by mrandish | 2025-09-18 19:18:49+00:00
I care deeply about protecting first amendment free speech and I'm troubled by the government's expanding encroachment on the first amendment, a concern which goes back at least six administrations. I've posted about it frequently. And I'm also concerned by the increasing weaponization of government and partisan lawfare. It's always been a regrettable part of politics but over the last 50 years the entrenchment of the two party duopoly has now led to escalating abuse by both parties.

Frankly, I'm fed up with so many on the right and the left selectively abusing both constitutional free speech rights and civil free speech culture when it's to their advantage and then suddenly caring about them again when either is turned against them. In the 1960s the left elevated the ideal of civil free speech culture by eloquently articulating why it's so important: the rights enshrined in our constitution are safest when also enshrined in our culture. And yet in the last 20 years many on the left rationalized selectively abandoning their decades-long commitment to both F1A rights and free speech culture. And as cancel culture became an epidemic of self-destructive purity spirals, the right suddenly decided they care passionately about free speech culture. Then when political partisans weaponized stringent enforcement of document marking and classification regulations against Trump, he cried "Lawfare" and bleated about the abuse of government power - only to then turn around and pioneer all-new tactics in retaliation. And yet almost no one on either side has shown any self-awareness of how their own side has abandoned any pretense of standing by a principle, if doing so would get in the way of retaliating or, conversely, playing the injured party. What a shit-show all around.

The reason I didn't focus on F1A is because this latest transgression isn't even a good F1A case. It's almost certainly not even enforceable. The FCC guy will just argue being interviewed on a podcast isn't an official act. IMHO, Kimmel was "canceled" off the air by right wing-leaning network affiliate owners because FCC guy's vague threat gave them a fig leaf of justification AND it's within their legal rights. I think it sucks they did that - just as much as it sucked when many on the left canceled right wing viewpoints - even though it was equally within their legal rights.

To me, this whole episode is just more tit-for-tat tactical partisan political point-scoring. The only part of this that's really worth focusing on is it was easier for Disney/ABC's management to cave to those right-leaning affiliate concerns (despite not being right-leaning themselves), in part, because our culture no longer values civil free speech as a moral/ethical standard. Nowadays, as long as it's arguably within your legal rights, canceling someone for saying things you don't like is no longer even considered "a shitty thing to do." Why? Because BOTH sides have now done it when it suited them and then rationalized their behavior. So yeah, it's instructive how many responses to my original post are from those who only want to focus on the F1A rights aspect of this regrettable shit show (despite it not even being a prosecutable transgression). And, wow... the euphemistic vagaries and rationalizations deployed to justify the moral ethics of censorious cancellation are inventive. So much dancing around the clear, bright-line distinction between passively "not having to listen to" disagreeable speech, and actively suppressing that speech (or cheering on those who suppress it). I actually take it as a good sign some still feel a bit uncomfortable just outright admitting they would actively ban even the possibility of other viewpoints ever being heard (presumably under the naive assumption such social, cultural or legal power would only ever be in the hands of those they agree with). It's terribly sad that majorities on both sides seem to have abandoned civil free speech culture as even a principle worth selectively paying insincere lip-service to. It appears, as a society, we're actually choosing a Thunderdome brawl of discourse where it's acceptable for your "good side" to fight dirty, hit below the belt and even entirely silence their "bad side" by any means available: social, cultural, political, economic or legal - as long as you can technically skirt F1A prosecution. A very low bar indeed.