How much does the Biden regime hate the freedom of speech that the First Amendment guarantees to Americans? Last year, it tried to establish a Disinformation Governance Board to restrict speech that opposed its agenda, but had to back down after a public outcry. Then there was Biden’s handlers’ collusion with the Big Tech giants to silence dissenters from the regime’s COVID narrative. And now comes Maria Araujo Kahn, the regime’s nominee for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, a “diversity trainer” who has called for the criminalization of speech she dislikes. Is there no one at all connected with this appalling administration who actually believes in freedom?
The Washington Free Beacon reported Friday that Kahn, who is currently an associate justice of the Connecticut State Supreme Court, “has argued for curtailing the First Amendment and conducted training sessions that say ‘microaggressions’ can ‘kill you.’” As is so much of today’s fetid cultural swamp, “microaggressions” are an invention of the Left; apparently the idea is that giving someone an unkind glance when asked one’s pronouns, or fleetingly appearing irritated and bored during a windy and fact-free lecture about systemic racism, is a heinous crime that calls for anti-free speech legislation.
As absurd as this is, Kahn appears to be deadly serious about it, as Leftists always are. “Since 2013,” the Free Beacon notes, she has given “at least a dozen diversity trainings and presentations to lawyers across the country.” According to her Senate Judiciary Questionnaire, she has been busy offering the kind of presentations that would make one prefer to have one’s teeth pulled out with rusty pliers and no anesthesia. A popular one is evidently “Turn Off Auto-Pilot: Cultural Competence, Implicit Association and Racial Anxiety,” which she has inflicted on hapless audiences more than once. She must really pack ‘em in for that one.
The Free Beacon adds that “to prepare for one of those trainings, offered to graduates of Fordham Law School, participants were instructed to watch an animated video, ‘How Microaggressions Are Like Mosquito Bites,’ that depicts a man-sized mosquito telling a dark-hued college student to ‘try a less challenging major’ and then sucking him dry.” That Whitey! Where is a flyswatter when you need one? In this video, a voice intones: “Some mosquitoes carry truly threatening diseases that can mess up your life for years. And other mosquitos carry strains that can even kill you.” Yes, Whitey will stop at nothing: “The video then cuts to a mosquito holding a gun next to a dead body. ‘I felt threatened,’ the insect tells officers at the scene of the crime. ‘It looked like he was up to trouble, ok?’” Yeah, happens every day. But there is payback in Maria Araujo Kahn’s world: “Another clip depicts a black woman murdering several mosquitos with a flamethrower after they ask to touch her hair.” Ah, proportional justice at last!
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Kahn also appears to be as earnest about restricting speech as she is about “microaggressions.” In a 2020 opinion, according to the Free Beacon, she suggested that “courts should criminalize speech that offends ‘oppressed groups.’” She wants to expand the “‘fighting words’ exception to the First Amendment—which bans speech likely to spark violence—on the grounds that some groups are unlikely or unable to physically retaliate against insults. That means they ‘must endure a higher level of offensive speech before being afforded legal remedies,’ she wrote.” Where are racial minorities being verbally abused on a regular basis in the U.S., as Kahn seems to assume is happening? She doesn’t say, but she nonetheless “laments that bigots can ‘verbally assault certain oppressed groups’—especially women and the disabled—’without fear of criminal prosecution.’” Yeah, once again, that happens every day.
Kahn, understandably enough given her fascism and disdain for dissent, “did not respond to a request for comment” from the Free Beacon. Yet last September, Kahn “sailed through the Senate judiciary committee with little pushback. A final vote on her nomination could come as soon as next week.” Will Senate Republicans ask her about her distaste for the freedom of speech? Will they challenge her on her commitment to the First Amendment? The Biden administration’s obvious opposition to the most important foundation of any free society ought to be the first and foremost element of the loyal opposition’s case against the regime. Yet Republican leaders rarely mention it at all. This only enables those who hate and want to destroy the freedom of speech to keep on advancing, largely unopposed.
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