Note the language: "I therefore require you to contact me to arrange a voluntary interview so this matter can be further investigated."
Either it's not voluntary or it's not required. I find that speech grossly offensive.
Sullivan's comment is: "This is not a document that can be found in anything close to a free country. Every day, I'm grateful for the First Amendment."
Don't count on the First Amendment, standing alone. We need people who understand and care about its fundamental principles, or it will be gone, interpreted out of existence.
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Hi Ann!!,
"A Big Trucker's '10-4!!!!'"
skybill
We began the corrosion of free speech rights in 1997 with the passage of federal hate crime statistics gathering act, creating a permanent database for use by government purposes.
The government's purpose was to prove that hate speech is harmful and should be outlawed. Investigation, let alone prosecution, was unnecessary in this shifty realm invented by Elena Kagan and Eric Holder. Court precedent was thus circumvented.
There was and is no reason to be an actual law enforcement agency to report such "hate incidents." Many are gathered, interpreted and reported by schoolteachers and radical left activist groups authorized to report to the DOJ.
I dissected the congressional hearings detailing the HCSA in a long podcast once, now officially disappeared by YouTube.
So all I can research now are anecdotes, as FOIAs go unanswered. But yes we really don't have free speech here anymore. The line isn't blurred: it's weaponized. Ask the many crime victims arrested for slurring their assailants. But, don't. I don't even write about their cases out of fear of harming them in court.
We are long gone. I could use some help from retired lawyers who give a damn about this. I'm not a lawyer; I know people who need help, and Libertarian-captured Conservatism Inc. is virulently anti-law enforcement, and as bad at defending other people's speech rights as the shameless ACLU. A pox on both their mission statements.
Unless, of course, the slurs are against straight women, in which case they win Grammies, and then Martha Stewart masturbates to them with her paramour Snoop Dog in her Connecticut thirst pool whilst chowing artisan gummies distilled from her culinary herb garden.
Don't count on the First Amendment, standing alone. We need people who understand and care about its fundamental principles, or it will be gone, interpreted out of existence.
Keep voting for Democrats, folks.
If you watch the UK closely, they are entering into an Orwellian period. Speech is being cracked down on, your every public move is monitored in major metros, rightthink is being pushed by government.
Meanwhile, as global military tensions heat up, their government couldn't fight a mild war.
Things that can't go on forever...
Looks like the header and footer for that doc was designed by the toner salesman.
The House of Commons should be required to read, “1984.”
Lots of countries profess to embrace the cultural value of free speech, but only the United States has a foundational document that guarantees it. That makes all the difference, as I learned when I moved to Canada, a country not very different from the United States except that, like the UK, it doesn't really have a written constitution. (It has a collection of documents laying out governmental powers, but none have the force of the US constitution or the protections against careless changing.)
The difference is subtle but undeniable. I arrived in Toronto at the time of Mayor Rob Ford's crack scandal, which, despite Toronto having a large and well funded newspaper, was broken by a US website. Canadian papers didn't report on it until after it could no longer be ignored. Despite them picking it up AFTER it was an international story and even though it turned out to be true, the Toronto Star was still hauled before the "Ontario Press Council" to face charges over their coverage.
Americans like to complain, and rightly so, about their weak and corrupted news media, but it's nothing compared to other countries, where the press is actually afraid and can be punished for asking hard questions. The hard questions, needless to say, don't get asked and the public interest suffers.
We have a human rights council with police powers to punish banned speech, a prime minster who is far more open than Biden about using the power of government against his critics, where professionals can be sent for mandatory reeducation for tweets. And this is Canada, the most "almost United States" country in the world.
Because free speech is promised, not guaranteed.
JK Rowling sued a guy for a tweet, leading to this:
"I would like to publicly apologise for a previous Twitter thread where I interacted with JK Rowling on matters relating to the transgender community. I have now removed these tweets and would like to apologise to JK Rowling directly for causing potential upset.
"I failed to choose my words with care and would like to retract my previous statements relating to her views on the LGBTQ+ and more specifically, transgender people.
"I would also like to retract my likening to JK Rowling to any far right or Nazi organisation and emphasise I do not wish any individual, inclusive of JK Rowling, to come to any harm."
Agreed, glad we have the First Amendment.
Hey Sarah,
This is what "woke" looks like.
Sullivan's comment is: "This is not a document that can be found in anything close to a free country. Every day, I'm grateful for the First Amendment."
I'm grateful for the Revolutionary War that facilitated the authorship of the First Amendment and for my ancestors who fought Cornwallis and Ferguson in North and South Carolina at Cowpens, King's Mountain and Guilford Courthouse. They didn't win all those battles, but their attrition of the British forces directly led to Cornwallis' defeat at Yorktown. The best thing anyone did for freedom is to kick the British Crown out of the colonies, and I am proud that all four sides of my family contributed to that outcome.
Consider this story in conjunction with the later post on Susan Silverman's defense of "woke," claiming "No one is pushing sh*t on you." Not pushing, I guess, but "requiring."
"Every day, I'm grateful for the First Amendment."
I hope you're taking note of which political party is taking active steps to eliminate the First Amendment.
And the Second Amendment.
Along with every other restraint put on government by the Constitution.
You have noticed, haven't you?
Free speech is inherent. Governments cannot guarantee it. Governments can only erode it. It is up to us to see that our government never oversteps those first amendment rights. "Congress shall make no law......" Is about as unambiguous as it gets. It is not the states job to regulate speech, or religion, or of the people to peacebley assemble. There is a reason that Amendement #2 is about an armed citizenry. That is the only guarantee that the state does not strip you of the first.
It is the only reason that the state wants to strip away the 2nd amendment. With it the citizens have parity power with the state.
I suspect if a Brit wrote on Twitter, "I don't like the look of all those Nazi flags", that wouldn't be considered targeting and offensive. Oh wait, Nazi is a bit obvious. How about St. George's Cross flag? I wonder how long before the crest on the Metropolitan Police letterhead is problematic. I expect, not too long.
Life is much simpler with a strong and respected First Amendment.
Woke totalitarian leftist speech-crime thought-crime bureaucrats require what? Obey!
British gov’t: Reading Tolkien, Orwell, and CS Lewis are indicators of...
Here in the US - the good little leftist ding dongs are screaming about the evil right wingers who are banning sex topics from 1st grade classrooms.
Everyone whom Sullivan considers an "ally" wants this in the US.
Well bless your hearts, Althouse and Sullivan. The 1st Amendment is all but gone already. Within a generation, such letters will be routine in the United States. The only thing really standing against it right now is the fact that conservatives control the Supreme Court, but they won't control it for more than another 10 years.
Daniel12, Rowling sued the guy for libel and defamation. You don't have a right to libel and defame someone. That you can't see the difference says quite a bit about you.
>>Don't count on the First Amendment, standing alone. We need people who understand and care about its fundamental principles, or it will be gone, interpreted out of existence.
How many divisions does the Constitution have?, to coin a phrase.
The one time sending an unsolicited "dick pic" might be appropriate.
“Don't count on the First Amendment, standing alone. We need people who understand and care about its fundamental principles, or it will be gone, interpreted out of existence.”
Wow. Sounds like Althouse channeling El Rushbo.
Yancey, that lawsuit does not exist in the US because of the First Amendment.
Lots of people here sound like they're hiding their preferences for what speech they want to enforce behind the First Amendment.
Doesn't congress do this?
"come testify voluntarily or we will subpoena you and force you to testify"
What is the difference?
John Henry
In 2008, 52% of Californians voted to support a state constitutional amendment that defined marriage as between 'one man and one woman'. A judge reversed it. Today, the very words, 'man' and 'woman' are often considered hate speech.
@Goddard2066
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Pure Orwell. The "voluntary" word is just lipstick on the ugly on the fat "required."
Just like our taxes! Voluntary, right?
This is Jordan Peterson’s original fight in Canada. He has all the answers.
It’s a totalitarian operation that leads to acceptance of every cruelty and ethnic cleansing murder team. Interesting to me is that the Marxists now especially want to murder the Northern European white fighters. Ie, The totalitarian team still has to eliminate the Scots Irish Americans to win control over North America.. And therefore confiscation of their guns has become the #1 goal.
Before I left my federal government job, my agency issued a statement that they would "act aggressively against workplace violence". Really, the bureaucracies just make me sad these days.
jaydub:
Thanks to your family! We easily could have lost the Revolutionary War. Defeating the Brits was one of the greatest events in human history.
David McCollough wrote a short book about the Revolutionary War. I can't recall the exact number, but as a percent of the colonies' population at the time, the losses were horrible. It might have been 5%. Five percent of the US population today would be 15 million. One percent would be 3 million.
Douglas Murray had a recent piece about booking banning in the UK. 1984 is on the list.
Canada is up to its neck in censorship. Here's the link to their unsuccessful trial against Gregory Alan Elliott, who was prosecuted for "harassment" via Twitter.
More like a lot of shrieking because a guy said hurty words to a chick.
https://infogalactic.com/info/R_v_Elliott
"Yancey, that lawsuit does not exist in the US because of the First Amendment."
It would probably fail in the US, but it could definitely be filed and might even have made it to trial in the US- it is a question for a jury, in my opinion, of whether Ms. Rowling's defamer was deliberately malicious. The reason it likely fails in the US is because our courts have decided it is ok to defame and libel people above a certain level of status. It really does nothing to do with the 1st Amendment- only judges' opinion.
Albinophobia celebrated under the Rainbow banner. Pride without the parade of lions, lionesses, and their unPlanned cubs playing in gay revelry.
Serious question: How did the cops get the address? Was it in his profile? Or did Twitter just cough it up?
Free speech for thee Yancey, only for thee.
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