The Real Bad News Is…

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… that this guy was reelected last month with 71.1% of the vote: Adam Schiff Attempts Censorship by Proxy, 'Demanding Action' To Suppress 'Hate Speech' on Twitter. [Jacob Sullum at Reason]

Rep. Adam Schiff (D–Calif.) yesterday said he is "demanding action" in response to an "unacceptable" rise in bigoted slurs on Twitter since Elon Musk took over the platform in late October. Musk responded by taking issue with the evidence that Schiff cited, saying "hate speech impressions are actually down by 1/3 for Twitter now vs prior to acquisition." What he should have said is that government officials in a free society have no business demanding the suppression of speech they do not like.

"We are deeply concerned about the recent rise in hate speech on Twitter," Schiff and Rep. Mark Takano (D–Calif.) write in a letter to Musk. "Analysis by independent researchers indicates Twitter has become an increasingly toxic place for our constituents, and we are reaching out to you to understand the actions Twitter is taking to combat this increase in harmful content."

Schiff and Takano ostensibly are just asking questions and urging Musk to step up enforcement of Twitter's ban on "hateful conduct." But they are doing that in their official capacity as members of Congress, a job that gives them no authority to police speech or insist that anyone else do so. To the contrary, the First Amendment explicitly bars Congress from "abridging the freedom of speech." By publicly pressuring Musk to censor "hate speech," which is indisputably covered by the First Amendment, Schiff and Takano are trying to indirectly accomplish something that the Constitution forbids.

For the record, Schiff's partner in Constitution-shredding, Mark Takano, was reelected last month with 57.7% of the vote.

Schiff and Takano are bad enough, but they are only a symptom of the real disease, which are their districts' voters. Liberty-loving people would cast their votes for someone—anyone—else.

Or can we look to the decades-long corruption of schools and their teachers, who failed to teach those voters Bill of Rights 101?

Briefly noted:

  • In case you were wondering whether Marxism was relevant in any way other than a destructive force… well, Richard W. Fulmer has your answer at the Foundation for Economic Education: Marxism Remains Relevant Only as a Destructive Force.

    Though Karl Marx’s theories were never valid, they changed the world by stoking grievance, focusing it on the status quo, demanding that the status quo be burned to the ground, and promising that a never-fully-defined utopia would spontaneously spring from the ashes.

    His claims included the following:

    1. Value is a function of "socially useful" labor content.
    2. Capitalist societies are split into two classes: the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat.
    3. Voluntary exchange is a zero-sum game; one party to every exchange gains at the expense of the other.
    4. Capitalists "expropriate" the surplus value of products from the workers who produced those products.
    5. Workers in capitalist societies will be increasingly "immiserated" to the point of revolution.
    6. Workers who disagree with Marx suffer from "false consciousness."

    But each of these assertions is false[…]

    Click through for a brief refutation of each pillar of garbage.

    As Fulmer notes, with such foundational principles, It's little wonder that Marxists have been world-class champs of destruction and repression.


Last Modified 2024-01-15 5:20 AM EDT