Tag Archives: free speech

A Churchman is Heard From

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Priests for Life National Director Fr Frank Pavone, late of the Trump campaign organization, is speaking out, against a misleading fraction of the press and the Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden campaign platform. At the request of the Vatican, Pavone resigned from several campaign advisory boards.

I see headline after headline, article after article, by Catholic outlets that have given zero coverage to my years-long advocacy of the President, but now want to make it look like I’m distancing myself from him or reducing my commitment to his re-election. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

No, he’s not distancing himself [paraphrased by Church Militant].

As if we are supposed to distance ourselves from the most pro-life president in history and instead embrace Biden who wants no restrictions on abortion and wants us to pay for it. … As if we are to back away from the president who is supporting the freedom of the Church more than the bishops are, and instead embrace Biden who wants to restore the [Health and Human Services] mandate which various dioceses, Priests for Life, the Little Sisters and numerous others fought all the way to the Supreme Court. … As if we are to back away from the president who defends America and instead embrace the Biden-Sanders vision of socialism. … As if we are supposed to distance ourselves from President Trump, who advocates for the rights of students to pray in school and speak their mind on campus and the rights of parents to send their children to Catholic schools or any other school of their choice, and [who] does countless other things that benefit the Church and our security and prosperity as Americans.

He went on.

It is a moral obligation for me and for all of us in the Church—clergy and laity alike—to point out the moral corruption of the Democrat platform. I will sacrifice my life before failing to do that[.]

Double Standards

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A Twitter representative illustrates.

Notice that. Even after the moderator’s clarification of Ostrovsky’s question, Twitter considers Iran’s head mullah Khamenei routinely calling for the destruction of Israel entirely acceptable “for conversation,” but Trump’s often rude remarks on Twitter worthy of warnings if not outright censorship and removal.

But @Jack doesn’t want to impact politics or political speech. And @Jack is an honorable man; so are they all, all of Twitter honorable men.

Aside: Arsen Ostrovsky is, among other things, Executive Director of The Israeli-Jewish Congress, an Israeli-based NGO.

The NFL’s Failure

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The National Football League has decided the nonsense of social justice messaging—carefully unbalanced messaging, even—is more important than playing football.

The NFL reportedly unveiled on Monday its social justice plans for Week 1 of the upcoming season, which includes optional decals players can place on their helmet and messages that could be placed in each end zone.
Players who opt to wear the decal will be given a list of names or they can choose a “victim of systematic racism who is not on that list,” NFL executive Anna Isaacson told teams

But no decals of Audie Murphy or William Carney. No messages like Blue Lives Matter or All Lives Matter in the end zones.

And the NFL’s policy of allowing players to disrespect—to denigrate—our nation’s anthem, our nation’s flag, to insult the generations of Americans who have fought, been maimed, died defending those symbols of our great nation—that continues unchanged.

The NFL has lost me.

Free Speech, Free Assembly

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Here is how two clauses of our Constitution’s First Amendment will be enforced under a Progressive-Democrat administration.

Officials in the city of Houston, Texas have cancelled the state’s Republican convention. On Wednesday, Democrat Mayor Sylvester Turner announced he has instructed the city’s convention center to cancel the event.

Today I instructed the Houston First Corporation to exercise its right contractually in cancelling the State’s Republican Convention that was set to take place next week at GRB. #COVID19
— Sylvester Turner (@SylvesterTurner) July 8, 2020

It was supposed to be held there next week, but Turner claimed it would’ve posed a “clear and present” danger.

Notice: the Progressive-Democrat mayor carefully waited until virtually the last minute to block the Texas Republican Party’s convention. By waiting until so late in the game, Turner has made it exceedingly difficult if not impossible for the party and its members to exercise their free assembly rights and free speech rights, except on a schedule acceptable to the Progressive-Democrats. Which Turner has carefully omitted to lay out.

Speech and Private Enterprise

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Some companies are reaching the conclusion that it’s become necessary to pull advertising from Facebook over the latter’s mishandling of speech, if in many cases they’re misapprehending the types of speech being abused.

The WSJ article at the link led off with this:

Facebook Inc said it would start labeling political speech that violates its rules and take other measures to prevent voter suppression and protect minorities from abuse.

Pick one. Suppressing political speech is suppressing voters.

Furthermore, Zuckerberg is hardly in a position to define “abuse;” his censorship is itself abuse.

There’s also this from a commenter in the article’s comment thread, which illustrates the breadth of the misunderstanding regarding free speech obligations:

Facebook is a private company, and platform. It can do as it pleases so long as you sign off on their terms and conditions agreement….

As a legal matter, sure. However, the principle underlying the injunction against Government abridging the freedom of speech is universal and applies to everyone. Zuckerberg knows this full well, and he knows further from that that he has a moral obligation to actively support free speech as well as to passively not abridge it.

His obligation is expanded by the size and control over political—and other—speech his Facebook has achieved and exercises.