Guy Ciarrocchi: Now they’re coming for the First Amendment

Allegedly to “save democracy,” the Left and Harris/Walz have set their sights on destroying yet another American pillar of our nation: the First Amendment. 

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” 

This is the first of all our nation’s amendments for a reason. Think about those “inalienable rights,” those almost sacred words, and the values that are deeply represented in them—freedom of thought, of expression, to speak or write, and to criticize the government and urge our government to change its policies.

Contrast those important citizen-focused, liberty-focused words and values with the dangerous, anti-First Amendment words of the sitting Vice President of the United States running to be President, Kamala Harris, in her speech — her prepared remarks — this August. The person who would appoint the Attorney General of the United States, the Director of the FBI and the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. 

“We will direct law enforcement to counter this extremism. We will hold social media platforms accountable…because they have a responsibility to fight against this threat to our democracy.”

For the first time in American history, a major party candidate for President doesn’t merely want to defeat her opponent, she wants him, his supporters and their ideas silenced — subject to civil and criminal penalties. 

While all Americans should be concerned — even outraged — by this language and these ideas, we shouldn’t be shocked. After all, we now know due to congressional hearings and the full admission by Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, that during the Covid era the Biden/Harris administration actually pressured and threatened social and legacy media. They were told to hide, remove or “community note” comments from anyone challenging the Biden administration’s narrative on Covid-19’s origin, spread, severity, treatments and mandates.

Then, the Biden/Harris administration went so far as establishing a “Disinformation Governance Board” (DGB) at the Department of Homeland Security. The “DGB” would monitor emails and social media searching for “misinformation.”

These actions are literally out of the Soviet Union, Communist China, or North Korea — or the fiction of Orwell’s “1984,” seemingly more real with each passing week.

The actions of the Biden/Harris administration are inexcusable, malicious and anti-American. That Harris would go even further is frightening.

Because I believe very deeply in our First Amendment, I will defend Harris’s right to hold those misguided views, write about such views, and even talk about them. Enacting them as President would be borderline impeachable. But I would never want the government of the Trump administration — or any administration — to stop her from thinking or speaking about them.

The preamble to the Bill of Rights underscores why our founding fathers—having already taken countless steps to disperse government power and ensure individual liberty—nonetheless felt compelled also to explicitly protect citizen rights and limit government power even further.

“The Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added…” (Emphasis added)

As Americans, we should be even more concerned that Harris selected as her would-be Vice President Tim Walz, whose views may be even more extreme — even more anti-First Amendment — than hers. 

He has said on countless occasions — including the Vice Presidential debate — that Americans do not have a right to speak “misinformation” or “hate.” 

We should all be concerned at this anti-American mindset. Moreover, it raises the questions: What is “hate speech” or “misinformation?” What’s the difference between an idea, a mistake and “mis-information?” What exactly is “dis-information” or “mal-information?”

Who gets to decide? And what is the punishment?

How would we be allowed to debate, test ideas or experiment, or challenge our government?

As for “mis-information,” one wonders what we are to think about the Biden/Harris administration’s flawed crime statistics? Their “inaccuracies,” “exaggerations” and propaganda during Covid — on masks, vaccines, and mandates? Why does only the government get to say “oopsies” or “we said what we believed to be true at the time”?

What about the presidential and vice presidential debate moderators fact-checks that were themselves “mistakes”?

What about President Biden saying no American troops had died on his watch: was he lying or was it “disinformation”? 

When Vice President Harris said today, under the Biden/Harris administration, “no American troops are in harm’s way;” was she clueless? Spreading mis-information? Mal-information?

What should their penalty be?

When will the proponents of these anti-first amendment, anti-liberty ideas realize that they are not merely anti-American, but dangerous?

It doesn’t end with Harris or Walz; they are just the public face of a radical approach to the first amendment and free speech. This spring, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson stunned many court observers when she attacked the First Amendment from the bench of the US Supreme Court: “My biggest concern is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government in significant ways.”

Our Pennsylvania Constitution wisely guarantees these inalienable rights and explains why, with greater detail and more passion:

“The printing press shall be free to every person who may undertake to examine the proceedings of the Legislature or any branch of government, and no law shall ever be made to restrain the right thereof. The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the invaluable rights of man…”

The best way to handle arguments, disagreements or ideas that you or I see as “mis-information” is vigorous, open debate — and to uphold the timeless wisdom: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

It’s worked for 233 years. Maybe our founders were right, again. 

Guy Ciarrocchi is a Senior Fellow with the Commonwealth Foundation. He writes for Broad + Liberty and RealClear Pennsylvania. Follow Guy @PaSuburbsGuy.

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3 thoughts on “Guy Ciarrocchi: Now they’re coming for the First Amendment”

  1. Mr. Ciarrocchi,
    This is an excellent article. And if we are going to be serious about this topic it must be acknowledged that during the Trump administration there was an aggressive censorship strategy employed by the deep state alphabet agencies: (FBI, CIA, CISA – Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency within the DHS, Department of Homeland Security, etc. which coerced Big Tech companies to surveil and censor U.S. Citizens’ speech. This problem is not just on one side of the aisle.

  2. So yet another hysterical article with no basis in reality.

    Prior to the internet, articles that proved to be outright lies were pulled, apologies were issued, and the people involved in writing those articles were held accountable. In the age of the internet there is no accountability or apologies.

    And no one has proved this more true than Donald J. Trump. When President Obama was elected he was able to create and maintain the lie of Bitherism, the myth that President Obama was not an American Citizen. Every two to three months Trump would announce that his investigators had new evidence he would release in two weeks, over six years. Not stopping until Trump ran for office, when he admitted it was a lie.

    Since then he has openly promoted lies that he won the 202 election and most recently that Hattians in Springfield, OH were eating peoples cats and dogs. Doubling down on that twice during the debate with Vice President and a statement he continues to make at campaign rallies. Claiming he has seen news reports, but refusing to provide them. His supporters support him in this belief.

    So yes, the government is finally going to legally start pushing back in an effort to prevent another January 6th or a massacre of Hattians by “We the People”.

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