Think Freely Media presents Common Sense with Paul Jacob
I don’t defend the way Twitter, Facebook, and others target users for expressing views that these firms dislike. I do defend the individual rights of all persons, including owners of companies. Our freedom to act includes the freedom to act in ways others consider to be wrong — if we
Yesterday’s big story? Several major social media platforms have de-platformed Alex Jones and his Infowars opinion (“information”?) show. Most commenters about this happening hasten to signal to their audiences that they do not approve of Alex Jones. Is this really necessary? When we consider a mass de-platforming event, do we
The fashionable campus notion of “microaggressions” blurs the distinction between peaceful speech (offensive or not) and bashing somebody over the head with a club. If courts, police and/or university officials can rationalize regarding the perpetrator of a so-called “microaggression” as initiating force against an offended listener, they can also rationalize
The relationship between the First and Second Amendments is closer than commonly believed. This is especially clear in the 3D gun printing story, the subject of yesterday’s Common Sense, “Progressive Designs.” As I finished the copy, a news story broke: U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik “muzzled Defense Distributed with a
In February 1979, Professor George Rathjens called the editors of The Progressive, urging them not to publish a story in the works, which included a journalistic best guess as to the design of a hydrogen bomb. The Progressive refused to squelch the story, and the professor of poli-sci (not nuclear
Addison Barnes has just won a court case against Liberty High School of Hillsboro, Oregon. The court ruled that the school acted wrongfully when, early this year, it suspended him for wearing a “disruptive” T-shirt heralding a “Donald J. Trump Border Wall Construction Co.” Addison was awarded $25,000 for legal
Justice Elena Kagan has a way with words. The conservative majority on the court, she said after two recent rulings, is “weaponizing the First Amendment.” What a phrase! But what does it mean? “Conservative groups, borrowing and building on arguments developed by liberals,” explains The New York Times, “have used
Have Americans forgotten that freedom makes getting along easier? We do not all have to like each other. We do not even all have to be nice to each other. We just don’t have license to hit or hornswoggle our fellows. Hate speech may be bad, but it is hate
Rob Port’s job is to have an opinion. Opinions breed counter-opinions. Unfortunately, they sometimes conjure up concerted campaigns to pressure opinion-makers to shut up. So, no surprise that his reporting — on his radio talk show and in print — on the doings and not-doings of North Dakota’s junior U.S.
The First Amendment applies only against governments, but our free speech rights can be violated by nearly anyone. These days, these rights are most notoriously and routinely violated by mobs of students . . . attending colleges and universities nearly all of which depend upon taxpayer subsidies. David E. Bernstein,
Amidst all the talk of The Deep State, we are in danger of losing track of a parallel problem: the Shallow State — which, despite lack of depth, is very wide. I am referring to government employees who increasingly abandon any pretense of impartiality. And the public institutions that protect
If you are older than 50, you probably remember when “liberal” meant free speech advocacy to the point of absolutism. “I may disagree with what you say,” stalwart liberals pledged back in the Sixties, “but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” Nowadays, if you are under