You’re right that government in the US (state, local, and federal) no longer punish people criminally for disfavored speech (at least, not significantly). The threat people worry about is civil punishment for speech, i.e. the government pretextually denying you equal protection of the laws or access to government services based on your s…
You’re right that government in the US (state, local, and federal) no longer punish people criminally for disfavored speech (at least, not significantly). The threat people worry about is civil punishment for speech, i.e. the government pretextually denying you equal protection of the laws or access to government services based on your speech. For example:
1. The FBI marking Tulsi Gabbard as a security threat so she gets harassed by the TSA.
2. The IRS denying 501(c) exemptions to conservative groups while granting them to similarly-situated liberal groups.
3. The IRS bringing selective scrutiny and enforcement against Matt Taibbi because of his testimony before Congress.
4. White House officials telling social media they’ll lose Section 230 protections if they don’t suppress Alex Berenson.
5. The practice of de-banking, where the government uses banking security laws designed to go after terrorist financing to freeze or seize the assets of people who have disfavored views, who then must spend years in court trying to get them back while being unable to hire a lawyer because they’re penniless.
6. The DOJ seeking to mark parents who argued for school reopening during COVID as domestic terrorists.
Those are just the high-profile examples off the top of my head. There are zillions of everyday stories of people who criticize the town council and suddenly their building permit is denied or their grant is yanked or the health inspector comes calling or their kid is cut from the school play.
You may think these stories are exaggerated or untrue, but if we accept for the sake of argument they are true, it’s reasonable to perceive a threat to free speech from civil punishment. And because the people who make up most of the government bureaucracy are Democrats, these sorts of civil punishment weapons will be mostly employed against Republicans.
Anytime the government is using its powers to silence its critics, I will denounce it. I've already done this with some of the stories you mention that I'm already familiar with and can confirm their veracity (e.g. such as threatening §230 revocation, and selective IRS 501(c) scrutiny on conservative groups). This is still not a new story historically, and we're still in a MUCH better place today compared to the crazy tactics the FBI used to target disfavored groups in the 60s and 70s. We still have more work to do, but the State's ability to scare its critics into silence gets more and more pathetic over time. This is part of the reason we need nonpartisan advocacy groups that vigilantly denounce civil liberties violations, such as FIRE or the ACLU back before they went crazy.
The press really underestimates the impact of the parents-are-domestic-terrorists affair on the censorship concerns of people who aren’t too politically engaged normally. I live in ground zero for that issue (northern Virginia) and know all the players in that psychodrama. Only a couple journalists have been willing to look into how Glenn Youngkin really got to be the “parents matter” governor of Virginia, and they got hard nos from their editors when they pitched the story. As the keeper of those receipts, it makes me sad.
You’re right that government in the US (state, local, and federal) no longer punish people criminally for disfavored speech (at least, not significantly). The threat people worry about is civil punishment for speech, i.e. the government pretextually denying you equal protection of the laws or access to government services based on your speech. For example:
1. The FBI marking Tulsi Gabbard as a security threat so she gets harassed by the TSA.
2. The IRS denying 501(c) exemptions to conservative groups while granting them to similarly-situated liberal groups.
3. The IRS bringing selective scrutiny and enforcement against Matt Taibbi because of his testimony before Congress.
4. White House officials telling social media they’ll lose Section 230 protections if they don’t suppress Alex Berenson.
5. The practice of de-banking, where the government uses banking security laws designed to go after terrorist financing to freeze or seize the assets of people who have disfavored views, who then must spend years in court trying to get them back while being unable to hire a lawyer because they’re penniless.
6. The DOJ seeking to mark parents who argued for school reopening during COVID as domestic terrorists.
Those are just the high-profile examples off the top of my head. There are zillions of everyday stories of people who criticize the town council and suddenly their building permit is denied or their grant is yanked or the health inspector comes calling or their kid is cut from the school play.
You may think these stories are exaggerated or untrue, but if we accept for the sake of argument they are true, it’s reasonable to perceive a threat to free speech from civil punishment. And because the people who make up most of the government bureaucracy are Democrats, these sorts of civil punishment weapons will be mostly employed against Republicans.
Anytime the government is using its powers to silence its critics, I will denounce it. I've already done this with some of the stories you mention that I'm already familiar with and can confirm their veracity (e.g. such as threatening §230 revocation, and selective IRS 501(c) scrutiny on conservative groups). This is still not a new story historically, and we're still in a MUCH better place today compared to the crazy tactics the FBI used to target disfavored groups in the 60s and 70s. We still have more work to do, but the State's ability to scare its critics into silence gets more and more pathetic over time. This is part of the reason we need nonpartisan advocacy groups that vigilantly denounce civil liberties violations, such as FIRE or the ACLU back before they went crazy.
The press really underestimates the impact of the parents-are-domestic-terrorists affair on the censorship concerns of people who aren’t too politically engaged normally. I live in ground zero for that issue (northern Virginia) and know all the players in that psychodrama. Only a couple journalists have been willing to look into how Glenn Youngkin really got to be the “parents matter” governor of Virginia, and they got hard nos from their editors when they pitched the story. As the keeper of those receipts, it makes me sad.