Charlie Kirk became well known and helped build his organization Turning Point USA by coming on to college campuses to present views that some students and, often, the people running the colleges did not want aired. In doing so, he helped advance the exercise of free speech at colleges. It was at one of his campus events at which he was discussing and debating issues that Kirk was murdered last week.
Tag: free speech
Donald Trump’s presidential administration has made it clear it is an opponent of free speech through its cracking down on individuals and colleges in an effort to silence negative comments about the Israel government. This animosity to free speech was widely reported in a new context last week when high level Trump administration officials lined up to express their horror that former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey, via a post at Instagram, purportedly threatened the life of President Trump.
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Marco Rubio’s Free Speech Hypocrisy
In an editorial last week, United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio was touting his effort to ensure the US government respects free speech. But, Rubio is also a leader in the ongoing US government program that deports people from America because they have exercised free speech in criticizing actions of the Israel government or support by the US government for those actions.
A repugnant tactic of authoritarianism is categorizing people’s desire for or exercise of freedom as illness that government should suppress. An example of this was the deeming of dissidents in the Soviet Union as mentally ill to justify their detention and punishment.
On Thursday, the United States House of Representatives approved legislation that would threaten nonprofit organizations’ exercise of free speech rights. The legislation would accomplish this goal by empowering the US government to selectively clamp down on nonprofits to an extent that targeted organizations may cease to exist. This is all being done in the name of countering terrorism, a trusty standby excuse for the US government exercising authoritarian powers.
Medea Benjamin has done much good in educating people about violent aspects of United States foreign policy and why such should be opposed. But, via a brief video Benjamin posted Thursday at Twitter, in which she calls on people to urge Hilton to cancel an upcoming event at one of its hotels, she is promoting a curtailment of speech that endangers her cause and individual rights more broadly.
You may have read at the Ron Paul Institute website and elsewhere some of Jonathan Turley’s many insightful editorials dealing with current events and the right to free speech. As have many other readers, you likely wanted more — an examination by Turley of free speech that goes much deeper than relatively short editorials allow.
The Texas Lottery has paid out many millions of dollars to winners of its games of chance since voters in the state approved its creation in 1991. This week, Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced a new lottery of sorts — the “Texas Antisemitism Lottery” — that could rival and maybe even surpass the original Texas Lottery in cash payouts.
On October 1 of last year, I wrote about California Governor Gavin Newsom having signed into law the previous day AB 2098, legislation I described as telling “the state’s medical boards to punish doctors who challenge the coronavirus orthodoxy.”
Here is an update.
Some individuals seeking out a free speech respecting university to attend may write off state or public schools, assuming that private schools will better fit the bill. Survey results from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), however, indicate that respect for free speech may more often be found at public colleges and universities.