Weren’t Democrats Once the Champions of Free Speech?
Censorship is wrong and denies the First Amendment. This is made worse when it is applied politically based on who is exercising their free speech and against what.
Weren’t Democrats Once the Champions of Free Speech?
Brian C Joondeph
Democrats were once the party of free speech. The ACLU and “truth to power” were part of the Democrat party truth brigade. Yet now Democrats and the left are stifling free speech so fast it would make George Orwell’s head spin.
If Orwell was alive today, his sequel to 1984 would be 2024, replacing Winston Smith with Elon Musk or Telegram CEO Pavel Durov.
Censorship, once popular in communist China, Hitler’s Germany, and Mao’s China, is the new Converse sneakers, mom jeans, and cardigans, popular decades ago and now making a comeback.
Brazil and the UK are leading the censorship charge, with the USA close behind. Speech is now free only if it is the right speech, politically correct and not critical of the ruling class or its policies. Let’s make Orwell’s Oceana and Big Brother great again.
Screen shot The Last Refuge
Aside from challenging the “safe and effective” COVID vaccine mantra, election integrity is another hot area of censorship. Challenge the ruling class and be castigated as a vaccine or election “denier”.
Physicians lost their jobs, licenses, board certifications, and reputations for having the audacity to question or challenge the government narrative regarding COVID. Daring to question election integrity leads to the same scorn from the smart set in Washington DC and the media, leading to disbarment or worse.
There is a website dedicated to these evil election deniers called electiondeniers.org . This is a project of States United Action, a nonprofit “democracy center” that apparently believe in a situational and conditional First Amendment.
Their advisory board consists of Trump-o-phobes including Michael Chertoff, Janet Napolitano, Tom Ridge, Michael Steele, Bill Weld, and Christie Todd-Whitman. Enough said.
The election denier website asserts that “election denial is dangerous” while they are “looking holistically at the environment around elections”, whatever that means. One of their definitions of election denial is “claiming former President Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election instead of the legitimate winner President Biden.”
Where were these upholders of election integrity when Al Gore claimed on 2000 election, “Actually, I think I carried Florida”? Or when Hillary Clinton dismissed President Trump as an “illegitimate president” and suggested that “he knows” that he stole the 2016 presidential election?
Or when Stacey Abrams denied 35 times her 2018 election defeat? Instead, this new election denier website only applies to Donald Trump in 2020.
There is much to question about the 2020 election, including a handful of battleground swing states in unprecedented fashion, stopping vote counting on election night, or so they say.
Then tallying election returns to determine how many votes Joe Biden needed to eke out an Electoral College victory. And “finding” enough mail-in ballots after a few days, with perfectly filled in circles, without the folds or creases necessary to mail a ballot, and shazam, Biden wins by a nose 3 days later.
That doesn’t pass the smell test. If it’s all legitimate, then prove it. The majority of voters are skeptical and that’s not a good thing if we are “protecting democracy”.
According to a recent Heartland/Rasmussen poll, “More than six in 10 likely voters nationally and in battleground states believe cheating will affect outcome of 2024 election.”
Then there are the electronic voting machines. We are told by AP that they are “reliable”. So are phones, computers and banks, many of the latter hacked. If bank are hackable, so are electronic voting machines.
At the risk of being labeled an “election denier”, I’ll share my thoughts on electronic voting machines.
If in fact someone was deliberately hacking these machines, you could steal millions of votes. No one would know it and that’s why the methodology is problematic. There’s no evidence it happened but you can’t prove it didn’t either, and you can’t prove it won’t next time. That’s why we have to have a paper trail.
There is a lack of transparency and accountability in electronic voting systems - from the day that contracts are signed with manufacturers to the counting of electronic votes on Election Day. State and local officials are spending a great deal of money on machines without concrete proof that they are secure and reliable. American voters deserve better.
It is totally unacceptable that in 21st century American we would allow faulty machines and systems to rob citizens of their voting rights.
The foundation of democracy rests upon the accuracy, integrity and security of our voting system.
Wow! I am sure to be in trouble with the election denier organization. Or maybe not. The above four paragraphs of election denial are not my words.
The first paragraph comes from Rep Jerrold Nadler. The second was Rep Henry Waxman, the third the late Rep John Conyers and the last Rep Bart Gordon. Note all four are Democrats still suffering butthurt a few years after Bush prevailed over Gore in 2000.
Today election deniers face lawfare, disbarment, and/or criminal prosecution. Ask Tina Peters, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell or John Eastman. Arizona “election deniers” were indicted. Two in Michigan were indicted.
Yet Politico asks this excellent question, “What happened to the democrats who never accepted Bush’s election?” Answer nothing, reinforcing the fact that the entire “election denial” persecution is situational and political.
Deny a Democrat loss and it’s meh. Deny a Republican loss and be treated like a serial killer.
Censorship is wrong and denies the First Amendment. This is made worse when it is applied politically based on who is exercising their free speech and against what.
Fortunately, Donald Trump now has a powerful ally, RFK, Jr, in his quest to Make Free Speech Great Again. Otherwise, everyone would be wide to read or reread 1984 to prepare for what’s ahead.
Brian C Joondeph, MD, is a physician and writer.
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Democrats have been seen as the champions of free speech. They were the party that opposed the Sedition Act during the Adams administration and supported free speech during the Red Scare. However, this changed in recent years, with the Democratic Party becoming more supportive of censorship and restricting free speech, particularly on social media platforms and in educational institutions. When the new far left Democrats of the Biden-Harris administration says something is a threat to democracy, they really mean a threat to their corrupt bureaucracy. That's why they take away free speech by silencing us for exposing their agenda using the FBI, DOJ or tech companies.