Free Speech Under Siege
The right of free speech doesn’t depend on whether we like the person who is speaking or what they are saying.
Wednesday’s announcement by Meta, otherwise known as Facebook, that it is lifting its ban on Donald Trump and allowing him back on the platform is long overdue. How in the world do these American social media giants justify banning conservatives from their platforms?
When Facebook banned Trump, he was the sitting president of the United States! They kept him off as a private citizen for two years, while all kinds of bad actors are still on.
Seriously, Iran’s Holocaust-denying dictator is allowed on Facebook, but not Donald Trump. Antifa is allowed on Facebook, but not Donald Trump.
In a country built on free speech, this is totally outrageous!
It shouldn’t matter whether you like Trump or not. The right of free speech doesn’t depend on whether we like the person who is speaking or what they are saying. That’s the only thing that allows you to speak when people don’t like you or what you’re saying.
Mark Zuckerberg banned Trump after the conflict on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021. He claimed Trump could have stopped the violence but didn’t. Really? Well, here are some of Trump’s final posts on Facebook before he was banned:
“I am asking everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! We are the Party of Law & Order — respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue.”
“Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!”
That’s as clear as you can get. Yet while Trump was sending out these messages, Facebook shut him down.
I could list a hundred things Joe Biden has said that are provable lies and deliberate attempts to stoke racial division. His repeated lies about the Charlottesville riot, his smears against brave Border Patrol agents and attacks on commonsense voter integrity laws are just a couple of examples.
Yet none of those things Biden routinely says are banned by Big Tech.
It’s obvious what’s going on. The intolerant, totalitarian left is increasingly at war with fundamental American values. It wants to silence populist conservatives to shutdown debate, making the neo-Marxist “fundamental transformation of America” that much easier.
We must resist the left’s efforts to undermine free speech because any attack on free speech is ultimately an attack on religious liberty.
There’s a reason the Founding Fathers included both rights in the First Amendment. Our ability to worship freely and live out our faith is directly related to our rights of free association, free expression and free speech.
That’s what the Coach Kennedy case was all about. That’s what the Jack Phillips case is all about. That’s what the current dispute involving a Georgia police officer is all about.
The Car-a-Lago Cover-up
Attorney General Merrick Garland’s appointment of Special Counsel Robert Hur, a former Trump appointee, to investigate Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents found at an old office, his home and even in his garage, was an attempt to prove that the Department of Justice has not been politicized.
But now more and more reasonable people are concluding that the appointment is in fact additional evidence of a massive cover-up.
As a former top official in the Justice Department, Hur has a disturbing history of overlooking Deep State malfeasance in the Russia collusion hoax. So, the fact that Donald Trump appointed Hur to another position is meaningless.
But as soon as Garland appointed a special counsel, everyone in the Biden Administration conveniently clammed up and refused to answer any questions about the classified documents.
All White House Press Secretary Karin Jean-Pierre will say in response to questions about Biden’s classified documents is, “I refer you to the Department of Justice.” And, of course, the Department of Justice won’t comment on an ongoing investigation.
Meanwhile, members of Congress are demanding a “risk assessment” regarding the national security risks created by Joe Biden having classified documents scattered all over the place.
The Senate Intelligence Committee thought it was going to get some answers Wednesday at a briefing with Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines. But she refused to answer any questions about the documents, saying the special counsel would have to authorize it first.
Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee was furious. After the briefing, he told reporters:
“We don’t want to get into a question of threats at this point. But … it is our job to make sure that the security of our country is protected, and that the intelligence that our country depends upon is not compromised. The notion that we have to wait until a special prosecutor blesses the intelligence committee’s oversight will not stand.”
Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) added, “I’m prepared to refuse consent or to fast track any nominee for any department or agency … to impose consequences on the administration until they provide these documents.”
An Open Borders Nightmare
Every couple of years, the Gallup Organization surveys people around the world to see how many are seriously interested in permanently leaving their native countries. In 2011, only 18% of people in Latin America and the Caribbean wanted to move. But the most recent data suggests that figure has now surged to 37%.
Gallup also asks an important follow-up question: Where do these potential migrants most want to go? Not surprisingly, the United States tops the list. (Clearly, they haven’t gotten the leftist memo about what a “systemically racist country” America is.)
In all seriousness, this could be a huge problem. There are at least 650 million people living in Latin America and throughout the Caribbean today. If 37% of them decided to come here, that’s 240 million people.
The left insists that if we don’t want millions and millions of migrants “seeking a better life” coming to America then we have to solve “the root causes” of immigration in their own countries.
So, if we want to secure our border we have to spend who knows how much to fix Latin America to potentially stop 240 million people from flooding across our border.
Biden has done nothing to stop five million illegal aliens from crossing our border in the past two years. He’s all in on open borders and amnesty. There seems to be no number large enough that would compel this administration to get serious about border security.