September 2, 2017

Hollywood & New Yorkers Agree: We should aspire to be more like starving Venezuelans

from Squawker:  The Bernie Sanders' mentality of imposing universal poverty as a means to achieve equality.
Leftists would be wise to grasp the wisdom of Milton Friedman: “A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither.
A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.”

Economic Policy: Statism vs The Free Market

Ohio’s Campus Free Speech Act helps build free minds, free people

from The Hill:  Free speech is the best antidote for poisonous ideas. That is why the intolerant left is so scared of it.
Students need to explore their ideas, not constrain them. Education is about learning how to think, not being told what to think.

Indoctrination and Censorship

FDA pushing forward with terrible menu-labeling rules

from The Hill:  Unless this idiotic provision of ObamaCare is repealed, menu labeling will continue to be abnormally costly and ineffective (since costly and ineffective is the normal state of government). 

Regulation Nation

Indoctrination And Censorship

Latest Update: July 3, 2017
VIDEO: Eugene Volokh: Campus Speech Intolerance
Climate change, scientism, and the politics of certitude
The Day of the Censors is coming: truth telling will soon be verboten
Kid gets suspended for 10 days for ‘liking’ a picture of a gun on Instagram
Parents: Prepare your college kids for left-wing campus bias
Spoiled children put the bad manners of the campus left on display
In California, history class no longer even pretends to tell what really happened

VIDEO: Prevailing Campus Nonsense

Political Correctness & Other Nitwittery

Latest Update: May 17, 2017
Walter E Williams: Sheer Lunacy on Campus
Frustration with political correctness was a huge predictor of whether you voted for Trump
If environmentalism succeeds, it will make human life impossible
VIDEO: Tucker Carlson - Leftwing Nitwittery Exposed
Pigs trash the streets while carrying "protect the environment" signs
‘Ban cars to stop terror’ says Sweden’s best-selling newspaper after Stockholm attack
The hysterical left is creating the white tribe
VIDEO: Keith Preston - The Politically Correct Totalitarians

VIDEO: Comedy, College & The Fight To Save Free Speech

Green Light For Jury-Nullification Crusaders

by Emma Gannone.     The 10th Circuit upheld an injunction that lets protesters disseminate pamphlets about jury nullification outside a state courthouse in Colorado. Jury nullification describes the practice by which a jury acquits a defendant, despite evidence of his guilt, because the jury members believe the law at issue is immoral. Protests over   ... MORE

Protecting Consumers From Speech-Chilling Lawsuits

by Michael Beckerman.    Summer is almost here, which means sun, fun, and summer vacations. It also means many of us are going to be spending time browsing online reviews to preview the good, the bad, and the ugly on travel locations. Imagine a world in which a hotel company could sue customers because they didn’t like their stay. What if  ... MORE

Dear AG, Conspiring Against Free Speech Is A Crime

by Glenn Harlan Reynolds.    Breaking the law to shut up climate change dissenters. Federal law  makes it a felony “for two or more persons to agree together to injure, threaten, or intimidate a person in any state, territory or district in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him/her by the Constitution or the laws of   ... MORE

Europe Sacrifices Free Speech For Political Correctness

by Dr. Michael Hurd.     Europe has gone crazy. Yes, there are the terrorist attacks. But it’s the political correctness and censorship, too. Governments in Europe are literally sacrificing their citizens for the sake of not offending Islam. Here’s an example. Anti-Islam firebrand Geert Wilders went on trial last Friday for allegedly inciting hatred against the  ... MORE

More People Recognizing Copyright's 'Free Speech Problem'

by Mike Masnick.  For many years now, we've written about the fact that copyright law and the First Amendment are actually in quite a lot of conflict. After all, copyright is regularly used to stifle speech, and the First Amendment isn't supposed to allow for the barring of speech. Over the years, legal experts have been increasingly starting to realize    ... MORE

Jack Hellner: Prosecuting Free Speech

Speak up now or forever hold your peace.     The U.S. attorney general and the Democrat attorneys general in several states are indicating that they are considering legal action against people who believe that current climate change is natural and cyclical, as it has been throughout billions of years, instead of caused by humans.  Is it any wonder  ... MORE

Rattled Students Demand Protection From Chalk Message

by Robby Soave. As anyone who has spent five seconds at a college can attest, sidewalks covered in chalk messages are a pretty common fixture of the campus scene. But Emory University students had their delicate worldview shaken by the sudden appearance of one specific chalk message, "Trump 2016," all over campus. The students were so ... MORE

VIDEO: Steven Pinker - Free Speech, Reason & Knowledge

Trump Is Not Responsible For Violence Against Him

by Michael Hurd.  The anti-free speech, anti-American protesters are. Donald Trump was forced to cancel a rally in Chicago due to threats of violence. Apparently, even the police were afraid. Black Lives Matter, a group which openly supports violence to attain its goals of socialism, cheers the shutdown. They tweeted such comments as, “Way   ... MORE

Andrew Napolitano: The Heckler's Veto

The government must protect unpopular speech.  On Feb. 7, 1946, Arthur Terminiello, a Roman Catholic priest who was a fierce opponent of communism and believed that President Harry Truman was too comfortable with it, gave an incendiary speech in a Chicago hall that his sponsors had rented. The hall held about 800 people, but nearly   ... MORE

Richard W. Rahn: Tyranny And Free Speech

Censorship has become a hallmark of the Obama era.  Do you support free speech? How about free speech for climate change skeptics? For homophobes? For racists? For sexists? For white males? For even Donald Trump? Those who defend free speech, as did the American Founding Fathers, understand it is not about defending speech you agree  ... MORE

Lefty Protesters Drive People Into Arms Of Donald Trump

by Robby Soave.   Trump's useful idiots. Donald Trump's supporters aren't fazed by his decision to cancel an appearance at a Chicago rally over the weekend—in fact, they are more likely to vote for him to be the Republican nominee because of it. That's according to a new poll of likely Republican voters conducted by Monmouth University.         ... MORE

Trump And His Protesters Both Hate Free Speech

by Michael Graham. No love for the First Amendment. When it comes to Donald Trump’s “Go to Auschwitz!” thugs versus MoveOn.Org’s “Shut them down” rioters, I go for the full Kissinger: “It’s a pity they both can’t lose.” (Kissinger was talking about Iran and Iraq. Close enough) But they aren’t losing. If fact, the sucker-punching Trumpies and    ... MORE

John W. Whitehead: Just Shut Up And Vote - The Futility Of Representative Government In an Age Of Robber Barons

Fighting back with common ground.  Despite the fact that we’ve been burned before, most Americans continue to allow themselves to be bamboozled into casting their votes for one candidate or another, believing that this time they mean what they say, this time they really care about the citizenry, this time will be different. Of course,   ... MORE

Disconnect Between Public Comments & Private Thoughts

by Jay Jamison.   Trump is like jury nullification. Once a criminal case is handed to the jury, the outcome is no longer under the control of the authorities and professionals who conducted the trial. Jury nullification is a term that describes a verdict that runs counter to the law, the evidence or even the instructions of the presiding judge. During a trial,   ... MORE

Protesting Donald Trump Is Now A Federal Crime

by Anthony L. Fisher.     The state of free speech in America. The Orwellian-named "free speech zones" on college campus and political rallies are nothing new to regular readers of Reason, and suppressing political dissent with the brute force of government has been a feature of the American system since shortly after 9/11/01, when the     ... MORE