AMERICANS HAVE ‘NO RIGHT’ TO CARRY GUNS IN PUBLIC, NINTH CIRCUIT COURT RULES: “The National Rifle Association said it would not allow the ruling to stand. ‘The US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit just ruled that THERE IS NO RIGHT TO CARRY – either openly or concealed in public. This ruling impacts RTC laws in AK, HI, CA, AZ, OR, WA, & MT. This was not an NRA case but we are exploring all options to rectify this,’ the gun-rights group wrote on Twitter.”
FROM SABRINA CHASE: Rogues and Heroes.
Come join the adventure…
…with a young woman desperate to leave her dusty planet for space … a British boy determined to end WWII all by himself … a cop in a dark world willing to do anything for a good read… an old cowboy with a final, heavy burden
…and more, in this collection of short stories from SF author Sabrina Chase.
SLATE: Mass Shooters Aren’t Disproportionately White. “Judging by those newer numbers, and the most current census estimate that 76.9 percent of Americans are white, the whites-are-overrepresented-among-mass-shooters meme appears even less accurate. Perpetrators that Mother Jones classifies as Asian make up 7.4 percent of the data set, versus an estimated 5.7 percent of the population, while those MoJo identifies as black represent 17.0 percent of the mass shooters in the database versus an estimated 13.3 percent of the population. According to this data set, then, Asians and black Americans are overrepresented among mass shooters by about the same proportion (a bit more than one-fourth) that whites are underrepresented.” (Bumped).
PAYING ATTENTION TO FANS IS AT LEAST REFRESHING: Yes, Zack Snyder’s ‘Justice League’ Was Worth the Wait.
I WANT TO POINT OUT THAT THE MAYOR OF CHICAGO WOULDN’T KNOW AN AMERICAN IF ONE BIT HER IN HER SKANKY BUTT: Today’s blacklisted Americans: Lincoln and Washington, by Chicago’s Democratic mayor.
COOL BEANS. THEN THEY DON’T NEED TAXES TO SUPPORT THEM, RIGHT? School Official: Public School a “Privilege Not An Entitlement”.
WHICH, I WANT TO EMPHASIZE IS TOTALLY HOW PEOPLE WHO WON FAIR AND SQUARE WOULD ACT: Former Fed Prosecutor Seeks Pledge From “Every Business In America” That 2020 Election Was “Accurate”.
And not the act of an occupying Junta desperately trying to arrogate to themselves some fake credibility. Also, what the heck is with the left thinking that if enough people say something is real, it is real?
SURE. OBAMA KNOWS AT LEAST AS MUCH OF MASCULINITY AS MY CAT KNOWS OF ASTRONOMY: Masculinity: The Exalted Obama Lecture.
NO. IT REMAINS A MIX OF STUPIDITY AND ILLUSION: The Biden-Harris Administration Is Now A Reality.
But yeah, the left thinks it’s a thing like a million and a half genders and micro-aggressions. The rest of us wish they’d stop boggarting the ochacan ditchweed. Not that we want it, but that much can’t be good for them.
DO THEY EVER THINK THE CHANGE MIGHT NOT BE WHAT THEY WANT? Report: Biden May Support Ending Filibuster to Push Through Once-in-a-Lifetime Change.
JUDGING BY HER CACKLE-OF-SHAME, ACTUALLY NO ONE IS: Kamala Harris In Charge Of The Border Crisis Now.
THEY’RE SCARED THE OATH KEEPERS WILL KEEP THEIR OATHS: The World Turned Upside Down – What Is The Endgame?
IT’S TIME FOR REAL RESISTANCE: “What do you mean, you won’t RESPECT MAH AUTHORITAH!!!???”
YES. NEXT? Is the Biden administration deliberately trying to undermine the fifty States?
It helps if you think of Zhou Bai Den as China’s Vice-Roy over the US.
BECAUSE CRIMINALIZING ELECTORAL OPPOSITION IS THE WAY TO GO. TOTES: The Democrats propose a bill to kill the military industrial complex.
WELL, IF THIS GOES THROUGH… This is f**king bad… the big luau might be starting soon.
WHICH WOULD MEAN MORE IF THE SUPREME COURT WHERE ANY MORE USE THAN WET TISSUE: 9th Circus goes after concealed carry. This might go to SCOTUS.
THE LEFT’S INSANE AIM IS ALWAYS THAT WE CAN PREVENT ANYTHING BAD HAPPENING: “How do You Propose to End Mass Shootings Then?”
IT’S TIME TO YELL BACK “NO. YOU’RE THE EXTREMIST”: Ah, To Be Extreme Now That Spring Is Here.
Note I write this while buried in snow white global warming stuff.
March 24, 2021
WELL, THE NINTH CIRCUIT: The 9th Circuit Says the Right To Bear Arms Does Not Extend Beyond Your Doorstep: According to the dissent, the appeals court “has decided that the Second Amendment does not mean what it says.”
I remember when people thought Jay Bybee was conservative.
THAT’S BECAUSE HE CARES ABOUT HIS KIDS. HE DOESN’T CARE ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE’S KIDS.
Anthony Fauci has been saying that the country needs to vaccinate 70% to 85% of the population to reach herd immunity from Covid-19. But he inexplicably ignores natural immunity. If you account for previous infections, herd immunity is likely close at hand.
Data from the California Department of Public Health, released earlier this month, show that while only 8.7% of the state’s population has ever tested positive for Covid-19, at least 38.5% of the population has antibodies against the novel coronavirus. Those numbers are from Jan. 30 to Feb. 20. Adjusting for cases between now and then, and accounting for the amount of time it takes for the body to make antibodies, we can estimate that as many as half of Californians have natural immunity today.
The same report found that 45% of people in Los Angeles had Covid-19 antibodies. Again, the number can only be higher today. Between “half and two-thirds of our population has antibodies in it now,” due to Covid exposure or vaccination, Mayor Eric Garcetti said Sunday on “Face the Nation.” That would explain why cases in Los Angeles are down 95% in the past 11 weeks and the positivity rate among those tested is now 1.7%.
Undercounting or removing the many Americans with natural immunity from any tally of herd immunity is a scientific error of omission. When people wonder why President Biden talks about limiting Fourth of July gatherings, it’s because his most prominent medical adviser has dismissed the contribution of natural immunity, artificially extending the timeline.
Many physicians believe that vaccinated immunity will prove more durable than natural immunity. I agree, and I think everyone should get vaccinated. But after a year of millions of Covid-19 cases in the U.S., it’s clear that reinfections are rare. Natural immunity is real and shouldn’t be ignored.
No, it shouldn’t.
UPDATE: Kurt Schlichter: Understand That Some People Love The Pandemic. “That’s what the pandemic is for these people. It’s their war. It’s something that lets them transcend their boring lives. . . . And now you can see them not wanting to give it up. They talk about nothing but the vaccines, but they also want to disregard their effect and make believe the plague is still sweeping the country. They chatter about herd immunity, but they also fear reaching it because that would mean going back to their old, boring lives.”
BIDEN’S MIGRANT SURGE KILLS KIDS: Michael Yon reports from the Darien Gap.
Related: Mexico’s president says Biden immigration policies prompting border surge.
THAT’S A BAD WAY TO SPEND THREE WEEKS: Florida woman missing for 20 days found alive, naked, trapped in storm drain. “The biggest question is how long she has been in there, how did she get in there and why?”
HOW’S THAT RED STATE WELCOME WAGON PROJECT COMING ALONG? 250 Top Business Leaders Just Warned Cuomo: NY’s Tax Hike Proposals Will Have One Huge Consequence.
YEP, IT’S A BAIZUO PREOCCUPATION, DESIGNED TO GIVE MEANING TO EMPTY LIVES: Climate Anxiety Is an Overwhelmingly White Phenomenon.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Choice of Erectile Dysfunction Med May Have Heart Health Implications. “Men with coronary artery disease who used phosphodiesterase-5 (PDE-5) inhibitors for erectile dysfunction had fewer adverse cardiovascular events than those taking the prostaglandin drug alprostadil (Edex, Caverject, Muse), a large Swedish study showed.”
We’ve seen a lot of evidence that PDE5 inhibitors have strongly beneficial effects on the entire circulatory system, so this isn’t a huge surprise.
CHARLOTTESVILLE MAYOR’S SOCIAL MEDIA POST REMOVED BY FACEBOOK:
A controversial post on Charlottesville Mayor Nikuyah Walker’s Facebook account is causing a stir.
The post was removed by Facebook for violating community standards. However, Walker went to Twitter to show in a tweet what she had posted.
That’s quite an…interesting take on civic pride by Mayor Walker:
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Flashback: Charlottesville report tells us what happens when the police fail to do their job. “When militia groups are doing the job of the police, that’s a bad sign.”
Advice to Charlottesville, and America: Don’t elect leaders who hate you.
UPDATE (From Ed): Mayor of Charlottesville tweets bizarre message about city ‘raping’ its residents.
She slammed gentrification, “white power,” and how the city has a “daily practice” of “separating you from your soul.” Though she leads the town as mayor, she says the town has no moral compass. Walker intoned images of enslavement, saying that “It’s as if good ole tj [Thomas Jefferson?] is still cleverly using his whip to whip the current inhabitants into submissiveness.”
“Charlottesville,” Walker said, “is anchored in white supremacy and rooted in racism.” She reiterates her earlier missive, leaving some of the more salacious words out of it.
As of February, Walker was under investigation for her credit card spending. She revealed on Facebook Live that a memo had been sent by Acting City Attorney Lisa Robertson which accused Walker of misusing city funds.
Is today’s meltdown “stray voltage” to get that scandal off the radar, or just another day for the mayor?
(Updated and bumped.)
IT’S 4:20 SOMEWHERE: New York officials reach agreement to legalize marijuana.
I REMEMBER VACATIONING ON MARS — WAIT, NO I DON’T. Planting false memories in people’s minds and then erasing them.
IOWA STATE GIVES THE CORRECT ANSWER TO COMPLAINT ABOUT 3D PRINTED FIREARM EVENT. A few years back, FIRE sued Iowa State over censorship of a marijuana legalization student group; seems (for now) like it got the message. Free speech is for everyone!
HIS POSITION HAS EVOLVED, UNEXPECTEDLY: Biden Now Supports Ending Filibuster, Held Meeting On How ‘Big,’ ‘Fast’ He Can ‘Jam Through’ Agenda.
SLATE: Mass Shooters Aren’t Disproportionately White. “Judging by those newer numbers, and the most current census estimate that 76.9 percent of Americans are white, the whites-are-overrepresented-among-mass-shooters meme appears even less accurate. Perpetrators that Mother Jones classifies as Asian make up 7.4 percent of the data set, versus an estimated 5.7 percent of the population, while those MoJo identifies as black represent 17.0 percent of the mass shooters in the database versus an estimated 13.3 percent of the population. According to this data set, then, Asians and black Americans are overrepresented among mass shooters by about the same proportion (a bit more than one-fourth) that whites are underrepresented.”
AP: FOUR-STORY, 50-TON MARBLE TABLET OF FIRST AMENDMENT FINDS NEW HOME IN PHILLY. Written so big that government bureaucrats can read it without their spectacles. Bonus: right across Independence Mall from FIRE HQ!
STACEY LENNOX: Will the Pandemic Break the Government School Monopoly?
I REMEMBER WHEN THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION WAS SUPPOSED TO RETURN US TO NORMALCY: The woke takeover of US foreign policy spells doom for trans-Atlantic alliance.
I RECENTLY BOUGHT THE SIG WITH THE ROMEO RED-DOT SIGHT ALREADY MOUNTED: How to Choose the Right Handgun Red Dot Mounting System.
Thanks to a battery failure, I wound up shooting it with the iron sights yesterday. Conclusion: Accuracy is just as good with iron sights, but target acquisition — really reacquisition after the first shot — is significantly faster with the red dot. Also you can keep both eyes open with the red dot, which probably improves situational awareness.
BE KIND, REWIND: Murder rate jumps back to 1990s levels, data show.
“We’ve never seen an increase like that. Previously the biggest one-year increase in murder was a 12.5% increase in the 1960s,” statistician and crime analyst Jeff Asher told the Washington Examiner. “We’re really talking about unprecedented increases in murder.”
Asher concluded, using the FBI data, that the murder rate for 2020 sat at roughly 6.22 per 100,000 people. Not since 1998 has the country seen a murder rate that high.
In 2019, the murder rate was an even 5 per 100,000 people, a slight dip from 5.1 in 2018.
Gosh, what changed in 2020?
AT PJ MEDIA: ‘Build Your Own Platform,’ They Said. So Helen Smith Did – Meet Helens-page.com.
15 DAYS TO SLOW THE CURVE: Trump says he wants the country “raring to go by Easter,” later says it will be based on “hard data.”
—CBS News, one year ago today.
A NOVEL APPROACH: With Drones and Other Autonomous Vehicles, Safety Must Come First.
COME AND GET IT: Texas, Georgia to open vaccinations to all adults within the next week. “Remember that Biden set a deadline of May 1 for states to open eligibility to the general population. I wonder if there’ll be a single state that hasn’t already done that by the end of the first week of April, say.”
SPOILER: DEMS WILL PROVIDE ONE REGARDLESS. Support for Illegal Immigrants Receiving a Pathway to Citizenship Craters Among Democrats.
SHOCKING NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE: Exercise boosts blood flow to the brain, study finds.
CLEANING THE MORTAR TUBE: Paratroopers clean a 60mm mortar during a live-fire exercise at Grafenwoehr Training Area, Germany, Jan. 11, 2021.
CHINA’S ALASKA AMBUSH OF THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION: The context.
The theatrics occurred at last week’s high-level U.S.-China talks. The talks — “face-losing debacle” describes the U.S. experience — took place on U.S. soil, in Anchorage, Alaska. So dub it the Alaska Ambush, a Chinese diplomatic and information warfare cocktail.
Ambush — isn’t that a tactic? A high-ranking Chinese Communist Party foreign policy official surprising a U.S. secretary of state indicates China seeks strategic advantages from the bashfest.
Check it out.
NOT NEARLY AS MUCH AS THEY SHOULD BE: World Finally Tired Of China’s BS? “Stronger medicine is required to deter China from its many criminal enterprises, and no one in the international community seems to know what might actually deter them.”
Trump knew.
THAT’S NICE, BUT I WON’T REALLY BE IMPRESSED UNTIL THEY HAVE A LUNAR HELICOPTER: Mars helicopter Ingenuity could usher in new era of exploration. Now that would be something.
VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: Communist China Has a Friend in the Oval Office.
Insanity Wrap needs to know: Suppose they threw a second Cold War but only one side came?
Answer: You don’t have to suppose a thing.
Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.
- Colorado is about to go all-in on socialized medicine
- CNN can’t figure out how to quit Trump
- Where are you on the Progressive Victimhood Pecking Order? Nobody knows!
Bonus Sanity: Bill Whittle is learning how to cope with the madness.
And so much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.
SO WE MAY NOT NEED TO VACCINATE EVERYBODY: Pfizer begins testing oral antiviral drug in U.S. to treat COVID-19.
WELL, YES:
The funny thing is, I’ll bet Elon Musk could tread on her turf — write a bestselling book about spirituality — much more easily than she could tread on his. It’s almost like what he does is rocket science . . . and what she does, well, isn’t.
IT’S GOOD TO BE THE NOMENKLATURA: Jen Psaki’s Sister Gets Cushy Government Job Despite Biden’s “No Family Members” Pledge.
PROGRESS: 11.1% of families are homeschooling.
About 3.3 percent of U.S. families with school-aged children were homeschooling pre-pandemic. That rose to 5.4 percent in the first week of April. By the first week of October, 11.1 percent were homeschooling.
For Black families, the change was even more dramatic: 16.1 percent of Black families were homeschooling their children in the fall; the rate for Hispanics was 12.1 percent.
Public schools could do with 11.1-16.1% less money.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: The Gun Control Debate, Explained With Dogs.
DISPATCHES FROM THE PARTY OF MULTICULTURALISM AND TOLERANCE FOR DIVERSITY. ‘White liberals are a scourge:’ New Austin residents are apparently turning to police to tackle the ‘toxic display of masculinity’ that is black and Latino car clubs.
Meanwhile, other Austin Democrats are returning to their “separate but equal” roots: Austin City Officials Planning to Build Segregated ‘Black Embassy.’ “While Democrat city officials in Texas’ capital city are claiming to move past racist policies like segregation, they are creating a separate city services facility for citizens with brown or black skin color.”
TO BE FAIR, HE HAS TO PROVIDE SOME SMALL AMOUNT OF COVER FOR THE LEFT’S ANTI-ASIAN RACISM IN COLLEGE ADMISSIONS: To No One’s Surprise, Biden Caves to Asian Lobby.
NEVER LET A CRISIS GO TO WASTE: Democrats are using the Boulder shooting to push a gun control proposal that already failed.
OF COURSE NOT. ONLY WHEN IT ADVANCES THE LEFT’S NARRATIVE.
THAT DEBT ISN’T GOING TO HYPERINFLATE ITSELF AWAY, YOU KNOW: Biden’s $3 Trillion Infrastructure Spending Bill May Ignite The Debt Bomb.
WHY THEY’RE ACTING SO AGGRESSIVELY WHILE THEY STILL CAN: The Coming Demographic Collapse of China.
I WAS ON FOX NEWS LAST NIGHT: Americans hate the ‘woke mob,’ so why are they getting their way? I was the guinea pig for UT’s new online studio using ReadyCam. I think the lighting and the sound treatment in the room need a bit of work, but it went smoothly and the staff was, as always, totally helpful and professional.
THEY’RE NOT MEANT TO MAKE SENSE, THEY’RE MEANT TO BE OPPRESSIVE: Biden’s Gun Control Proposals Make Little Sense As a Response to the Mass Shooting in Boulder.
SAYING THE QUIET PART OUT LOUD: New White House Directive Suggests They’re Preparing for Kamala’s Takeover.
THAT NARRATIVE ISN’T GOING TO MAINTAIN ITSELF, YOU KNOW: Politico: Watch Out For Pouncing Republicans Going On Offense … Instead Of Seat-Stealing Democrats?
THAT WOULD EXPLAIN A LOT: Joe Biden and Barack Obama Are ‘In Touch Regularly’ According to Jen Psaki.
SEGREGATION NOW, SEGREGATION TOMORROW, SEGREGATION FOREVER: Appalachian State pairs ‘Black Male’ housing initiative with ‘Black Panther’ course.
FROM THE COMMENTS TO THIS POST:
Misinformation. What a crooked propaganda word it is.
No one can define it. It’s a nonce word designed to stop people from thinking. The liberal herd uses it all the time like a cowbell all the cows can orient to, but they don’t define it. For example one Charlie Warzel recently used it in an essay in the NY Times, but failed to define it for his readers.
In truth “misinformation” is just some assertion a political group says is false and bad. It’s a weasel word, a political word no one uses in real life, like the word ARYAN in Nazi newspapers. Aryan=good, you know. Misinformation=bad.
A less crooked word, a real word people use, would be “error” or maybe “mistake.” “You printed something on your website that is misinformation” simply means “you printed something on your website that is in error.”
In America we are allowed to print errors, and we have a legal bias that encourages the publication of mistakes and errors. Who is going to judge in advance whether something is in error or not? The puffed-up woke mokes? I don’t think so.
The tech giants, and their moronic defenders, keep acting as if “misinformation” was some difficult-to-understand conceptual error that they’re in a position to understand and control on our behalf. That’s self-serving BS. The reader decides what’s in error after reading it and thinking about it. If you set out to prevent the publication of error, you prevent people from knowing what’s true.
If I publish an error, like 2+2=17, am I going to be de-platformed for misinformation? It is certainly an error to assert that. Who has the right to squash my error at the outset? No one. In truth, publishing 2+2=17 makes it all the more clear that 2+2=4 is the truth.
So this crusade against “misinformation” is blather pure and simple, as you will find if you ask the crusaders to define what they are talking about and explain to normal people why the publication of mistaken ideas is so destructive.
“Misinformation” even sounds like a CCP code word, because it is.
OH: Amazon delivery drivers must consent to invasive new surveillance or be fired. “The company announced in February that it would install artificial intelligence-powered cameras in its fleet of around 75,000 branded vans. It has said the move is intended to improve health and safety by alerting drivers when they’re exhibiting risky behavior.”
IN THE LATEST EXAMPLE OF “THIS COUNTRY HAS GONE COMPLETELY INSANE”: There was a horrific mass shooting, with ten people murdered. Photos emerged of the shooter, who is obviously Caucasian/white.
Leftist identitarians on Twitter gleefully(!) proclaimed that the shooting was an example of at best white male toxicity, and likely white supremacy. Then in turned out that the shooter was a Muslim immigrant from Syria. The identitarians beat a hasty retreat, embarrassed for jumping to the conclusion he was white, because Muslims from Syria aren’t white. Even when they are.
Digging a bit deeper, note that the Trump Administration had two cabinet officials of Lebanese descent (Azar and Espy) and virtually none of the wokesters suggested that they were non-white members of the cabinet. Jews much swarthier than the shooter are, unlike white Muslims, deemed to have “white privilege” because reasons. And official (legal) racial classifications in the U.S. have deemed Arab-Americans to be white forever.
I wish I could say this insanity was limited to the U.S., but a few years back a white woman of Algerian heritage was deemed (and deemed herself) the “first black president” of the British student union.
It’s all about weaponizing identity for left-wing political ends, of course. But it’s still insane.
REMEMBER THAT “MOSTLY PEACEFUL PROTEST” MEANS “PARTLY VIOLENT RIOT”: Black Lives Matter Traps Shoppers in Rochester Grocery Store.
OVER AT HELEN”S PAGE: a free kindle book on real estate, an Easter film, and more.
ONCE YOU ELIMINATE THE IMPOSSIBLE, WHATEVER REMAINS, NO MATTER HOW IMPROBABLE…: Ex-UFO Pentagon program chief outlines ‘compelling’ UFO theories and ‘unique’ vehicle characteristics. “If it’s not ours and it’s not [another country] well, then it’s someone or something else.”
Yep.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Fact-Checkers Are Not Going to Like This MIT Story About Origins of That Virus From You-Know-Where. “Some prominent scientists and researchers are calling into question both the wet market theory and the notion that the China virus transnational, post-racial, non-sectarian virus accidentally escaped from a lab in W&*%n, a city in no particular geographic region.”
IN CHURCHILL’S WORDS, SO FAR HAVE WE COME, SO FAR HAVE WE LEFT TO GO:
THE PUBLIC IS AGAINST THIS; THE POLITICAL CLASS DOESN’T CARE: Illegal immigration surge pops Biden’s popularity, 67% say it’s a ‘crisis.’
THIS IS A TRIUMPH, AND SO IS THE FACT THAT IT’S NOT REALLY NEWS ANYMORE: SpaceX launches 60 new Starlink internet satellites, nails latest rocket landing at sea.
NEVER LET A CRISIS GO TO WASTE: Democrats are using the Boulder shooting to push a gun control proposal that already failed.
JOEL KOTKIN: The Death of the American City: Rising crime and a pandemic-inspired exodus are powering urban decay. Well, also lousy Democratic governments.
JUST AS IN BILL CLINTON’S ADMINISTRATION, WITH THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION FEMINISM IS OVER: Becerra Hires Former Hillary Clinton Aide Who Ignored Warnings About Harvey Weinstein.
Flashback:
Wife of Boston Marathon Hero Claims Biden Groped Her.
Flashback: It’s time to talk about former Vice President Joe Biden, the open sexual predator.
Biden Swims Naked, Upsetting Female Secret Service Agents:
“Agents say that, whether at the vice president’s residence or at his home in Delaware, Biden has a habit of swimming in his pool nude,” Kessler writes in the book – due for release Aug. 5.
“Female Secret Service agents find that offensive,” he writes.
“Biden likes to be revered as everyday Joe,” an unnamed agent told Kessler. “But the reality is no agents want to go on his detail because Biden makes agents’ lives so tough.”
Plus: Washington Post: What Are We Going To Do About Creepy Uncle Joe Biden?
Also: Joe Biden’s Woman-Touching Habit.
Related: Talking Points Memo: Why Does Creepy Uncle Joe Biden Get A Pass From Liberals?
Plus:
And the lefty press would even talk about this stuff, until all of a sudden it wouldn’t.
“ACTION CIVICS”—ONE MORE THREAT TO THE BODY POLITIC: And one more reason to home school your children.
ARE YOU WITH ME DOCTOR WU? ARE YOU REALLY JUST A SHADOW OF THE MAN THAT I ONCE KNEW? A Biden Appointee’s Troubling Views On The First Amendment.
If you hear a “but…” coming in his rhetoric, you guessed right. He does imagine something better. The Cliff’s Notes version of Wu’s thesis:
— The framers wrote the Bill of Rights in an atmosphere where speech was expensive and rare. The Internet made speech cheap, and human attention rare. Speech-hostile societies like Russia and China have already shown how to capitalize on this “cheap speech” era, eschewing censorship and bans in favor of “flooding” the Internet with pro-government propaganda.
— As a result, those who place faith in the First Amendment to solve speech dilemmas should “admit defeat” and imagine new solutions for repelling foreign propaganda, fake news, and other problems. “In some cases,” Wu writes, “this could mean that the First Amendment must broaden its own reach to encompass new techniques of speech control.” What might that look like? He writes, without irony: “I think the elected branches should be allowed, within reasonable limits, to try returning the country to the kind of media environment that prevailed in the 1950s.”
So three television networks, a couple of national news magazines, and a handful of newspapers per big city? Exit quote:
That 1950s period is attractive to modern politicians because it was a top-down system. This was the era in which worship of rule by technocratic experts became common, when the wisdom of the “Best and the Brightest” was unchallenged. A yearning to return to those times runs through these new theories about speech, and is prevalent throughout today’s Washington, a city that seems to think everything should be run by people with graduate degrees.
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