The Department of Homeland Security under Biden created the Disinformation Governance Board. It was presumably a way of institutionalizing the social media censorship that we now know the Biden Administration was engaging in all along.. The clamor from those who rightfully feared that their information would be marginalized with a dis, mis, or mal label caused the Biden Administration to back off. Plus any action the Board took probably would not withstand !st Amendment scrutiny, you know, where it says Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or preventing the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
In Brazil, the Brazilian Supreme Court issued an order to X, formerly Twitter, to block certain popular accounts from the platform. They backed off when X owner, Elon Musk, pointed out that the edict violated the Brazilian Federal Constitution.
In Belgium, police prevented entry to a venue with over 500 expected attendees and speakers at a National Conservatism Conference at a hotel in Brussels.Speakers expected to attend included UK Brexit leader Nigel Farage. former UK government Home Secretary Suella Braverman, French presidential candidate Eric Zemmour and Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban. It seems to me that this is a violation of the EU's Article 12: Freedom of Assembly and Association which reads: "Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceable assembly and to freedom of association with others". It seems the police excuse for the crackdown was public disturbance. It's clear that the only ones disturbed were the authorities ordering the police action and, of course, the police causing a public disturbance.
It is important to note that freedom of speech exists as a fundamental part of civilization and basic human nature. It is not something granted by governments. Our country's and other country's founding documents do not grant freedom of speech. They prohibit governments from violating it.
I'm old enough to remember when it was the conservatives and traditionalists who were most in favor of using censorship to violate freedom of speech and the press. They were attempting to make pornography and other sins illegal and otherwise impose their values on the whole of society. And they had enough control of the government to prevail in many ways. Today the balance of control of the government has moved to the left. Sin has been redefined as ignoring or actively opposing the government narrative on disease management and controlling the weather. And they are trying to forcibly stop what they perceive as sin from occurring.
This isn't really a problem of the left being worse than the right or vice versa. It's about those in power trying to force their view of what society should look like on all members of society. It's about those in power, the elites if you will, being able to force others to take their advice whether those others want to or not. It's about the abuse of power. And believe me, if government power exists, it will be abused. After all, it's not the best and brightest who are attracted to government and power. It's those who are best at concealing their sociopathic or psychopathic tendencies.
We need to be more vigilant about granting the government too much power rather than trying to elect politicians who would force people to take advice we happen to agree with. I'm Richard Fields and that's this week's Report From the Fields. See you again next week.