Will We Never Learn?

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While it is true that what is good for the goose is good for the gander, some things are good for neither. 

A case in point is the new conservative attempt to use the power of government to punish the speech of people we find intolerably offensive. I wrote not too long ago about a bill that would establish outside monitors for schools that have an antisemitism problem, threatening the withdrawal of federal funds if the schools didn’t do their best to stamp out antisemitism. 

It was a bad idea, not because the schools have done a good job dealing with antisemitism, but because it is the government using its coercive power to regulate speech. 

Fair points and I also think more and more conservatives are questioning these “lists” as a concept. No transparency or due process. With the FBI being weaponized against Catholics and parents at school board meetings, who’s to say it won’t be weaponized against any of us.

— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) May 9, 2024

Senator Marsha Blackburn and Senator Roger Marshall have proposed an Amendment with similar intent. It would place students and faculty on the terrorist no-fly list for expressing support for terrorist organizations such as Hamas or Hezbollah or for having been disciplined for their behavior at pro-Palestinian protests. 

Admittedly the proposal is satisfying, but only in the way that punching a jerk in the nose is satisfying. Both are bad ideas.

Chris Rufo and Christina Pushaw are right in their analysis: where students and professors are breaking the law, we have adequate means to punish them, and where they aren’t breaking the law, we shouldn’t. 

Placing people on the no-fly list is not supposed to punish them for holding the wrong opinions; it is supposed to be a public safety measure. Short of a substantial suspicion that these people present such a danger to the public, we shouldn’t use the power of the government to punish them for being a$$holes. 

Putting a measure like this into law opens up a huge can of worms, even were it a better idea than it is. 

How can anybody, having experienced the past few years, think that giving the government more power to punish people for having unacceptable views is a good idea? Give them a micrometer, and they will go a thousand miles. 

Just who do you think will be most targeted by measures like this? I assure you it won’t be liberals.

Already, the FBI labels “White supremacists” the greatest domestic terror threat in America, and we know who they actually mean by that: you and me, and anybody who has ever said a nice thing about Donald Trump. “Misgendering” is considered hate speech calling for genocide, for God’s sake. 

I am all for disparaging antisemites as hateful, disgusting, terrorist-loving dangers to society who need to be shunned, but I am pretty sure that the TSA should not be in the business of keeping them off planes. 

At best, this is just conservative virtue-signaling; at worst–if it passes–it is simply a step toward tyranny. 

The battle of ideas needs to be fought openly and in speech, not by appealing to the power of government. It is wrong and would simply fuel the very antisemitism we abhor. 

Stop this virtue signaling.