Getting to the Truth

For John, BLUF:  It takes Mr Kruiser a while to get to his point.  But, it is an important one.  Governments are not the best way to deal with false information.  They have a bad track record in that area.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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MSNBC Legal Lunatic Frets Over America's 'Deep Commitment to Free Speech'

Here is the sub-headline:

From PJ Media, by Reporter Stephen Kruiser 29 February 2024, 2:48 PM.

Here is the lede plus nine:

In the ever-leftward marching world of the erstwhile American political party known as the Democrats, assaults on our most cherished constitutional freedoms are the cornerstone of their efforts to fundamentally transform the Republic.

We're all used to them making a lot of noise about their disdain for the Second Amendment. The right to keep and bear arms is one of the few freedoms that they're at least a little bit honest about wanting to take away. They may not admit to their gun-grabbing fantasies, but many of them now don't say "no" when asked if that's the end game.

The assault on due process is mostly denial-based. They've been using college campuses to test market their gulag/kangaroo court approach to justice for years now. That approach was put into public practice with their treatment of the J6 defendants. When any of the Democratic elite are pressed about the J6 victims of injustice, however, they get the kind of blank stare that Joe Biden would if someone told him to find the exit on his own after a speech.

The Democrats' assault on the First Amendment has always been the most complex of their anti-American initiatives for a couple of reasons. One is that they love to cherry-pick the First Amendment when needing justification for their war on religion or their right to riot and burn everything to the ground peaceably assemble. The other is that they need to avail themselves of the very right that they seek to destroy.

Awkward.

Leftists come at free speech from a variety of euphemism-laden angles, the most popular one of late being a concern about "disinformation." Caterwauling about disinformation was key to the Democrats' political weaponization of the COVID-19 pandemic.

They had so much success with it that they're not letting it go.

The New York Post:

MSNBC legal analyst Barbara McQuade argued Monday that the United States’ “deep commitment to free speech” makes Americans uniquely susceptible to disinformation campaigns.

McQuade, a University of Michigan law professor, went on “The Rachel Maddow Show” to promote her new book, “Attack from Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America.” She said her “goal” with the book was to spark a “national conversation about truth and our commitment to it.”

Professor McQuade sounds like that Army Spokesman from the Viet-nam War:  "We had to destroy the village in order to save it."

We have been sorting through misinformation and disinformation since we got here.  And think of the Vikings, with that whole Iceland/Greenland thing.

For over two hundred years we have been well served by freedom of information.  This era is no more fraught than others in our history.  We can deal with it.  Give us access and let us sort it out.  After all, that is what Voting is all about.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff