Welcome to Thursday, July 23. My calendar says it's Vanilla Ice Cream Day, Gorgeous Grandma Day, Sprinkle Day, Russell Day, Peanut Butter and Chocolate Day, Refreshment Day, Hot Enough For Ya Day, and Yada Yada Yada Day. Call your grandma, dump sprinkles on a peanut butter cup, and complain about the heat — you've got the whole day covered before lunch.
Today in History:
1829: William Austin Burt patents his "typographer," an early forerunner of the typewriter.
1885: Ulysses S. Grant, the eighteenth president, dies in Mount McGregor, N.Y., at age 63.
1886: New York saloonkeeper Steve Brodie claims to have survived a daredevil plunge off the Brooklyn Bridge.
1892: Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia is born.
1904: The ice cream cone is invented by Charles E. Menches at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis — a fitting nod to Vanilla Ice Cream Day.
1914: Austria-Hungary delivers an ultimatum to Serbia following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, setting World War I in motion.
1945: French Marshal Henri Pétain goes on trial for treason over his role in heading the Vichy government.
1952: Military officers led by Gamal Abdel Nasser overthrow King Farouk in Egypt.
1967: Deadly rioting erupts in Detroit after a police raid on an unlicensed bar, leaving 43 dead over five days.
1972: Landsat 1, the first satellite in the Landsat program, launches.
1982: Actor Vic Morrow and two child performers are killed when a helicopter crashes during the filming of Twilight Zone: The Movie.
Birthdays Today include: Woody Harrelson, actor (Cheers, White House Plumbers, Suncoast); Daniel Radcliffe, actor (Harry Potter); Slash, guitarist of Guns N' Roses (Appetite for Destruction); Marlon Wayans, actor, comedian (Scary Movie, White Chicks); Kathryn Hahn, actor (WandaVision, Step Brothers); Monica Lewinsky, activist, she of the blue dress; Alison Krauss, bluegrass singer, fiddler; Martin Gore, musician, singer, songwriter of Depeche Mode; Anthony Kennedy, retired Supreme Court justice; Raphael Warnock, senator from Georgia; Charisma Carpenter, actor (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel); John Torode, TV host, restaurateur; and Paul Wesley, actor (The Vampire Diaries).
If today's your birthday, too, happy birthday.
* * *
Fair warning: This one's heavier than most. Buckle up.
I've said it before in this column, and I'll keep saying it until it sinks in: The first job of any government that wants to survive is to support the culture that gave it life — defend it, nurture it, and where possible, extend its reach. Everything else is negotiable. That isn't.
Keep that in mind. It's the lens for everything that follows.
Anyone who still believes a law is some kind of permanent fix should look up the Communist Control Act of 1954 (68 Stat. 775, 50 U.S.C. §§ 841–844). Eh, fine, the CCA, for people who'd rather not type all that.
President Eisenhower signed the CCA on Aug. 24, 1954. It outlawed the Communist Party USA outright and criminalized membership in or support for the party or any "Communist-action organization," on the theory that communists had allegedly vowed to overthrow the U.S. government. Congress never moved it out of Title 50, the section it reserves for war and national defense. Make of that what you will.
I say "allegedly" only to keep this column out of a courtroom, not because I harbor a shred of doubt that avowed communists mean exactly what they say about uprooting America.
Then there's the Smith Act of 1940 (54 Stat. 670), which made it a federal crime to advocate the violent overthrow of the U.S. government, or to organize or join a group that did. The Act barred anyone from knowingly advocating, teaching, or encouraging the government's overthrow by force. It also criminalized printing, publishing, or distributing material that advocated overthrow, organizing a group built around that goal, and knowingly staying a member of one.
Let me be clear here, because I know some of you are already sharpening your pitchforks: The statute targeted advocacy of overthrowing the government by force. It didn't touch unpopular opinions or arguments for constitutional change.
Prosecutors used the Smith Act against fascists and Trotskyists alike, but the Act hit its high-water mark in Dennis v. United States, a 1951 case testing the limits of First Amendment speech during the early Cold War. In that 6–2 ruling, the Court upheld the convictions of Communist Party USA leaders under the Smith Act, holding that the government could punish advocacy of violent revolution even without proof that revolution was imminent.
Brandenburg v. Ohio later gutted that approach. The Court established that the government generally can't punish advocacy of illegal action unless the speaker intends it to produce imminent lawless action and that action is actually likely to happen — a standard that has since replaced Dennis, full stop.
So let's look closely at where the courts actually draw the line between free speech and criminal advocacy of overthrow, since apparently that line still needs explaining.
The First Amendment protects a remarkably wide range of political advocacy, including statements like:
"The Constitution should be replaced."
"Capitalism should be abolished."
"America should become socialist."
"The current government is illegitimate."
Say any of that, and the law leaves you alone.
Speech crosses into potentially criminal territory only when it moves past abstract advocacy into actual conduct, such as:
directing or coordinating violent acts;
conspiring to overthrow the government by force;
providing material support to designated foreign terrorist organizations; or
intentionally inciting imminent lawless action likely to occur.
That's the line.
Right now we're watching two supposedly separate movements — the Democratic Socialists (communists in a cheaper suit) and the Islamists — both calling for overthrowing America as we know it. In both cases, the nation has to answer the same question: What tools does the government have to defend itself? Well, there are:
immigration laws that let the government remove non-citizens who engage in terrorism-related activity or support designated terrorist organizations;
criminal laws against conspiracy, terrorism, sedition, and material support for foreign terrorist organizations;
FBI counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations; and
financial sanctions, court-authorized surveillance where required, and intelligence collection against foreign threats.
Remember, though: It’s one end of the political spectrum that reliably throws a fit over every one of these tools. And some of that end of the political spectrum wear black robes. It doesn't matter whether the targets are socialists, communists, or Islamists — their meltdowns sound identical, right down to the talking points. Their argument: restrict these movements and you've somehow destroyed the very freedoms you're trying to save. They love pretending they just want to change the system and would never advocate torching it illegally. Cute trick. Real cute.
Sure, the Constitution offers a path for change, even radical change. But let's stop pretending that path moves fast enough for these people. It doesn't. Neither movement has the patience for due process, and both have very long rap sheets proving that. When the ballot box or existing law says no, and it will, the bricks and bullets start flying and buildings start burning. We've all seen it, even recently.
One more point deserves attention here: In this thus-far domestic discussion, we've ignored the international dimension of these struggles. Consider Iran and Islamists worldwide who call for America's destruction. Have we already forgotten 9/11? Have we forgotten the Soros money behind leftist movements worldwide? Have we forgotten China? There are other examples, of course, but you get the idea.
I'll go further: It's international forces that drive all of this. Look at al-Qaeda, ISIS, and Iran. Communist countries such as Cuba, Nicaragua, China, etc. Their ideologies cross borders, and they've managed to inspire individuals inside the United States without maintaining direct command structures. Iran, Hamas, China, and Russia are textbook examples.
These regimes push propaganda, manipulate social media, run financial networks, launch cyber operations, and exploit whatever divisions already exist here. Spend five minutes on Facebook, X, or TikTok, and that propaganda finds you — repeatedly, daily.
That foreign involvement raises an entirely different, and no less dangerous, set of problems. Those outside forces also hide their fingerprints well and skillfully. Take an American citizen who advocates socialism, communism, or Sharia-based politics; the law generally protects that speech. But the moment that person knowingly acts as an agent of a foreign government or group to undermine the United States, the matter becomes a national security problem. Trouble is, our enemies — and enemies they most certainly are — understand that line in the sand perfectly, and they play a shell game to keep their involvement indirect and therefore harder to prosecute.
So we see Russia amplifying divisions inside the U.S. without caring whether the left or the right benefits. Iran's mullahs push Islamist networks without controlling every individual, and they benefit from that distance. China exploits political disagreements to erode confidence in our institutions — look no further than our elections and the tussles over election integrity for proof.
Recommended: Lukewarm Gets You Spit Out: A GOP History Lesson for the Dems
Wasn't it Nietzsche who told us that order rises out of chaos? Put another way: If you want to build a new house, step one is tearing down the old one, by whatever means necessary. (Gee, I guess we’ve all heard that phrase used in political circles before, with very few prosecutions resulting from it.)
I'd ask how many of these movements' advocates — the street protesters, the lawyers, the "influencers" here at home — actually understand they're puppets for outside forces. And frankly, how many would care, so long as that one degree of separation — plausible deniability — shields them from the consequences of their own actions? Were the gunmen going after the president, Charlie Kirk, and Christian and Jewish targets as well — usually mind-numbed fools — driven by these forces?
While I’ve probably ruined your day, at least you now understand better the fight we’re up against.
Thought for the Day: A nation that won't defend its own borders — legal or ideological—is just a house with the doors propped open, waiting to find out who walks in first. It ceases to be a nation.
VIP members, what say you? Comment area's open and you have the floor.
Take care, today, gang. Thanks for being here. I'll see you tomorrow.
Editor's Note: Do you enjoy PJ Media's conservative reporting that takes on the radical left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.
Join PJ Media VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member