Does this bother you? It should: It bothers me. And Walz has been saying the same illiterate crap about free speech for years. I don’t want Presidents who don’t understand the First Amendment. It means they are incompetent at least, and dangerous at worst. If I don’t want a President with these deficits, I don’t want a Vice President with them either.
I was late to this particular party because I can only find one transcript of the debate online, CBS’s, and the site demands that I dump my ad-blocker to read it. Bite me. This is public information, and CBS shouldn’t have a monopoly on it: that’s unethical. Journalism has no public interest at heart at all, at least not the outlets I usually deal with.
When J.D. Vance pointed out that Walz had said there is no First Amendment right to misinformation,” Walz interjected “or threatening, or hate speech.” Why do woke fools like Walz keep saying this? While “True threats”—meaning threats that are accompanied by the means and circumstances to carry them out—aren’t protected by the First Amendment. Misinformation that falls short of fraud or defamation definitely is, indeed outright lies are protected.
“Hate speech” also has full First Amendment protection. Walz, a high ranking member of the Democratic Party, the pro-censorship party, naturally is in favor of gutting free speech, or he doesn’t know what it is. I’m guessing both.
That’s particularly troubling in someone who taught school.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) says, “The First Amendment recognizes that the government cannot regulate hate speech without inevitably silencing the dissent and dialogue that democracy requires. Instead, we as citizens possess the power to most effectively answer hateful speech—whether through debate, protest, questioning, laughter, silence, or simply walking away.”
But you knew that, right? Because Ethics Alarms readers are better informed than Tim Walz.
Then Walz said, “You can’t yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater. That’s the test. That’s the Supreme Court test.” No, that’s what ignoramuses say who don’t know what they are talking about. You CAN and should shout “Fire!” in a crowded theater, if the theater is on fire. If you don’t everybody might burn to death. Shouting it when there is no fire is conduct, an attempt to start a dangerous panic.
The hypothetical used by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’ in his 1919 Supreme Court opinion in Schenk v. United States is meant to point out that all speech isn’t protected, and he cites falsely shouting fire in a theater, “causing a panic” as an example. The ruling was mostly overturned 50 years later in Brandenburg v. Ohio anyway (Look! Cases as old as Roe v. Wade have been over-ruled after all!), but the line is famous and a favorite of pro-censorship advocates who don’t know its context.
Holmes was using the (valid) example to justify the (invalid and unconstitutional) censorship employed by the Wilson Administration during World War I. Ken White, before he became Trump Deranged, wrote the definitive take-down of censorious creeps like Walz in this epic post on his old blog, Popehat. He wrote in part,
Holmes’ famous quote is the go-to argument by appeal to authority for anyone who wants to suggest that some particular utterance is not protected by the First Amendment. Its relentless overuse is annoying and unpersuasive to most people concerned with the actual history and progress of free speech jurisprudence…Holmes’ quote is the most famous and pervasive lazy cheat in American dialogue about free speech.
Good job, Kamala, Democrats! You pick this First Amendment denier to be the next in line to be President, and tell us Donald Trump is the threat to democracy.
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Ethics Alarms 
my sarcastic response to Walz: well he’s not a Yale law school kind of guy
my legal response to the shouting “Fire!” Quote: That was dicta.
my cynical response is: yeah, but Thomas Jefferson was a far wiser person and he signed the Sedition Act
the simple reason that the cost of freedom is eternal vigilance is that tyrannical inclinations are part of human nature
-Jut
(Adams, not Tom)
D’Oh!
Still, Adams was no dummy either.
Adams’ being lumped in with Walz has got to be as much of an insult to Adams as Walzs’ being lumped in with Adams would be a compliment to Walz.
-Jut
I can’t say I knew John Adams, but I’ve watched ‘1776’ and Walz is certainly no John Adams. Had he been there, I fear we would still be drinking tea from the East India Company.
Maybe one of the reasons the Thomas Jefferson has fallen out of favor with the Democrats is that he opposed Adams on the free speech issue (among other things), and was vehemently in favor of democracy.
Or maybe they are confused by the fact that their (Jefferson’s) party at the time was called the Republican party, and can’t tell the difference.
————
TJ and Adams were bitter, bitter enemies in 1800 but they managed to reconcile by about 1811 and again became fast friends (by letter — I doubt if they ever met again).
So much so that they both managed to die on the exact same day — July 4, 1826 — the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence that they played such a critical role in bringing about.
The irony is that Walz’s misinformation would be subject to his own censorship rules.
No, official lies are OK. Anyone trying to expose official lies, well, that is what ‘misinformation’ is and that is why it is so dangerous.
Primes example of misinformation. “Masks don’t slow the spread of Covid”. Despite the fact that 69/70 randomized controlled studies find that masks (even N95) don’t slow the spread of viral diseases like COVID, the ‘official’ truth says that they do. The CDC researchers who published their study done in Spring of 2020 had to apologize and retract their paper for finding the ‘wrong’ answer, even though there was nothing wrong with their study.
Anyone who is going after the 2nd Amendment will come after the 1st in due time. Oddly, I was looking at the Bill of Rights. I don’t understand why they numbered them 1, 2, 3, 5, 6. 7, 8, 9, and 10. I couldn’t find 4. When I dug a little deeper, I found that there isn’t a federal judge alive who can find it either.
I’m not sure what you were trying to express with this statement.
I don’t understand why they numbered them 1, 2, 3, 5, 6. 7, 8, 9, and 10. I couldn’t find 4. When I dug a little deeper, I found that there isn’t a federal judge alive who can find it either.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Because we effectively don’t have a 4rth Amendment. The joke is, whenever judges look for it, they can’t find it.
Can police force all the cellphones in an area to connect to their ‘cell tower’ and record all that activity, without a warrant, and use it against you, even refusing to reveal where they got the information? Yes they can.
Can the federal government tap you phones and all communications you have without a warrant or probably cause and use it against you in court? Yes they can.
Can the schools force your kids to undergo drug testing to graduate? Yes they can.
Can state agents enter your property and put up cameras to surveil you without a warrant? Yes they can.
Can the police block the road and force everyone to undergo a search before moving on? Yes they can, if it is for alcohol.
Can they enter any part of your business and search it without a warrant? Yes they can, as long as they call it an ‘inspection’.
Can the government enter your home without a warrant and search anything they want? They can if they call it an ‘inspection’. If you refuse, they can get a blanket administrative search warrant and do it. Some cities make it so that if you refuse the warrantless search, you can be fined.
Do you have a 1′ wide creek or drainage ditch on your property? Well, that allows the federal government to enter, inspect, and dictate how you use your land. If you don’t submit to whatever demand they make, you will face ruinious fines of over $10,000/day. They just have to declare the 2″ of water flowing on your property as a “Navigable Water of the US”.
Can they take blood from your newborn and give it to federal agencies for database purposes and sell the rest to companies to track them or for research purposes? Yes they can!
Can they camp out on your property in camouflage, steal your game cameras, and use the footage against you all without a warrant and even though you have ‘No Trespassing’ signs posted? Yes they can!
Can they access your medical and bank records without a warrant? Yes they can!
Can they search the purse of your child without a warrant for any reason and turn over any evidence for prosecution? Yes they can!
Can they search your child’s car during school hours (even off school property, even in your driveway) for any reason and turn over the evidence for prosecution? Yes they can.
Every constitutional clause has degrees of legislative, executive and judicial infringements dented into them.
The 4th appears most damaged judicially, due to extensive executive misuse. The second is extremely infringed legislatively and those dents are now being pounded out by the judiciary. For hundreds of years the judiciary just ignored constitutional rights, using a justification called “incorporation” to flat out ignore it.
Truthfully, every government opinion is a justification along the lines of “See? We really are keeping to our side of the agreement.” Eventually, the public no longer believes it and they find a new government.
The thing about censorship is that, ultimately, there really are no rules other than who makes the rules. If you dive into the work of the various “misinformation” research centers at major universities, you’ll find that they never identify their own government as a source of misinformation, no matter how many times they make false or misleading statements. As Matt Taibbi recently observed, there is no such thing as a working class censor.
This OpEd in the WSJ is an apparent attempt to rationalize all of Walz’ “misstatements”
An Imprecise Biography Catches Up With Tim Walz
However, when you identify each and every euphemism used in the article to describe a lie or the act of telling a lie, you will quickly learn that the columnist definitely knows how to use a thesaurus.
And if that doesn’t work for you, how about this whopper?
“Such exaggerations are known in Minnesota as “fish tales”—embellishments often with a basis in fact…” You betcha! Not.
https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/an-imprecise-biography-catches-up-with-tim-walz-91fbedd4?st=tdWjTa&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
I am pretty sure that is actually a news article in the WSJ rather than an op-ed. It’s in the Election 2024 section, and not the Opinion section.
One thing to remember about the WSJ is that there is a definite chasm between the news department and opinion department. The reporters tend heavily to be woke and left-leaning, although I hope not quite as much as the NYT or Washington Post. For example, you’ll frequently see references to Trump’s ‘falsely stating’ or ‘unfounded claims’ in ‘news’ articles.
A couple months ago, I challenged one of the WSJ reporters for a story about Trump’s NABJ appearance, “
I never did get an answer from him. This sort of thing makes it frustrating to read a lot of WSJ articles, but what can you do?
The Opinion section, on the other hand, is much more conservative in its leanings. However, even there not all support Trump and there is certainly criticism of Trump where warranted. It is a much more balanced selection of articles (isn’t that interesting, when the Op-eds are more balanced than the news?).
At any rate, that’s my experience with the WSJ.
From the article:
“Walz, 60 years old, isn’t alone among politicians making exaggerations. President Biden has a long history of telling anecdotes that don’t match the historical record. Former President Donald Trump makes claims in nearly every public appearance that don’t align with the facts. And Vance has repeatedly made unfounded claims of Haitian immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.”
The false analogy here is so frustrating. Walz and Biden are criticized here for lies they tell ABOUT THEIR OWN EXPERIENCES. It is unclear to what statements of Trump they refer. But, Vance’s claims about Haitians eating pets in Ohio is obviously a claim, whether true or not, that he has no firsthand knowledge of.
The levels of dishonesty amongst the 4 of them are not comparable. Walz and Biden are dishonest; Vance is gullible (not a good quality, mind you, but not necessarily bad, either).
-Jut
While Walz does not understand the First Amendment he did demonstrate self awareness. He self identified as a “knucklehead” which could explain is lack of Constitutional knowledge.
As Jack pointed out, one of the all-time stupidest things a candidate as ever said. If I were running the Trump campaign, I’d have the video of him saying that running on a loop 24 7 in every media market. Or give out buttons with Harris cackling and pointing at Walz reading, “I’m with knuckle head!”
Remember the Dems lambasting Trump for saying he was hiring “the best people?”
And yet many of the people they were making fun of were considered ‘the best people’ by other administrations. Only under Trump did it become apparent that they weren’t.