First Amendment on a roll!

Thank God for big favors.

After several years of government encroachment on the 1st Amendment–the right to speak, to worship, and to conduct commerce without compulsion–the courts are finally placing reasonable limits on government efforts to circumscribe our freedom of speech and even thought.

Two major decisions come within a week of each other: the 303 Creative case, which I believe is one of the more important Supreme Court decisions in recent years, and now the preliminary injunction against the Executive Branch’s coordination with private companies to suppress speech. Read Ed’s summary of the injunction I linked above for a more detailed description, and you can read the order here.

303 Creative was so important because it eviscerated the states’ right to force people to create content with which they morally disagree. Leftists argue, quite wrongly, that it allows people to discriminate against protected classes, such are gays or Blacks, but the decision doesn’t actually say that. Nobody is any freer to deny service to people due to race, gender, or sexual preference; they are, however, free to reject commissions for creating anything that celebrates things that they morally oppose, such as gay marriages, BLM riots, or any similar statements that amount to expression.

This preliminary injunction, although possibly temporary, presages a more sweeping defense of the 1st Amendment.

Shamelessly stealing from Ed:

RIP to its newly erected “Ministry of Truth.” That term comes directly from federal Judge Terry Doughty in the Western District of Louisiana, who issued an injunction a couple of hours ago that takes direct aim at the government-media censorship complex. Concluding that plaintiffs in the lawsuit have a strong likelihood of proving that the US government suppressed dissent — and particularly conservative dissent — Doughty ordered the Biden administration and its executive agencies to cease any coordination with social-media companies:

The Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the Government has used its power to silence the opposition. Opposition to COVID-19 vaccines; opposition to COVID-19 masking and lockdowns; opposition to the lab-leak theory of COVID-19; opposition to the validity of the 2020 election; opposition to President Biden’s policies; statements that the Hunter Biden laptop story was true; and opposition to policies of the government officials in power. All were suppressed. It is quite telling that each example or category of suppressed speech was conservative in nature. This targeted suppression of conservative ideas is a perfect example of viewpoint discrimination of political speech. American citizens have the right to engage in free debate about the significant issues affecting the country.

Although this case is still relatively young, and at this stage the Court is only examining it in terms of Plaintiffs’ likelihood of success on the merits, the evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian “Ministry of Truth.”721

The Plaintiffs have presented substantial evidence in support of their claims that they were the victims of a far-reaching and widespread censorship campaign. This court finds that they are likely to succeed on the merits of their First Amendment free speech claim against the Defendants. Therefore, a preliminary injunction should issue immediately against the Defendants as set out herein.

Attempts to limit the speech rights of citizens are hardly new; they have been a recurring part of both world history and, unfortunately, American history. Almost always justified in the United States based upon claims of exigent circumstances, such as war or “emergencies,” free speech is most threatened in cases where it is most needed.

Key officials of the White House, CDC, FBI, State Department, and other agencies are also blocked from participating in the federal government’s vast censorship enterprise. pic.twitter.com/2WpBjtbm6K

— Attorney General Andrew Bailey (@AGAndrewBailey) July 4, 2023

We have arguments about whether strippers have a 1st Amendment right to display their private parts and not much is at stake; arguments about pressing political issues are of supreme importance and yet they have been suppressed without mercy or much thought.

Conservatives have, in prior years, been the offenders. While the Red Scare was hardly as ridiculous as the Left portrayed, they were correct to fight for the rights of people to be communists despite the fact that they were arguing for an immoral system. And while I believe that public schools should not push gender ideology or any version of critical theory to students, I would strongly oppose any efforts to suppress even children’s books pushing these theories. I definitely oppose banning the discussion of these topics in an academic setting as long as the discussion was age appropriate.

Suppressing dissent is wrong. Even when the people dissenting are wrong. It is also manifestly unconstitutional.

Unfortunately, not everybody agrees, and the people who disagree most strongly are ironically people who call themselves “liberal.”

Liberal, they are not. They are the opposite, as the root of liberalism is liberty. Modern liberals gave up liberty as a value a long time ago, except in terms of being libertine. Let your freak flag fly in public–no problem. Say the wrong thing–big problem.

As Ed pointed out, the Washington Post doesn’t like this decision one little bit. It will allow “misinformation,” which by their lights is anything they disapprove of, whether it is factual or not.

The injunction was a victory for the state attorneys general, who have accused the Biden administration of enabling a “sprawling federal ‘Censorship Enterprise’” to encourage tech giants to remove politically unfavorable viewpoints and speakers, and for conservatives who’ve accused the government of suppressing their speech. In their filings, the attorneys general alleged the actions amount to “the most egregious violations of the First Amendment in the history of the United States of America.”

The judge, Terry A. Doughty, has yet to make a final ruling in the case, but in the injunction, he wrote that the Republican attorneys general “have produced evidence of a massive effort by Defendants, from the White House to federal agencies, to suppress speech based on its content.”

The ruling could have critical implications for tech companies, which regularly communicate with government officials, especially during elections and emergencies, such as the coronavirus pandemic.

During the coronavirus pandemic the government pressed social media companies to suppress true information, and during the election and after the government pressed the same companies to suppress American citizens’ speech as Russian disinformation even when everybody involved knew this assertion to be false.

In other words, the government suppressed true or at least entirely defensible statements knowingly and smeared and silenced its political opponents based upon claims of exigent circumstances, deliberately altering the political landscape in order to produce results that bureaucrats and politicians found personally salutary.

This is, first of all, almost the definition of misinformation, and it came from the government and not the people accused. It is also patently unconstitutional and incompatible with the proper functioning of a liberal society. It is clear to me that the government doesn’t even have the right to suppress “misinformation,” but rather has the right to counter it with its own speech; it certainly has neither the right nor an appropriate excuse to suppress speech it doesn’t like for whatever reason.

Some people justify the fight against misinformation based upon the “noble lie” theory of government; suppression of debate and true information that leads people to make (presumably) bad decisions is acceptable because the consequences are good. This argument is flawed in many ways, not the least of which is that it sacrifices the long-term good for short-term gains.

Even if you presume that government officials actually believed that COVID mandates and vaccine mandates had no negative implications at all–I don’t believe that our public health officials believed that for a second, because it would be the first time in history that blanket mandates have only positive outcomes and any medical procedure had no downsides–public health officials would still have sacrificed their credibility in the long run for the benefit of getting everybody vaccinated against COVID.

A public health system without credibility is a disaster. All vaccines have been smeared with the stench of the COVID vaccine, and everybody now knows that public health officials will lie with abandon. This is a hideous outcome.

Noble lies are lies, and liars are untrustworthy. Even the most “pragmatic” should see the dangers here. Censorship of dissent is tyranny, even when you believe the dissenters to be in the wrong.

There could be no better outcome than the courts crushing the censorship industrial complex. I would believe this if the victims were liberals, although in recent years the victims mostly seem to be conservatives.

Watch the Left scream and cry over the next few days–or rather, watch them cry even harder–and undoubtedly they will ascribe this decision to the bad motives of an out-of-control judiciary.

Relish their tears. On this issue, they are 100% the bad guys.