COULD THIS BE A SINGLE ISSUE ELECTION

Free Speech and Censorship

Origins of the Modern Surveillance State

There is a dangerous political trend that has developed rapidly over the last four years. It should be of concern to both sides of the political divide. In previous Substack essays I’ve detailed various incidences where the government lied to provide justification for a policy that would not have been accepted by the public if the truth were to be known. This tendency for deception had its earliest modern roots in the administration of President Woodrow Wilson. There was a belief in his administration that Progressivism could be a mechanism for governing a large national economy and the attendant society based on reason. Wilson viewed the educated elite as possessing the knowledge to govern effectively, and Constitutional restraints as foolishly outdated. World War One was the trigger that let the cat out of the bag. In his crusade to make the world safe for Democracy, Wilson instituted a program to control the freedom of the press on the home front. Under the guise of a war emergency his administration took measures to control, manipulate, and censor news coverage on an unprecedented scale. Note that it is always an emergency, real or manufactured, that is cited as the justification for ignoring the Constitution.

Admittedly there is a fine line on a very slippery slope on how much information can be revealed and still maintain the secrecy required for military operations. However, there are critical differences between concealing tactical and strategic information, suppressing opinions contrary to the government’s narrative, or intentionally lying to justify a policy. This is particularly important in the environment leading up to hostilities. Had the truth emerged earlier about the Tonkin Gulf Incident, and the fabrication of the Weapons of Mass Destruction, then those two conflicts may have been avoided altogether. We are now in the same situation with the war in Ukraine. It is being depicted as an unprovoked Russian aggression. The truth is that Ukraine’s neutrality and territorial integrity was encapsulated in the Minsk Agreements made with Russia in 2015. It was the West’s scuttling of those accords, and the promise of NATO membership for Ukraine that provoked the Russian invasion.

Wilson incorporated propaganda and censorship as strategic elements of warfare. His administration intimidated and suppressed any ethnic and socialist news sources that opposed the war. The tactics and strategies he championed resurfaced again under President Roosevelt’s administration during World War Two. Prior to American involvement in that conflict, the State Department, FBI, and the various military branches all ran their own independent security and counterintelligence operations. In order to force cooperation, Roosevelt created an office of “Coordinator of Information” (OCI), and assigned the job to Colonel “Wild Bill” Donovan. After Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt replaced the OCI with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). This organization grew into a full-fledged intelligence agency patterned after Britain’s MI6. The OSS also developed a counterintelligence branch, X-2, which was restricted to operating overseas (sound familar). The OSS was a major contributor to allied success, but was disbanded after the war by President Truman in 1945. Only to be resurrected as the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947, with the Secret Intelligence (SI) and X-2 branches as the nucleus. Proof that once created, the security apparatus for deception and espionage becomes impossible to unwind. (A subject to explore in a future Substack!)

Changing Nature of Media Configuration

The incipient forms of television technology predate WWII, but following the war, that media format exploded exponentially. Watching the Nightly News on the major networks soon became an ingrained national pastime. At first, TV was a supplement to Newspapers and News Magazines but quickly eclipsed their ability to reach and influence audiences. Government still harbored its ingrained aspirations to control the narrative to achieve desired outcomes, but with 50 different owners controlling 90% of the news media, there was always a voice to question the preferred narrative. That paradigm of a Free Press has changed: (https://removingthecataract.substack.com/p/legacy-media-as-propaganda-outlets). Today, 90% of all media markets controlled by just 5 progressive conglomerates: Disney, Comcast, AT&T, National Amusements, and News Corps. The newspaper industry has seen a similar consolidation. The 10 largest companies own one-half of all daily newspapers. This consolidation of the news media explains the decline of investigative journalism. Instead, we have the ascendancy of talking heads parroting scripts that they are provided to regurgitate. This montage of different news anchors repeating the same talking points illustrates the trend. (https://theweek.com/speedreads/764546/watch-surreal-video-compilation-dozens-local-news-anchors-giving-exact-same-warning-about-fake-news). With the not so free press now closely aligned with official government narratives, the ability to nudge, cajole, deceive, and control the populace is at an all-time high. Fortunately for us, the government/press over-reach during the Covid19 Pandemic was a game changer.

Founding Fathers and a Free Press

Though ardent supporters of Free Speech, the designers of the Constitution also had some misgivings about the role of a free press. Benjamin Franklin, himself a newspaper owner and editor, articulated those concerns one year before he died in a short piece entitled “An Account of the Supremest Court of Judicature in Pennsylvania, viz., The Court of the Press (1789). He reasoned that the press, unlike government institutions, did not have any explicit check on its proclivities. While capable of opposing false knowledge and political corruption, it can also function as a public court of opinion without any of the moderating procedures and evidentiary requirements of a real court. He warned that while the Bill of Rights envisioned the press as a check on despotism, the press harbored within its soul the seeds of its own despotism. Reasoning that the power of the press depended on the support of the public, his solution was “[L]eave the liberty of the press untouched, to be exercised in its full extent, force, and vigor; but to permit the liberty of the cudgel.” The cudgel that he envisioned was a public rejection of a press corps that had become arrogant, self-serving, and to subservient to the government.

The Dissident Media vs Censorship

Thanks to technology, Franklin’s prescient scenario has become fact. The Legacy Media is being superseded by what I refer to as the investigative journalism of the new dissident media. Rather than being a controlled monolith, the dissident media is a conglomeration of independently minded individuals who want to speak truth to power, each in their own way. This alternative source of news resides on podcasts, social media, and platforms such as Substack. Its reach has surpassed that of the legacy media and its existence threatens the government’s hegemony of information. Those narratives previously buttressed by the propaganda media are now being challenged. That is why you have seen unapologetic statements from leading Democrats calling for the elimination of the First Amendment. Even the NY Times has argued that the First Amendment makes it harder for the government to protect its citizens. Of course, it also makes it more difficult for the government to muzzle its citizens.

Freedom requires uncensored information, which enables free thought, and taken together they facilitate Free Speech.

Democracy is at risk in this election, but the risk is not Donald Trump. It is the cadre of politicians who are threatening Free Speech. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have both said that Free Speech should be a privilege. John Kerry told the World Economic Forum that the First Amendment was a major impediment preventing the US government from blocking disinformation (as defined by the government). Hillary Clinton stated that if social media companies are not forced to censor and moderate content then the government will lose control. That’s B.S.! The First Amendment is our best defense against tyranny, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. got it right when he said that “a government that has the capacity to silence critics has the license for any atrocity”.

Curtailing Speech is Government Policy

The legacy media has joined forces with the government to inhibit or censor any information that contradicts the approved narrative. The Democrats want to curtail your right to Free Speech because it interferes with their ability to manipulate the perceived reality for their benefit. Disinformation, misinformation, mal-information (defined as true but inconvenient to the government narrative), and even hate speech are all protected by the Bill of Rights. The correct response to any mis/dis/hate speech is not censorship but more information. Open debate in the market place of ideas is how you arrive at a consensus that is acceptable to the governed. How many of the ideas that were labeled as misinformation during the Pandemic have now been proven to be true: Wuhan Lab leak, masks ineffective, social distancing ineffective, vaccines don’t prevent contraction or spread of virus. The Biden/Harris administration tried to censor anyone espousing these positions. 

It’s Your Choice

It is petulant and childish thinking to base your vote on whether you like or dislike a particular candidate. It’s not about personality, or an historical position (first female President), nor about MAGA, mean tweets, joy or unintelligible word salads. This election is fundamentally about being able to disagree amongst ourselves without the government, media, or big tech censoring us. Electing Trump isn’t a panacea for fixing what’s gone amiss in our Republic, but his election is a necessary first step to stop the current totalitarian trajectory that wants to trash the First Amendment. I am an unapologetic Free Speech absolutist, for without it we have no check on political corruption or the ability to stop our government’s slide into totalitarianism. Those who advocate for curtailment of the basic rights afforded to us by the Constitution are the real threat to Democracy.

Addendum (as always for those who have the time)

Legacy Media Partisanship on Display

Media bias has been a longstanding conservative allegation that has been derided by both the left and the media itself. Yet blatant media bias was illustrated by CBS’s prime time “60 minutes”, a show that is an icon of the TV investigative news magazine format. Their 45 minute interview with Kamala Harris was edited to 20 minutes, which is an accepted practice in structuring interviews to fit the time allocated. What was unethical was removing her word salad answer to a question concerning Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, and substituting a more coherent answer cut from later in the interview. This manipulation of the interview to create a false perception of reality is the essence of media bias. It is just the sort of misinformation acceptable to the government, but ferreted out by the dissident media.

Increasingly information provided by the media is distorted or manipulated in a partisan manner by both sides. This is par for the course and won’t change anytime soon. The thing that has changed is the input coming from social media. Information that can be wildly inaccurate or dead on true. How do you know? Sometimes that awareness comes not from individual sources, but by looking at the preponderance of the evidence. Hurricane Helene is a good example. I don’t think that the individual FEMA responders were malevolent actors, but a lot of their decisions were mired in bureaucratic policies that weren’t up to snuff for a disaster of this magnitude. They were also not responsible for prior policy decisions on spending made by higher ups. What you get from the preponderance of social media inputs is that the FEMA response was a mixed bag, and could have been a lot better managed.

My point is that in a rapidly moving scenario, individuals posting information on social media can make valuable contributions to understanding the magnitude of the suffering. This can be a positive factor in motivating outsiders to contribute funds, and help in a myriad of other ways. However, when the government and members of Congress call for media platforms to censor social media posts, then you have infringement of free speech. The correct response would be to counter with more factual information detailing the rational of the government’s actions, even if it required admitting mistakes. Calls for censorship only fans conspiracy theories.

Other Informative Reads

Arthur Milikh’s essay on the Founders’ Notions of the Freedom of the Press is a well-researched and informative look on both Free Speech and Freedom of the press. Well worth the time. https://tomklingenstein.com/the-founders-notions-of-the-freedom-of-the-press/

Harmeet Dhillon is a San Francisco Republican lawyer whose career has overlapped that of Kamala Harris in the Bay Area. She has some interesting insights on Harris that she shares with Tucker Carlson. This link will take you to his website if you’re interested. (110 minute podcast). Look for the “Kamala Harris Full Timeline”.

https://tuckercarlson.com/?utm_campaign=20241011_oct11dailybriefsubs&utm_medium=email&utm_source=iterable&utm_content=harmeetdhillon

And back for another interesting essay on misinformation is one of my favorite Substack writers: Bad Cat. (Click on Title).

werewolves losing control of the speech of others

Finally, if you really have some free time, then this book (I loved it) can be found on Amazon as well as other places. Francis Waller - Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage.