice work.
Marantz’ solutions extend to leftist-inspired government regulation of speech. He proposes amending Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act which currently views online platforms as mere conduits and shields the platform owners from liability for un-moderated content that users post on the platform. Although he did not come right out and say it, the implication is Marantz would assign statutory duties on the platforms to curate all content and impose legal liability on them when they fall short. But it is Marantz’ final paragraph that really gives the game away. Despite earlier declaring that he is not for repealing the First Amendment or for banning speech, his last paragraph speaks favorably of regulating noxious speech like the government regulates noxious emissions. But who gets to decide which speech is noxious and what penalties to impose? Because Marantz is so super-saturated in all things Left, his direct and inadvertent proposals inspire no confidence he would not use the machinery he wants to set up to kill the political Right, given half a chance.
The Left would be unaffected. Marantz’ examples of supposed hate-induced violence could have, but did not, include Left-wing crazies shooting up Steve Scalise on a baseball field and the security guard in the lobby of the Family Research Council. Similarly, Marantz makes no mention of Antifa cracking heads in the street. Apparently, these incidents don’t bother Marantz in the least. No need to rein in the behavior of the Left, nosirree, no worries here.
The Hate Industry - Marantz is not just a Leftist. He is a card-carrying member of the left-wing hate industry. He has been paid multiple times to write on hate speech and hate incidents.
Marantz writes: “Free speech is a bedrock value in this country. But it isn’t the only one. Like all values, it must be held in tension with others, such as equality, safety and robust democratic participation.” It is a commonplace that that law is the adjustment of competing values, but he conveniently leaves out any discussion of the values that inform constitutional protections for hate speech, or why the Supreme Court in Brandenburg v. Ohio drew the line at the incitement of imminent violence, not violence that might occur... maybe someday... supposedly because somebody saw a social media post somewhere.
The hate-industrial complex is a thing. Careers are being propelled and a lot of money is being made. Just ask the discredited Southern Poverty Law Center which has a half a billion dollars in assets and has stashed a lot of it in off-shore accounts. A ‘nonprofit’ with a colossal fortune and offshore accounts - can you wrap your head around that? The SPLC has been sued multiple times for its phony hate group designations. (The Tea Party - really?) Marantz is in the same industry as the SPLC, which prompts the question: does he say what he says because he really believes it? Or because he is being paid to say it?
Either way, Marantz is setting about to pop the rivets undergirding free speech and, therefore, what he preaches must be challenged.
- CCGN Pushes Back on “Free Speech is Killing Us” Article
October 24, 2019
Reader Comments
- "Great job!"
- "Right On!"
Andrew Marantz, a New Yorker staff writer, recently wrote an editorial asserting that online hate speech is producing violence and should be discouraged using a nonpunitive approach (“Free Speech Is Killing Us - Noxious language online is causing real-world violence. What can we do about it?”). He poses as the voice of reason against ‘free speech absolutism’, but what he is actually doing is proposing is a number of ways to suppress the political Right.
Marantz proceeds from a flawed premise - that hate speech causes violence. He backs this up by citing a parade of what he undoubtedly considers right-wingers - Modi, Duterte, Trump, Richard Spencer, and the Charlottesville, Pittsburgh, Christchurch and El Paso perpetrators - for the proposition that noxious online speech metastasizes into physical violence. There’s only one problem: “there is no clear link between hate speech and violence.” Therefore, any moves to curb hate speech for this reason are unsupported by the data.
Moreover, “As Robby Soave has pointed out in a piece for Reason, rates of violent crime in the US have continually fallen since the 1990s, even though during that same period the Supreme Court has been increasingly insistent on upholding protections guaranteed by the First Amendment.”
But never let the facts get in the way of a good rant. Marantz plunges merrily on, proposing that hate speech be curbed by generating taxpayer-funded government counter-speech. His proposals include a national news literacy campaign, federal library programming, public media outlets like the BBC, and the creation of a new rival to compete with the tech giants online. Nowhere does he discuss what his proposals would cost or what new problems they would create. Nor does he discuss free speech considerations found in Supreme Court cases to the effect that we really do not want the government in the business of deciding what truth is. The government would routinely engage in viewpoint discrimination under Marantz’ proposals - pushing certain views and disfavoring others - thus distorting the marketplace of ideas.
His first four proposals, as a group, show a preoccupation with growing the government, governmentizing speech, and devoting taxpayer funds to pet left-wing causes - ‘doing something’ about hate speech, among them. However, a news literacy campaign would put the government in the business of deciding what is and what is not fake news. Government-funded library programming would grow another largely government institution - libraries - and increase the dependence of local libraries on federal money. Where federal money goes, federal control follows - not good, but Marantz does not discuss this problem. The creation of publicly-funded media outlets is another pet project of the Left. One of the main proponents of public funding for media is the avowed Marxist professor Robert McChesney. Not surprisingly, Britain’s publicly-funded BBC is notoriously left-wing. To give just one example, it tried to destroy anti-sharia activist Tommy Robinson, who deftly turned the tables and exposed the BBC’s lies and fake news machinery. The U.S. already has publicly-funded media outlets - the left-leaning NPR and PBS. There is no reason to think that additional government-funded journalism in America would not also tilt to the left. Efforts to rein in left-wing bias at NPR and PBS over the years have all failed miserably.
Left, Left, Left - Marantz is a creature of the Left. A quick review of his articles at the New Yorker turns up knocks on Tucker Carlson and President Trump, and romances dedicated to Washington State’s leftist Governor Jay Inslee and ‘stylish socialists’.
Marantz’ heroes include John A. Powell, a law professor at the University of California, former legal director of the left-wing ACLU and Susan Benesch, a lawyer swimming in the left-wing human rights milieu. Her credentials include left-wing Amnesty International and the Dangerous Speech Project where the qualifications of her colleagues include gender studies and social justice work.
Marantz’ solutions extend to leftist-inspired government regulation of speech. He proposes amending Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act which currently views online platforms as mere conduits and shields the platform owners from liability for un-moderated content that users post on the platform. Although he did not come right out and say it, the implication is Marantz would assign statutory duties on the platforms to curate all content and impose legal liability on them when they fall short. But it is Marantz’ final paragraph that really gives the game away. Despite earlier declaring that he is not for repealing the First Amendment or for banning speech, his last paragraph speaks favorably of regulating noxious speech like the government regulates noxious emissions. But who gets to decide which speech is noxious and what penalties to impose? Because Marantz is so super-saturated in all things Left, his direct and inadvertent proposals inspire no confidence he would not use the machinery he wants to set up to kill the political Right, given half a chance.
The Left would be unaffected. Marantz’ examples of supposed hate-induced violence could have, but did not, include Left-wing crazies shooting up Steve Scalise on a baseball field and the security guard in the lobby of the Family Research Council. Similarly, Marantz makes no mention of Antifa cracking heads in the street. Apparently, these incidents don’t bother Marantz in the least. No need to rein in the behavior of the Left, nosirree, no worries here.
The Hate Industry - Marantz is not just a Leftist. He is a card-carrying member of the left-wing hate industry. He has been paid multiple times to write on hate speech and hate incidents.
Marantz writes: “Free speech is a bedrock value in this country. But it isn’t the only one. Like all values, it must be held in tension with others, such as equality, safety and robust democratic participation.” It is a commonplace that that law is the adjustment of competing values, but he conveniently leaves out any discussion of the values that inform constitutional protections for hate speech, or why the Supreme Court in Brandenburg v. Ohio drew the line at the incitement of imminent violence, not violence that might occur... maybe someday... supposedly because somebody saw a social media post somewhere.
The hate-industrial complex is a thing. Careers are being propelled and a lot of money is being made. Just ask the discredited Southern Poverty Law Center which has a half a billion dollars in assets and has stashed a lot of it in off-shore accounts. A ‘nonprofit’ with a colossal fortune and offshore accounts - can you wrap your head around that? The SPLC has been sued multiple times for its phony hate group designations. (The Tea Party - really?) Marantz is in the same industry as the SPLC, which prompts the question: does he say what he says because he really believes it? Or because he is being paid to say it?
Either way, Marantz is setting about to pop the rivets undergirding free speech and, therefore, what he preaches must be challenged.