Mark Steyn takes note of an outrageous event in Germany – satirist writes an insulting poem about Turkey’s President, German government decides to prosecute the guy under an obscure law which prohibits insulting heads of State:
…A free society does not threaten a guy with years in gaol for writing a poem. If you don’t know that that’s wrong, you should just cut to the chase and appoint yourself mutasarrıfa of Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman sanjak of Berlin.
What a disgraceful person (Merkel) is, the worst German chancellor since …well, I don’t want to go all Godwin’s this early in the piece. But a few years ago, when Maclean’s and I had our triple-jeopardy difficulties with the Canadian “Human Rights” Commission, the Ontario “Human Rights” Commission and the British Columbia “Human Rights” Tribunal, the response of many of my fellow Canadians to the eventual outcome was along the lines of: “Well, I don’t know what Steyn was making such a fuss about. The process played itself out and he was acquitted. So the system worked.”
Some of these people were genuine innocents who’ve never been caught up in a time-consuming seven-figure legal battle before. But many others were making the argument cynically. They know that, if you can tie up a book or a magazine article in court, then there will be fewer books and magazine articles…
As Steyn says, “the process is the punishment”. Now, in the United States our Founders wrote the First Amendment and so it is vastly more difficult to erect speech-suppressing “human rights laws” as they have in the rest of the Western world…but even here in the United States people self-censor in order to just be sure they won’t be the target of a howling mob of Progressive Social Justice Warriors. Remember, one ill-advised Tweet and you can lose your job – but even if you prevail, who wants to put up with that? Better to just keep silent.
It is time to put a bit of teeth into the First Amendment. I suggest a Free Speech Restoration Act.
1. No employer shall in any way sanction an employee for any act of speech made outside of work time. Religious bodies may terminate an employee for acts of speech which deny any of the clearly expressed dogmas of the religious body.
2. Social media companies which allow the exposure of private phone numbers and addresses without a person’s consent may be held liable for civil damages.
3. Persons who spread false statements about private individuals may be held liable for civil damages. Social media companies must provide relevant information upon court order to identify any person who may have spread false statements about a private individual. Private individuals for the purposes of this law are persons who are not an officer of a corporation, an elected or appointed official of government, an employee of a government agency or the employee of any news media entity.
4. Congress shall appropriate a sum not less than $5 billion per year to provide free legal representation to any citizen who needs such representation in order to recover damages resulting from actions taken by employers, social media companies or persons who in any way sanction or cause sanctions to be applied to a citizen for acts of speech. Private individuals who are accused of spreading false information are also entitled to free legal representation.
That should do it. The most important thing is that you can’t lose your job over what you say outside your job. While at work, you do have to toe your employer’s line and if you don’t like it, you can find other employment…but once you clock out, you can say whatever you please and there is nothing your employer can do about it. This, in and of itself, would cure most of the self-censoring which goes on. The second important thing is to provide economic sinews for those who are victims of mob action for stating unpopular opinions…and the fact that such sinews exist, once a few examples are made, would greatly curb social justice mobs. And by excluding those who are in power from protection under this law, everyone is still free to go after the powerful with gusto.
We on the right have a vested interest in this. On the whole, we don’t engage in activity which seeks to suppress anyone’s speech. The left, of course, makes it their business to shut up everyone they disagree with. If we don’t swiftly find some means of ensuring our right to speak, then soon we won’t be able to speak, at all. And I think such a law could garner popular support – certainly the legal industry won’t be against it! But the basic concept of privacy and not lying about other people will be in line with general American ideas of what is right and just. All we have to do is find a candidate who would be willing to run with it.
Blogs For Victory 
2. Social media companies which allow the exposure of private phone numbers and addresses without a person’s consent may be held liable for civil damages.
3. Persons who spread false statements about private individuals may be held liable for civil damages.
Good, as far as it goes, but the problem is the same one now limiting lawsuits for libel and slander—the difficulty of proving damages. I think allowing the publication of phone numbers and addresses just has to be outlawed, period, with no need to prove damages. As for the problem of spreading false statements, perhaps it would be adequate to prove this was done out of malice and not an innocent repetition of what someone believed to be true.
The problem is, both of these tread very very closely, dangerously close, to infringement on First Amendment rights, and would need to handled deftly and with precision. And then we get into the labyrinth of semantics, and detail—-if I publish an opinion that someone is just a big poopy-head, that is clearly false unless that someone actually does have feces on his head, and it would be clear that such a comment could be construed as malicious, but would it be actionable?
“1. No employer shall in any way sanction an employee for any act of speech made outside of work time.”
If I hire Jim Bob and he tells people, while not actually at work, that my company is a terrible company, that other companies offer better services at better prices, and so on, I should be able to fire him even though he is not engaging in this while at work. Ditto for him giving out confidential or proprietary information about the company—our bidding process or our secret recipe, for example. I should not be able to fire him for supporting Donald Trump, but maybe I should if his support goes so far as to incite violence toward people who do not agree with him. If he is wearing a company logo and insulting people on the street, even if it is not during work hours, I should be able to get rid of him because of what he is doing. If he is posting under a company name, and saying things that reflect badly on the company, ditto.
If an employee is engaging in illegal acts outside of work, I should be able to fire him. He doesn’t have to be stealing from me—if I find out he is breaking the law, I should be able to say I don’t want him in my company.
Agreed that if the employee is doing actual wrong, that is fine to fire – but we get into a difficult area when it is just speaking. Now, if Employee A outside of work is saying Employer makes lousy products…that is something that could be a problem…of course, my first question on hearing that would be, “why you working there, then?”. But, I see your point…on the other hand, I don’t want people being fired or otherwise sanctioned because they went out in public off work time and spoke views the employer disagrees with. The biggest freeze to free speech is the risk of loss of employment…every tyrant of the 20th century learned this quickly and applied it ruthlessly. Say something out of turn, and you lose your job…even if no other risk entails, it is terrible for a person to contemplate job loss. Most people just shut up and put up with it.
My goal here is to put an end to howling mobs of social media Social Justice Warriors essentially destroying free speech because just by being jerks, they can convince people it isn’t worth the risk to speak up. Of course, we must also be on the watch for “Human Rights” courts of various stripes doing it, but the general protection of the 1st Amendment is proof against most government-inspired attempts at suppressing speech (though government is learning that you can do back door into that by telling a corporation with “wrong” views that their government contracts are at risk unless they knuckle under…that has to be addressed, as well). But it won’t matter in the least to us if the 1st is still on paper but everyone is afraid to challenge reigning Progressive orthodoxy for fear they’ll lose their job, have their personal data broadcast widely, or just be the victim of SJW harassment on line.
The standard I’d use is – if you’re not sure it’s true, don’t say it. Heck, even if you’re sure it’s true but you can’t prove it, don’t say it. And by “say it” I mean broadcast it in the MSM or alternative media. What Harry says to Sally over lunch is of no interest to me. But what Harry says about Sally on Twitter does interest me greatly, if he’s saying something untrue, or even just something he can’t prove to be true. This is because once you put it out on Social Media, people tend to believe it true and start to take actions based upon that assumption. People have had their lives and reputations ruined in a relative instant because of things like that…and such events do make people more wary of saying anything which might be misconstrued.
And, of course, none of this applies to people who have voluntarily put themselves in the public square by becoming elected officials, or employed by the MSM, or officers of corporations…you can still say whatever you want about them. And if someone in that area doesn’t like it, they can retreat from the public square and become private citizens, again.
But I was pretty specific. Jim Bob could not be fired for saying negative things about my religion, but he could if he told people that because of my religious beliefs I justify cheating customers. I can’t fire him for supporting Trump (though I might check his work more carefully with the head’s up that he doesn’t think things through very well 🙂 ) I could fire him for saying that with Trump as president my company can no longer put out a bad product. I don’t have to agree with anything an employee says or believes but if he is saying things that damage, or could damage, my company or my family or me, I can definitely get rid of him. I have no legal obligation to support someone who is trying to harm me, either directly or through my company. I’m not just talking about “talking out of turn”.
I think we would start to make some progress by having a leader who just comes out and says “This should be a country where no one cares what color anyone’s skin is or who anyone loves or bonds with. This is going to be the underlying philosophy of my DOJ and every other agency in my administration. No ethnicity, no gender, no race, no religion, will be treated any differently than any other. This is also a nation based on the concept of personal responsibility, and I am hoping we can begin the journey back to that basic element of civilization. As far as the Executive Branch can influence that journey, it will do so. Any effort to further divide Americans based on race, gender, income or any other dynamic will be given short shrift in this administration. ”
“And, of course, none of this applies to people who have voluntarily put themselves in the public square by becoming elected officials, or employed by the MSM, or officers of corporations…you can still say whatever you want about them. And if someone in that area doesn’t like it, they can retreat from the public square and become private citizens, again.”
Again, I disagree. There is no reason whatsoever that Ted Cruz, for example, should be denied the protection of laws applied to other people just because he has chosen to serve his country in its Congress. If a claim is made that he has committed crimes, the claimant should be forced to prove this or suffer consequences. That would apply to everyone in the country, no matter what his or her profession or public profile. There is not really any difference between saying someone would have to quit his or her job to avoid unjust harassment and saying he or she can lose that job for saying something that his or her employer doesn’t like.
I think we need an official Put Up Or Shut Up policy.
Suppose I post that Sally has a giant, fat butt and she gets insulted but I meant it the way rappers mean it, as a good thing. I need to defend myself in court over the use of an idiomatic phrase?
Samuel L. Jackson is one bad mf’er. Uh, oh, there is another lawsuit. Two of them, if his mother sues, too.
Then again, with $5bn in gubment defense, maybe the litigation won’t hurt me too much.
Mark eats worms. I dare you to sue me.
With ketchup they’re not so bad, or so I’ve heard.
Remember, it is when you say something untrue – whether or not Jackson is a BMF is a subjective judgement. But if, say, you were to say that “so and so’s dad was a member of the KKK” but there is no proof of such accusation, then a lawsuit could be launched…and, remember, it would still be up to a jury to decide whether the truth was told, or not. The point, though, is not the lawsuit – the point is to provide some “skin in the game” mechanism against those who do deliberately go out and slander people for political purposes. And you’re 100% safe no matter what if you simply don’t say something which is not true because, remember, even if you’re the person accused of saying something false, you can avail yourself of legal defense.
Sally just has to prove that she does not have a big fat butt. That shouldn’t be too hard to do. Of course then we would need to add Butt Police to the ever-increasing list of various policing agencies we are going to have to add to the Thought Police and its various sub-agencies, such as Culture Appropriation Police. We would also need a new agency to define terms, such as “big” and “fat”.
This is an example of what kind of speech should not be used to fire someone.
“Dr. Eric Walsh, a renowned public health expert who also serves as a lay minister, has filed a federal lawsuit against the Georgia Department of Public Health alleging he was terminated for delivering sermons on issues ranging from homosexuality to evolution.
“No one in this country should be fired from their job for something that was said in a church or from a pulpit during a sermon,” said First Liberty attorney Jeremy Dys.
First Liberty, one of the nation’s largest law firms defending religious liberty, is representing the Seventh Day Adventist lay minister.
They contend that the Georgia Department of Public Health assigned workers to investigate sermons Dr. Walsh delivered on health, marriage, sexuality, world religions, science and creationism. He also preached on what the Bible says about homosexuality.”
http://townhall.com/columnists/toddstarnes/2016/04/20/fired-for-preaching-georgia-dumps-doctor-over-church-sermons
In Matt Walsh’s column yesterday, he ends with the following sentence that I think will become an important component of our society going forward.
I sense we’re on the cusp of an era of MASSIVE civil disobedience. It’ll be interesting to see how the Left reacts to having its own playbook used against them.
The law right now is merely a suggestion, as well as a weapon to be used by the elite. For quite some time we have had different laws for different groups of people. Several years ago a policeman told me they were not allowed to ask anyone about his legal status in this country. It is against the law to be here without proper government approval, yet law enforcement officers were instructed to overlook this. During this time, they also pretty much stopped citing people who appeared to be here illegally (given language, lack of driver’s licence, etc) for traffic violations, including serious ones such as leaving the scene of an accident, because of the bizarre regulations regarding legal presence in the country. So Americans were held to a much higher standard of the law, and of “justice”, than people who were here illegally in the first place.
That is just a small example of the escalating phenomenon of having different laws for different demographics. We have recently been told, many times, that the laws themselves are so complex and incomprehensible that we all probably break one or more nearly every day, without even knowing it.
We have government agencies, bloated and staffed by political appointees who cannot be fired under our archaic Civil Service system, selectively using the law to go after people for political reasons—the IRS, the EPA and the BLM come to mind. We have a DOJ turning a blind eye to open offers of reward for assassinations, because of the race of the head of the nation and of DOJ and the race of those offering the reward, as well as because of the race of the intended target.
We are no longer a nation of laws.
Victor Davis Hanson writes about that from time to time – he lives in rural California and while he and the rest of the
suckersAmerican Citizens have to obey every last law and regulation, illegals are able to do things like dump garbage where ever it suits them and run unlicensed food operations. Also, he notes that an illegal driving a unregistered truck 25 mph over the limit is let pass by the Highway Patrol while the American in the Cadillac driving 10 mph over the limit gets his requisite $350 ticket…because the illegal won’t pay and so there’s no upside to the law in writing a ticket and as you can’t turn him over to Immigration…Last night on Twitter I got into a friendly argument with a fellow Conservative – someone had asserted that given the current state of affairs, a Democrat Congress could pass a law saying that California gets five Senators…and if the SC upheld the law, that would be it. The guy was just dead set against this being possible – the Constitution, after all, clearly says that a State will have two Senators and that’s it. I realize that it would be absurd for Congress to pass such a law and doubly so for the SC to uphold it…but what, really, is preventing such a thing from happening? There is no rule of law in this nation…and imagine a SJW campaign backed by the MSM and the Democrats (but I repeat myself) saying that it is downright racist and unfair that CA only gets two Senators while that nest of rednecks, Wyoming, also gets two…even though CA’s population is vastly larger and more diverse than Wyoming’s! I can already see the polling…”46% agree that it is unfair, 42% say it isn’t, 12% are unsure”…
A democratic Republic only really lives as long as the people who live in it and run it are beholden to a strong sense of morality. A free society is ultimately dependent upon voluntary obedience to the Rules…once that moral command to obey the rules is gone, nothing prevents a thing from happening. If there is power to do it, it will be done.
“Congress shall appropriate a sum not less than $5 billion per year to provide free legal representation to any citizen who needs such representation in order to recover damages resulting from actions taken by employers, social media companies or persons who in any way sanction or cause sanctions to be applied to a citizen for acts of speech. Private individuals who are accused of spreading false information are also entitled to free legal representation.”
Now THERE’S a law the lawyers would love! I wonder how many new courts would have to be established to handle the volume.
Progressives have an endless supply of money to hire lawyers to engage in “lawfare” against non-Progressives…just trying to equal the playing field. And knowing how money-grubbing some lawyers could be, putting that bit a pot in front of them will make them leap at the opportunity.
If ever I needed justification for staying as far away from social media as possible, this post and related comments is it.
I agree. I refuse to participate in things like Facebook, etc. Nearly everyone I know who does is downright goofy about it, so addicted it seems to be the focal point of their lives. There is almost an urgency about posting new things, and the stress of not being able to check in to see what others have posted is nearly unbearable. Last year I spent four days on a houseboat at Lake Powell with a Facebook addict who was jonesing so bad, being out of cell phone range, she spent nearly every minute focused on her cell phone hoping desperately for a few minutes of contact.
The healthiest rationale for Facebook is that it helps create a sense of community. One woman i know says she likes it because it lets her share recipes. So? I am in a small email group, and we send links, ideas, photos, comments and so on back and forth to each other all the time. But we know who we are. The anonymity of social media is toxic and dangerous.
My wife uses it to exchange crafting ideas and keep up with friends and family. It is good for that – and for finding old friends, as well. I’m now in contact with some people I hadn’t seen in decades and that is actually great…though it is annoying to see that of the childhood friends, I’m the only one with completely gray hair.
Twitter is useful for following breaking news as various random people on Twitter will often get the truth about a story faster than the MSM – it is especially useful on election nights. But, it is also a very tawdry place…and the number of people I’ve blocked on Twitter probably runs into the many hundreds. Might even be thousands by now. I’ve already unplugged from it twice before and after election day this year, I may pull the plug for the final time, especially now that Twitter appears to be shadow banning Conservatives. Facebook was interesting for a bit, but now I mostly use it to keep track of distant friends and family…I’ve been steadily weeding out people who don’t meet those qualifications and blocking the insane…as I’ve never unplugged from Facebook, my block list is certainly many thousands long.
I admit to considering opening a Facebook account in my maiden name, as I would like to reconnect with people I went to school with, but I have been told I have to use the name that is on my drivers’ license which would do me no good if someone was searching for me and didn’t know my married name.
I have a couple of web site domain names and if I get caught up on some more important things I will post photos and such on one of those and only a few people will know where to look. I understand that a computer person can help me set up a site that is password protected, if I can’t figure it out myself. I may be wrong, but I think this would give me more control over who sees anything I post, whether it is updates on my life or photos or ?????.
A couple of people I know post almost everything they do, and report back to me with information on nearly everything their “friends” post as well, It seems to make them feel connected, but I for one don’t need to know that Foofie Belle the pony ate six carrots yesterday or Little Joey finally did a dookie in the potty.
It can be strange – but some times it is like a real community. I know of a story of a person who essentially announced their suicide on Facebook and Facebook friends worked the site until they found mutual friends who were actually close enough to get the house and call for help. In the early part of it, everyone friended everyone…and then the weeding began as you found that your Facebook friends were a collection of kooks. Of people I’ve never met, only a few have remained in the friends list…and I do consider them in a real way to be friends as we’ve interacted for years and share similar tastes and interests. You do have to use your actual name, but most people I see also insert their maiden name as necessary so that everyone will know who they are. And I find that after persistent weeding, I don’t get silly updates but more interesting ones…like when a kid graduates, or a parent passes away, or some grand achievement done.
A recent headline: Bad news from Peter King: I’ll take cyanide if Ted Cruz wins the nomination
My question is, why is this bad news?
King is about the most irritating Republican out there, isn’t he?
I have never been a big fan of Peter King. He’s an opportunist, like so many of them.Re: Facebook, I strictly use it for business and it is a growing force in that arena, but on the personal side it’s strange. Filled with people who need constant attention and self validation.
On another note boys and girls, it looks as though Trump could very well be the nominee. God save us all.
Trump certainly took a big step forward yesterday, but the primaries now to thru less Trump-friendly areas. But, in the end, we are relying upon the California GOP to stop Trump…and that worries me as a large slice of that electorate is prime Trump target given how disastrously bad the illegal immigration issue is in California.
At all events, I refuse to worry or be upset – it is what it is. Right now, overall I figure we’re 60% likely to get President Hillary…who will be an utter disaster and our only saving grace is that she’s so old she might not be physically up to running for re-election in 2020.
My first reaction when I read Peter King’s statement was, I hope that’s a promise, and one that he keeps.
That’s exactly what I was thinking when I said why is his statement “bad news”.
Speaking, not of “free speech” but just of speeches, this morning I saw two different perspectives on two speeches given after the NY primary.
One was by Jackie Gingrich Cushman. Here it helps to remember that her husband, Newt Gingrich, is a Trump supporter, and it appears that Jackie was present at the Trump speech. She seemed pretty impressed by him, and by what he said and how he said it.
“Trump, speaking from Trump Towers, was gracious and restrained, focusing on the primary and securing the nomination.
“I want to thank my team, it’s evolving,” he noted, in reference to recent staff hires.
He then moved to economic concerns. “We are going to use our great business people to negotiate unbelievable trade deals…we are going to keep the jobs here.”
He then displayed his toughness, not just on trade, but on national defense. “Nobody is going to mess with us.”
Trump’s speech was short, gracious and presidential..”
I did find it interesting that she was so impressed by his platitudes, going so far as to find them “presidential” and even claiming that the bragging of “Nobody is going to mess with us..” actually “display(ed) his toughness”.
She went on to put her spin on the Cruz speech in Philadelphia, which she did not see. According to her, it was just ” (A)ttempting to reestablish his position…”
She goes on to explain “Cruz and his staff may have believed that he was talking about the 2016 Republican nomination, but that was not what I heard. To my ears, he was kicking off the next phase of his career.
This week, Trump came across as presidential and gracious, and Cruz did an about-face with a potential relaunch of his next race — four or eight years from now.”
http://townhall.com/columnists/jackiegingrichcushman/2016/04/21/a-tale-of-two-speeches-n2151593?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=
Hmmm. It looks like Jackie needs a nice saucer of warm milk and a spot in the sun to nap. The goofiness of claiming that Cruz’s speech was “..an about-face..” is utterly ridiculous, as was the snideness of saying the speech was an attempt to “..REESTABLISH his position..”
Well, I guess if sticking to what you have been saying all along is actually an “about-face” and an attempt to “REESTABLISH his position” Jackie does make sense. But actually, no. She doesn’t.
On the other hand, Robert Charles, who was actually AT the Cruz speech, took away an entirely different perspective on it.
” As Trump toasted himself, Ted Cruz spoke with resonance, as if he knows something about the future – sees something others do not. He took the audience somewhere else, up a notch, to a mountain view. He spoke of an intergenerational time of “choosing” – not between politicians, but between alternative futures. Refreshingly, he offered perspective, something badly needed right now. Like a real President, Cruz offered hope and inspiration, with context and without superficiality, hyperbole or inaccuracy. He reminded us that we are on a “journey,” and that we are all Americans, not just party members.
Cruz spoke of America’s past, of what we have done and how we did it, reminding us of principles we all share – all of us. For the second time in as many weeks, he hit a high-water mark, capturing the best of who we are, recounting two centuries of achievement. He was neither didactic nor partisan. He honored John F. Kennedy’s vision and youthful inspiration, even as he credited Ronald Reagan’s courage. Mostly, he honored us – average Americans.”
http://townhall.com/columnists/robertcharles/2016/04/21/cruz-speech-resonates–time-for-choosing
It appears to me that the speeches were not only significantly different, in what they offered to the listeners and to America, but that the two commentaries show one of the many differences between those who find Trump appealing and credible and those who support Cruz. The most obvious is the eager acceptance of platitudes as meaningful. One would think that the wife of a man I used to respect, Newt Gingrich, would want to go a little deeper than ” we are going to keep the jobs here..” and the vague promise of “… unbelievable trade deals..” to be impressed by someone’s presidential demeanor, but this superficial treatment of very serious issues seems to be a hallmark of the Trump supporter.
I’m going to see if I can find a video of the Cruz speech.
This article is full of great links
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2016/04/21/life-lessons-with-donald-never-hire-people-who-are-smarter-than-you-n2151620
RIP Prince. Another musical icon gone. Frey, Bowie and now Prince all in the last 4 months.
I’ll bet Bob thinks they were all geniuses, along with Howard Stern.
I liked Prince’s libertarian streak when he told the recording companies to F off by changing his name to a symbol separating himself from his contracts, and became his own recording company. Also, on more than a few songs he recorded Prince played every instrument and of course wrote the music, so he was in a rare league.
Prince was an amazing artist.