Is The First Amendment Passé?

For John, BLUF:  This is about that difficult Right, the Right to Free Sppech.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

The Future Of Free Speech, College Edition

From The Wanderer, by Deacon Mike Manno, JD, 30 November 2020.

Here is the lede plus six:

The In the wake of the election, which still isn’t over, there is obviously concern by conservatives about the future, not so much about the country but about the rights that we enjoy; rights we have received from God that the Bill of Rights is enshrined to protect.

But what has bothered me in the last few weeks is how the activists of the Left-Wing Party, including many Joe Biden staffers, have reacted.  There were calls to ban Trump supporters from future government positions while others wanted them banned from life itself.  There is talk of blacklists and banning others from speaking at public universities.  Social media is already practicing shadow banning and closing accounts of people too outspoken in their conservative or religious beliefs.

And the darlings of the Left-Wing Party are now trying to expand their blacklists:  Delaware Sen. Chris Coons is urging Facebook and others to take another look at climate change deniers.

So how did we get to this point?  How did the proposition of curbing free speech apparently go mainstream?

I think much of it started, as all bad ideas often do, on college campuses.  You know, those places where tenured left-wing professors have four years to shape and mold the young minds entrusted to their care by unwitting parents who have scrimped and saved to give their little ones an education that will allow them to lift themselves above the fray to a comfortable lifestyle.

And I hear the complaints from parents.  One parishioner told me about his daughter, raised a devout Catholic, who after only two years away at college is now a committed atheist who is unwilling to engage in any sort of dialogue about it.  You see, dad’s beliefs are out of touch with today’s reality and need not be considered any longer.

Our friends at FIRE, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, issued a report earlier this year that casts some light on the problem.  FIRE, along with College Pulse, and RealClearEducation, surveyed some 20,000 students and made some interesting findings.  First and foremost, not all colleges are the same.  FIRE publishes a list on its website listing good and bad schools for free speech and thought, which should be an aid to parents and families looking for appropriate educational opportunities for their offspring.  According to the report, “Seven of the top 10 colleges for free speech are public, and only one of the top 10 is in the Northeast, while the bottom 10 include many schools that repeatedly make headlines for campus censorship.

I see censurship in two forms these days.  There are the limit on the words we can use.  I have always engaged in self-censorship.  I avoid use of the "N-word" and other belittling terms.  However, I am resistent to taking commonwords and declaring them wrong, which is what I believe the "woke" crowd does.  Over does.

The other issue is curation of speech, where some institution tries to control and direct what I put our, or others putout, on the Internet.  This is especially pernicious when it results in the stiffling of information flow.  It is like Holy Mother the Church silencing Galileo.  Good and sufficient reasons, but the truth made faith and science stronger.

One of the things the First Amendment gives us is the right to be wrong, free from Government interference.  Not the right to be evil, but the right to read the facts differently.

Regards  —  Cliff