Shocker: a huge contingent of “free speech warriors” never really meant any of it.
All along, their “free speech” talking points were code for the much less noble principle: “I want my political opponents silenced and my political tribe amplified in the media because I’m scared my ideas can’t stand up to scrutiny.”
…And so, just like that, all of their alleged fidelity to the concept of freedom of speech is tossed out the window when the neocons catch the slightest whiff of a hot new Middle East war they might be able to finagle out of a tragedy.
Nikki Haley: ‘There should be freedom of speech, but you don’t get freedom of hate’
In response to various university groups embracing Hamas and/or criticizing Israel (these are not interchangeable positions regardless of how hard neocons want to conflate them), Nikki Haley trotted out a new censorship slogan she might as well have ripped straight from a Women’s and Gender Studies manifesto:
“There should be freedom of speech, but you don’t get freedom of hate.”
(Note how the political dichotomy has a way of coming full circle when it comes to justifying censorship.)
Of course, Haley’s nonsensical catchphrase handed to her by her PR people doesn’t mean anything, but that’s the point: it’s incoherent and malleable enough to justify any crackdown on speech possible.
Ben Shapiro: ‘If you work in the media and uncritically and reflexively parrot the genocidal Jew-hating terrorist liars Hamas you should be fired’
https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/1714647034156716497
“But, Ben,” one might make the rhetorical counterpoint, “what should happen to you if you work in media and you’re a literal Israeli intelligence asset posing as an American patriot?”
Related: Former Breitbart Colleague: ‘I Saw Ben Shapiro Receive Tasking From Israeli Intelligence’
‘Israel First’ Laura Loomer calls for firing doctor for political speech
Make Israel Great Again (MIGA) influence Laura Loomer recently demanded that a Danish doctor be fired for the crime of posting a meme she didn’t like.
“I am 100% reporting her,” the Karen wrote on Twitter/X.
https://twitter.com/lauraloomer/status/1716199553529983306
https://twitter.com/LauraLoomer/status/1716243136165429497
“As many of you know, America is the only country with a First Amendment. But, it’s not the case in other countries. Especially not in Denmark where Dr. Loupis is a practicing physician. I suspect she will be losing her medical license soon. And even if you take this away, the fact that she is using her position as a medical doctor to make fake medical diagnoses of Jews online to smear them as mentally Ill is a violation of the Hippocratic oath. You cannot falsely diagnose someone online in an effort to smear them. She needs to be reported for abusing her medical license. Her behavior is dangerous and highly illegal as a medical professional.”
One might recall other doctors in recent memory, in another political context (COVID-19), targeted for their speech unrelated to their clinical practice, which the likes of Laura Loomer were highly critical of.
In supreme irony, earlier this year, Loomer peacocked on Twitter/X as a “free speech absolutist.”
https://twitter.com/inMeinhardt/status/1716285493522903437
Ron DeSantis censors speech at public universities in service to Israel
“Meatball” Ron DeSantis was once lauded as the heir to the MAGA throne. He’s turned out to be a viscerally unlikeable standard neocon Swamp creation in the mold of George W. Bush – minus the charisma.
Hence his abysmal poll numbers.
Anyway, the “principled conservative” is using convoluted legal theory sure to be struck down in court as a publicity stunt to curry favor with the Israel lobby by crushing free speech on Florida campuses.
Via The Times of Israel:
“Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s administration is taking the extraordinary step of ordering state universities to ban a pro-Palestinian student organization from campuses, saying it illegally backs Hamas terrorists who attacked Israel earlier this month and massacred over 1,400 people.
As Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, aimed at destroying Hamas, has intensified, some college students have expressed solidarity with Palestinians, resulting in swift censure from some Jewish academics and even some prospective employers. But Florida has gone further, saying Students for Justice in Palestine is supporting a “terrorist organization…
State university system Chancellor Ray Rodrigues wrote to university presidents Tuesday at Gov. Ron DeSantis’ urging, directing them to disband chapters of SJP. He quoted the national group’s declaration that “Palestinian students in exile are PART of this movement, not in solidarity with this movement.”
“It is a felony under Florida law to ‘knowingly provide material support … to a designated foreign terrorist organization,'” Rodrigues said in the letter.”
“Material support for a designated terrorist organization” sounds terrible– except that there is no evidence to that effect. Instead, speech on Florida campuses – public institutions subject to constraints on government overreach under the Bill of Rights – is construed through tortured logic to be “material support” for Hamas.
The above is merely an hors d'oeuvres of the calls for censorship by neocons and MIGAs in the name of combating anti-Semitism.
Related: Anti-Defamation League Capitalizes on Hamas Attacks, Pushes Censorious DEI Fascism
This is a fair warning to all the neocon filth out there from both parties cheerleading this anti-American bullshit: you are sowing your karma. One way or another, you’ll reap it good and hard.
Ben Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile, is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.
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