Get Your Grubby Hands Off My Freedom of Speech, Biden – The American Spectator

Democrats live in a parallel reality. You know, where boys with penises are girls, the coronavirus is only spread in classrooms, the world is about to explode because of your air conditioning, and taxes create wealth for everyone. Somehow, they try to keep their voters within that reality, albeit with less and less success. And what keeps them awake at night is that someone might freely ask questions in the midst of this woke climax, like, for example, this one: But, are we becoming idiots?

To keep as many citizens as possible immersed in their narrative, they managed to collude with large corporations, although no tense meetings were necessary, because more than one of the Silicon Valley millionaire hippies were willing to collude. That’s why, on July 4, federal Judge Terry A. Doughty said that the government’s power to decide on content moderation on social networks should be limited. In fact, he prohibited the HHS and the FBI from contacting social networks to exert pressure or induce “in any way” the “removal, deletion or reduction of content protected by freedom of expression.”

The Biden administration’s response since this dispute began has been to put pressure on Elon Musk using all its tentacles, poking around both Twitter and Tesla — and, if he gets careless, he might well find the FBI in his fridge too, between the cheese and the blueberry jam. But make no mistake, this is not just about Musk but about you, because we are witnessing a direct attack on the First Amendment. 

The government cannot stick its nose in the press. The government cannot stick its nose into the freedom of speech. And Twitter is a bit of a mix of the two: press and free speech. 

As the 2024 election approaches, we will see another thousand attempts by the Democratic Party to dominate the information that reaches public opinion. Biden is not going to accept the big digital corporations not playing on his side, because he has become accustomed to playing with an advantage. And it’s like those kids who get used to cheating at board games: They end up with no friends and no games.

When the internet began to surpass traditional media, I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, I was sad because I am a nostalgic person, and I miss going to the newsstand every morning to buy a paper newspaper. On the other hand, I was happy because at last we would no longer depend on the big media corporations, often bought or sold by the powers that be. The internet was something like a space of wild freedom, fascinating and irritating at the same time. It was good to give it some order. I mean that anonymity on the net should not mean that after publishing a column or appearing on a political TV talk show I could receive a hundred anonymous messages threatening to break my legs, even if I did deserve it, which was often the case. 

But I don’t want the government legislating anything that isn’t essential. And Twitter doesn’t need more hands of bureaucrats trying to restrict my freedom. I’d rather have good fake news than a bad Biden intervention in public discourse. Because I, unlike Biden, do know the difference between fake news (e.g., “Man is to blame for climate change”) and real news (e.g., “I’m really fed up with the Left telling me what to think”). 

Perhaps the government believes that we do not know what it is trying to do with these ploys. But luckily, we read Mencken years ago, and now we are aware. “All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him,” he wrote in A Mencken Chrestomathy. “The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are.”

And this, my dear friends, is Biden’s problem. And I love that. 

Translated by Joel Dalmau.