The Patriot Post® · Redlining the First Amendment

John Kerry’s hobbyhorse is climate change. He was the Biden administration’s climate envoy before resigning from the post this past March. During the Obama administration, he was secretary of state and helped to negotiate the infamous Iran nuclear deal. Before that, Kerry lost his lone presidential bid to George W. Bush back in 2004. Maybe losing the presidency to Bush, like Al Gore also did, makes one a climate fanatic.

Kerry also fancies himself a statesman, but his leftist instincts undermine the legitimacy of such fanciful notions.

Last week, during a World Economic Forum panel discussion on climate policy in New York, Kerry once again demonstrated this reality. In response to an audience question regarding “climate misinformation,” Kerry threw any pretense of principled constitutional fidelity to the wind. After lamenting the nature of social media spreading “misinformation,” he answered:

But, look, if people go to only one source, and the source they go to is sick and has an agenda, and they’re putting out disinformation, our First Amendment stands as a major block to the ability to be able to hammer it out of existence. What we need is to win the ground — win the right to govern by hopefully winning enough votes that you’re free to be able to implement change.

If Kerry were an actual statesman, he would have rejected the notion that the First Amendment was the problem. Furthermore, he would have recognized the reality that the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech exists not only to protect against tyranny but also to advance the truth.

The irony is that history shows that governing bodies that crack down on speech end up promoting and advancing the very “misinformation” and “disinformation” Kerry claims to be so concerned with fighting.

What’s worrisome is the eagerness and boldness with which Democrat leaders are redlining the First Amendment. Oh, they claim to be doing no such thing, but their actions and words belie them.

They increasingly see the Constitution as a roadblock to their policy agenda rather than the touchstone of American Liberty and the means for good governance. They simply don’t believe in the principle of limited government. Using the excuse of climate change as a faux “global crisis,” they justify trampling on Americans’ right to disagree and challenge the mainstream narrative. Furthermore, the Left has used climate change to justify calls for expanding governmental power while at the same time limiting individual liberty.

The “threat” that the Democrats say Donald Trump poses to democracy is not, in fact, a concern over losing America’s democratic electoral process. Rather, it is the fear that the democratic process will result in unseating and limiting the power Washington’s bureaucracy has been accumulating.

Kerry is not a statesman; he is a statist. He complains about the First Amendment because it has limited Washington’s power to control what people say, if not think and believe. His commitment is not to the American people or their Constitution; rather, his commitment is to a cabal of global elites who believe that they are the smartest and, therefore, the only ones who should be empowered to move their agenda forward.

Kerry has thus done us a service by admitting the quiet part out loud.