the time to stand against censorship, suppression, and surveillance is now
it’s dictator 101: you encourage and up the pressure until some atrocity occurs and/or life becomes intolerable and then you swoop in to grab power and fix it.you don’t need to go full “reichstag fire.” (but it’s always an option)this game is as old as time and never gets any less dirty.they do it because it works. they do it by relentless increment. they disorient, they frighten, then they take. when you wake up and push back, they give a little back, slide into the background, and wait for you to calm down. but you never get back 90% of what was usurped and it just normalizes such takings for next time. and there is always a next time.they are gearing up to do it again. the signs are all there.and the way to stop it is to call it out now.
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals delivered a major win for free speech and police reform by awarding a Louisiana man $205,000 in compensatory and punitive damages for an unlawful 2020 raid.
"If the problem with campus speech codes is the selectivity with which universities penalize various forms of bigotry," wrote James Kirchick recently in The New York Times, "the solution is not to expand the university's power to punish expression. It's to abolish speech codes entirely."Kirchick was writing about widespread outrage at the nuanced and hypocritical defense of speech offered by the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania at a congressional hearing about antisemitic and anti-Zionist campus reactions to the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel.Although Kirchick, the author of Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington and The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age, is an ardent defender of Israel, he is also a self-described free-speech absolutist who is disgusted by calls to restrict expression, whether on or off-campus.Reason's Nick Gillespie spoke to Kirchick about how identity politics has overwhelmed the left's traditional defense of free speech, why so many younger journalists seem lukewarm at best to the First Amendment, and how to muster the courage to speak up for first principles in uncomfortable and hostile situations.
The former journalist defends misinformation in the Trump era and explains why so many journalists are against free speech.Over the past decade, no legal scholar has pushed arguments for free speech as far or as influentially as today's guest: Jeff Kosseff, a former journalist who now teaches cybersecurity law at the U.S. Naval Academy. In previous books, he defended Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in The Twenty-Six Words That Created the Internet and stood up for anonymous speech in The United States of Anonymous: How the First Amendment Shaped Online Speech.His new book is his boldest yet. It's called Liar in a Crowded Theater: Freedom of Speech in a World of Misinformation and I liked it so much that I blurbed it, calling it "a smart, wry, deeply researched and utterly convincing defense of legal protections for 'misinformation' in an age when we are less likely to agree on basic facts than ever before."We talk about why "misinformation"—however defined—should be legally protected, how the boundaries between private companies and government are getting blurrier and blurrier, and why so many journalists are calling for limits on the First Amendment.
This is a clip from our show SYSTEM UPDATE, now airing every weeknight at 7pm ET on Rumble.
If it’s legal to sell a product, it’s also legal to talk about that product. But not in Mississippi—at least not if the product is medical marijuana.
It's time to demolish the myth that you cannot shout fire in a theater.It's not insightful. It's not graceful. It's not applicable. Instead, it's such a flawed concept that anyone who invokes it is worse than wrong.This canard is rolled out every single time someone wants to suppress expression they dislike. You'll turn on your TV, and some interviewer will say, "But the First Amendment says they have a right to free speech," to which the Authoritarian of the Hour will respond, "Well, there are exceptions to the First Amendment, I mean we already know that..."You cannot shout Fire! in a theater."Except...1. You absolutely CAN shout fire in a theater.2. It might be morally wrong to do so, but your action will have nothing to do with the First Amendment activities.
Rikki Schlott and Greg Lukianoff discuss their new book, "The Canceling of the American Mind""We've taught young people that any of their missteps or any of their heterodox opinions are grounds to tear them down. That's no way to grow up." That was journalist Rikki Schlott speaking before a sold-out crowd on Monday night at a live taping of The Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie podcast in New York City. Schlott, 23, teamed up with Greg Lukianoff to co-write The Canceling of the American Mind.Lukianoff, 49, is the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and co-author with Jonathan Haidt of the bestselling The Coddling of the American Mind (2018). Schlott is a fellow at FIRE, a New York Post columnist, and a co-host of the Lost Debate podcast. Cancel culture, they argue, constitutes a serious threat to free speech and open inquiry in academia and the workplace, and is best understood as a battle for power, status, and dominance.