Free speech under attack
Virtually every American politician professes to love the First Amendment. Many of them profess to hate another law: Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. But the more they say about 230, the clearer it becomes that they actually hate the First Amendment and think Section 230 is just fine.
The heart of Section 230 is famously just 26 words: No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
Threatening to repeal 230 is a shakedown racket, a way for lawmakers to quietly put their thumb on the scale — a back door to imposing government speech regulations.
The thing is, these complaints get a big thing right: in an era of unprecedented mass communication, it’s easier than ever to hurt people with illegal and legal speech. But the issue is far bigger and more complicated than encouraging more people to sue Facebook — because, in fact, the legal system has become part of the problem.
The legal system wasn’t built for bad faith at scale. The First Amendment doesn’t work if the legal system doesn’t work. Republican-proposed speech reforms are ludicrously, bizarrely bad. The rules are transparently rigged to punish political targets at the expense of basic consistency.
In other words:
- Our legal system cannot handle all the bad faith that has completely taken over the rhetoric of America’s fascist radical right and is now starting to poison the left
- There is not yet equivalence between America’s fascist radical right and the left, but the gap is probably narrowing
Section 230 shields web hosts from liability for illegal speech that a third party posts or reposts. The problem is that the scope of illegal speech is so narrow that online hate speech, blatant lies, crackpot conspiracy theories, harassment and etc., are not illegal.
What some anti-free speech politicians want to do is repeal the Sec. 230 shield for certain kinds of online disinformation, e.g., lies about COVID vaccines killing many people or being ineffective. Republicans want that to apply to giant social media sites, while leaving small radical right crackpot sites untouched and free to spew lies, slanders,[1] disinformation, etc.
Republican plans for domestic spending once
they are back in power
Congressional Republicans, eyeing a midterm election victory that could hand them control of the House and the Senate, have embraced plans to reduce federal spending on Social Security and Medicare, including cutting benefits for some retirees and raising the retirement age for both safety net programs..... several influential Republicans have signaled a new willingness to push for Medicare and Social Security spending cuts as part of future budget negotiations with President Biden. Their ideas include raising the age for collecting Social Security benefits to 70 from 67 and requiring many older Americans to pay higher premiums for their health coverage. The ideas are being floated as a way to narrow government spending on programs that are set to consume a growing share of the federal budget in the decades ahead.
Of course radical right Republicans are not saying exactly what they would do before the elections next week. Only after they are in power will we find out what fun plans they have to screw us. Once back in power, the radical right will continue its relentless assault on government’s ability to protect citizens from enraged Christian fundamentalists, ruthless brass knuckles capitalists and power mad, fascist Republican Party elites.
From the too little, too late files:
Biden feebly tries to defend democracy
President Biden issued an impassioned condemnation of his predecessor and other Republicans on Wednesday night for encouraging political violence, voter intimidation and “the Big Lie,” framing next week’s elections as a pivotal test of American democracy.“As I stand here today, there are candidates running for every level of office in America — for governor, Congress, attorney general, secretary of state — who won’t commit, they will not commit to accepting the results of the elections that they’re running in,” Mr. Biden said at Union Station, just blocks from where a mob stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to disrupt the transfer of power. “This is the path to chaos in America. It’s unprecedented. It’s unlawful. And it’s un-American.”
No Joe, it is not a path to chaos and so far it has not been illegal, except for the Republican’s 1/6 coup attempt. It is a path to things like Christian Sharia law under a brutal, enraged Christian Taliban, ruthless, unregulated brass knuckles capitalist kleptocracy and American-style fascism served up by Republican Party grifter elites. That is the path we are on right now.
In my humble opinion, Joe still doesn’t get it. Regardless, it’s probably too late for Joe’s speech to make much difference in the elections next week.
Hear that hammering sound? It is nails starting to be pounded into the coffin of democracy, civil liberties, secularism, respect for fact and truth, and the rule of law.
Footnote:
1. When I use slanders in this context, which I do a lot now, I do not mean slander in the sense of what is needed to win a defamation case in court. That is usually impossible or almost impossible to do. What I mean is defamatory insults that are rarely prosecuted. An current example is the lies America’s fascist radical right put out that Paul Pelosi (Nancy's husband) had hired a male prostitute, wound up in a drunken fight with him, and got hit in the head with a hammer. Those lies are obviously insulting to Paul. But they’re the kind of insults that rarely go to court, and rarely lead to a finding of defamation for the few lawsuits that are filed.
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