Open season on the freedom of speech.
“Robert Spencer: Left Using Charlottesville as ‘Reichstag Fire Moment to Crush All Dissent,’” by John Hayward, Breitbart, September 14, 2017:
Robert Spencer, Jihad Watch director, joined SiriusXM host Raheem Kassam on Thursday’s Breitbart News Daily to discuss the congressional resolution calling upon President Trump to condemn hate groups.
Kassam proposed that without precise, nonpartisan definitions of what constitutes a “hate group,” the congressional resolution is tantamount to declaring “open season on free speech.”
“Oh, absolutely, and it’s extraordinarily insidious as well,” Spencer agreed. “Remember, of course, that the Southern Poverty Law Center classifies legitimate conservative organizations that dissent from the leftist line as ‘hate groups.’”
“This resolution specifically refers to white supremacists, white nationalists, Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, and other hate groups – so what this is, is yet another element of the left’s attempt to use Charlottesville as its Reichstag Fire moment, to crush all dissent,” he warned.
“They lump us in with the Klan and neo-Nazis, and now, they have the president committing to use all available resources – that’s what the resolution says – against us. There’s no doubt in my mind whatsoever, and I’m sure there’s none in yours, as well, that this will be used against us. The Klan and the neo-Nazis, in reality, are insignificant and negligible forces. This is about us,” he told Kassam.
In that context, Spencer said the prospect of President Trump’s signing an amnesty deal to ratify the DACA amnesty for illegal immigrants is “chilling because it’s very clear what’s being done here.”
“They’ve backed the president into a corner because they’ve accused him, they’ve accused his close associates, people like Steve Bannon, of being white nationalists and white supremacists,” he explained. “The people who sponsored this resolution see this as Trump turning against the people who elected him and turning against the principles upon which he was elected. The problem is, apparently the president has allowed himself to be backed into this corner and is not sufficiently aware of what’s happening to stop it.”
Spencer said the best hope for protecting freedom of speech may lie with the Supreme Court President Trump is shaping with the addition of justices such as Neil Gorsuch. He hoped Gorsuch would vote to “strike down any attempts to give this resolution teeth and to persecute people who are legitimate conservative voices on its basis.”
Kassam noted that Spencer is well positioned to understand how “hate speech” regulations can be twisted into political weapons since Spencer himself has been banned from the United Kingdom. Kassam worried that a European-style assault on free speech is underway in America.
“The fact is, Raheem, remember: when they say that the president has to use all available resources against the KKK, neo-Nazis, and ‘other hate groups,’ there is no competitor to the SPLC. The Southern Poverty Law Center is the only organization that publishes a list of hate groups,” Spencer said in agreement, noting that his own Jihad Watch is on that list.
“The people that the Southern Poverty Law Center is targeting is not really the Klan and neo-Nazis, but the reasonable organizations that dissent from the leftist agenda that they’ve lumped in with the Klan and neo-Nazis,” he said.
“When the government, if and when the Trump administration and/or some other aspect of the United States government goes up against these hate groups and starts to use all available resources against them, the only list they have of the groups to target is the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list. This means that a significant portion of conservative thought that is anti-immigration, that is in favor of traditional values, and that is against jihad terror is going to be targeted,” Spencer predicted.
Robert Spencer’s latest book is The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Free Speech (and Its Enemies).
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. Eastern.
LISTEN:
mortimer says
Unless the government can prove their INFALLIBILITY any definition of ‘hate speech’ becomes a recipe for repression of ideas that the government does not like.
mortimer says
– Justice Frankfurter noted that beliefs that are “…dear to one may seem the rankest ‘sacrilege’ to another,” and added concerning “sacrilegious” speech: “…history does not encourage reliance on the wisdom and moderation of the censor.”
– The Supreme Court of India on Monday 3 March 2014, dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) by Advocate M L Sharma seeking intervention by the court in directing the Election Commission to curb hate speeches. Dismissing the plea, the Apex court said that it could not curb the fundamental right of the people to express themselves.
“We cannot curtail fundamental rights of people. It is a precious right guaranteed by Constitution,” a bench headed by Justice RM Lodha said, adding “we are a mature democracy and it is for the public to decide. We are 1280 million people and there would be 1280 million views. One is free not to accept the view of others”. Also the court said that it is a matter of perception, and a statement objectionable to a person might be normal to another person.
– Wikipedia
– The Supreme Court of India on Monday 3 March 2014, dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) by Advocate M L Sharma seeking intervention by the court in directing the Election Commission to curb hate speeches. Dismissing the plea, the Apex court said that it could not curb the fundamental right of the people to express themselves.
– The Irish Law Reform Commission’s 1991 Report opined that “there is no place for the offence of blasphemous libel in a society which respects freedom of speech.”
It refused to allow the prosecution, stating “in the absence of any legislative definition of the constitutional offence of blasphemy, it is impossible to say of what the offence of blasphemy consists … In the absence of legislation and in the present uncertain state of the law the Court could not see its way to authorising the institution of a criminal prosecution”.
Joe says
If they really wanted to ban hate speech they would have to ban all mosques.
Matthieu Baudin says
“… He hoped Gorsuch would vote to “strike down any attempts to give this resolution teeth and to persecute people who are legitimate conservative voices on its basis…”
It’s not just about ‘legitimate conservative voices’ being tarred, there are a whole host of people from across the political spectrum whose voices are set to be intimidated by this censorship crusade; anyone in fact who doesn’t parrot the whole package of New Left Social Attitudes, and not just the soothing nonsense about Islam being a religion of peace.
davej says
Calling it “hate speech” is the thin edge of the sword toward establishing a blasphemy law in North America. The fake term “Islamophobia” is well on it’s way to becoming a blasphemy crime.
“Blasphemy” is an Islamic concept more usually found in countries like Pakistan or Yemen and enforced by a Muslim majority. It moves the emphasis from the facts to “you have offended me or my beliefs”, which is the opening for a tyranny of the perpetually offended.
More evidence of the rise of Sharia law and the death of free speech.
duh swami says
Amercement 2.5…A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to tell the truth, shall not be infringed.”
Free speech is the key to the lock on the box of truth…It may take a militia to secure it…
Krazy Kafir says
Gee, it looks like Hillary won after all.
Santa Voorhees says
Left Using Charlottesville as ‘Reichstag Fire Moment to Crush All Dissent’
Yeah, what about sane people using Paris, San Bernardino, Bruxelles, Orlando, Nice, Berlin, London, Saint Petersburg, Stockholm, Manchester and Barcellona as Reichstag Fire Moment to crush the leftist/jihadi alliance?
Oh wait! That would be islamophobic and also the victims were Europeans so it doesn’t count…
The Left is cancer.
Lorensacho says
With respect for Mr. Spencer who I admire very much, I’m afraid that this is a rather paranoid formulation. The governing party and its president is against immigration and there is great dissent about this ignorant policy considering that there is not a single American who is not or was not descended from immigrants. To suggest that the aftermath of the march of white supremacists will result in censorship is hypersensitivity at its clinical worst.
Mark says
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