By Over the past few years, and boosted by their panic over the COVID-19 pandemic, Democrats, along with the groups they’ve come to dominate, have become the party of censorship.
In 2021, for example, The New York Times wrote about the collapse of the A.C.L.U.’s commitment to free speech. “Once a Bastion of Free Speech, the A.C.L.U. Faces an Identity Crisis,” headlined an article that explained that “an organization that has defended the First Amendment rights of Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan is split by an internal debate over whether supporting progressive causes is more important.”
“It was supposed to be the celebration of a grand career,” the newspaper lamented, “as the American Civil Liberties Union presented a prestigious award to the longtime lawyer David Goldberger. He had argued one of its most famous cases, defending the free speech rights of Nazis in the 1970s to march in Skokie, Ill., home to many Holocaust survivors.
Mr. Goldberger, now 79, adored the A.C.L.U. But at his celebratory luncheon in 2017, he listened to one speaker after another and felt a growing unease.
A law professor argued that the free speech rights of the far right were not worthy of defense by the A.C.L.U. and that Black people experienced offensive speech far more viscerally than white allies. In the hallway outside, an A.C.L.U. official argued it was perfectly legitimate for his lawyers to decline to defend hate speech.
Mr. Goldberger, a Jew who defended the free speech of those whose views he found repugnant, felt profoundly discouraged.
‘I got the sense it was more important for A.C.L.U. staff to identify with clients and progressive causes than to stand on principle,” he said in a recent interview. “Liberals are leaving the First Amendment behind.’”
Goldberger would likely feel more disconsolate looking upon the landscape just a few years later. Under the dual rubric of “hate speech” and “disinformation,” Democrats have put their abandonment of free speech in hyperdrive.
But nothing may top what’s being proposed in Michigan, where Democrats have proposed making it illegal to hurt the feelings of the groups that make up the liberal special interest client base, which has been labeled as “the community.”
Michigan’s Democratic House passed legislation on Tuesday that enables attorneys to shut down “hate speech.” The new House Bill 4474 is a vague and unconstitutional censorship law that determines “feeling threatened” as reasonable grounds to prosecute offenders, writes The Washington Examiner.
The punishment for making someone “feel threatened” in Michigan is five years in jail and a $10,000 fine.
An alternate sentence proposes “community service” in order to “enhance the offender’s understanding of the impact of the offense upon the victim and wider community.”
The problematic language about “feelings” can be found in the bill’s definition of “intimidation” as “willful course of conduct, involving repeated or continuing harassment of another individual that would cause a reasonable individual to feel terrorized, frightened, intimidated, threatened, harassed, or molested, and that actually causes the victim to feel terrorized, frightened, or threatened.”
Any kind of discrimination against a minority or a particular group of people is unacceptable and should be taken seriously. Michigan’s new bill, which prosecutes based on feelings, does not take it seriously. Someone’s subjective feelings, or even a lie about his or her subjective feelings, could land somebody jail time and ruin a life.
What’s next, blasphemy laws?
Those committed to free speech has already raised concerns that the bill infringes on Americans’ First Amendment rights. Distinguished Professor Emeritus William Wagner, a former federal judge and legal counsel in the U.S. Senate, recently spoke to The Daily Wire about the problems with the bill.
“Make no mistake about it. Those advocating for this legislation will wield these policies as a weapon capable of destroying conservative expression or viewpoints grounded in the sacred,” Wagner told The Daily Wire. “One merely needs to look at the scores of cases brought against schools, churches, businesses, and individuals around our country. Proponents use these laws to silence and financially cripple those who dare to adhere to a different viewpoint and oppose their agenda.”
The newest version of the bill, which passed the House, uses the term “harassment” without defining what that could mean, making it dealer’s choice when the lawsuits start rolling in.
“’Intimidate” is defined in the bill as “a willful course of conduct involving repeated or continuing harassment of another individual that would cause a reasonable individual to feel terrorized, frightened, or threatened, and that actually causes the victim to feel terrorized, frightened, or threatened.”
Wagner continued by noting that “under HB 4474, someone could listen to a speaker such as a religious preacher or read a conservative writer and claim they’re being intimidated because of their ‘perceived gender identity’ under attack. Under the legislation, intimidation and harassment could be up to the interpretation of the listener and a local prosecutor, according to Wagner, who added that the bill determines what is criminal ‘after the action,’ the opposite of the due process required by the Constitution.”
The outlet also spoke to Angela Rigas, a Republican freshman in the state House. She said that the Democrats purposely included sexual orientation and gender identity as a “protected class” in order to go after social conservatives who have raised concerns about gender ideology being pushed in school.
“The state of Michigan is now explicitly allowing the gender delusion issue to be used as a ‘protected class.’ This opens up numerous issues when it comes to the courts and the continued weaponization of the system against conservatives,” Rigas said. “We saw similar concerns when they wanted to pass blocks on ‘conversion’ therapy. It seems Dems want to be in the business of telling people how to think. We are determined to keep choice and opinion a free choice despite those efforts.”
Michigan recently became a hotbed of controversy as two Democratic allies have duked it out over the left’s commitment to gender ideology. In Hamtramck, the only Muslim-majority city in the United States, the city council banned Pride flags from city property.
The Guardian reported, “In 2015, many liberal residents in Hamtramck, Michigan, celebrated as their city attracted international attention for becoming the first in the United States to elect a Muslim-majority city council.
They viewed the power shift and diversity as a symbolic but meaningful rebuke of the Islamophobic rhetoric that was a central theme of then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign.
This week many of those same residents watched in dismay as a now fully Muslim and socially conservative city council passed legislation banning Pride flags from being flown on city property that had – like many others being flown around the country – been intended to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community.
This week many of those same residents watched in dismay as a now fully Muslim and socially conservative city council passed legislation banning Pride flags from being flown on city property that had – like many others being flown around the country – been intended to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community.
Muslim residents packing city hall erupted in cheers after the council’s unanimous vote, and on Hamtramck’s social media pages, the taunting has been relentless: ‘F*gless City,’ read one post, emphasized with emojis of a bicep flexing.”
What will happen when this new “hate speech” law pits these two sides against each other? Some outspoken conservatives may start wondering if they serve popcorn in jail.
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