Free Speech

Free speech is the right to express one's opinions in public or private, in print, by mail, or online. It is essential to republicanism and democracy, and along with the right to keep and bear arms is the greatest deterrent to tyranny. The United States is unique in protecting a full right of free political speech under the First Amendment, which has its biblical foundation in Mark 9:39.

Leftists are the biggest opponents of free speech,^[1] as they demand liberal censorship of views they do not like, especially Christian, patriot, conservative, or libertarian ones. Such views are often demonized in the liberal media with its media bias. Ironically, however, Leftists used free speech to orchestrate the French Revolution by publishing damaging lies against King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette,^[2] as well as lies against Christianity,^[3] as well as ensure the promotion and domination of destructive ideologies such as Communism and Socialism during the Free Speech Movement of 1964, along with promoting leftist ideology in general through free speech.^[1] On a similar note, Vladimir Lenin was known to defend the right to free speech prior to the Russian Revolution and overthrowing Czar Nicholas II, yet after he came into power he notoriously did the complete opposite and suppressed free speech. When asked about what caused him to change, he replied with “I supported free speech when I was in the opposition.” Generally, the Left only favors free speech when it is convenient for them, but they are quick to demand that anyone who simply disagrees with their views and opinions be stripped of the right to free speech and, in violation of the First Amendment (or similar laws guaranteeing free speech in other countries, such as Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms), illegally try to do so through corrupt liberal public officials and leftist activists with the use of deceit (including false claims of "hate speech"^[4][5]), threats, intimidation and criminal tactics.^{[6][7][8][9][10]} In fact, federal law makes it illegal for anyone to conspire to suppress free speech or any other freedoms enjoyed by the public under the Constitution or federal law,^[10] although leftists in the public sphere have gone out of their way to ignore such laws as not being convenient to their goals.

Free speech is threatened by "hate speech" codes favored by the Left which define certain types of statements as "hate crimes" (as defined by liberal politicians). While supposedly protecting vulnerable groups (such as "questioning gay teens") from verbal abuse, rules and laws provide no clear distinction between "hurtful" speech and simply expressing one's opinion. Religious people, accordingly, worry that "hate crimes" legislation in America will be used to stop preachers and others from saying out loud or in print that homosexuality is evil, dangerous and basically anti-life.

Not every form of expression is protected as free speech. For example, statements connected with unlawful conduct (including death threats against others and incitement to riot, vandalism, assault, terrorism and other criminal acts) are typically illegal.

Examples of restrictions and/or censorship of free speech in the West[edit]

While many Westerners, particularly on the globalist Left, hold up their countries as bastions of freedom, many Western countries, particularly in Western Europe, are limiting free speech.^[11][12] The following is a non-exhaustive list of examples of the erosion of free speech rights in the West:

United States

• In 2014, Houston mayor Annise Parker, a far leftist and the first openly-homosexual mayor of the city, briefly issued subpoenas on pastors, illegally ordering them to turn over sermons concerning homosexuality.^[13][14][15]
• Free speech is under attack on American public university campuses.^[16]
• A NASCAR driver was suspended indefinitely for what liberals claimed was considered to be an "intolerable and insensitive remark" - and they wouldn't say what the remark was!^[17] But the driver said his remark was "in no way meant to be disrespectful or insensitive to anyone."
• An event featuring Donald Trump, the leading contender for the Republican nomination for president, was disrupted to the point of requiring its cancellation at the University of Illinois, Chicago campus, on March 11, 2016.^[18]
• Big Tech engaged in censorship of conservatives and Christians.^[19] In August 2018, multiple social media giants, with the support of the Left, mainstream media and Democrats,^[20] colluded to ban Alex Jones's InfoWars from their sites simply because of his political views.^[21] In response to public criticism of the conspiring social media platforms' actions, leftists made dismissive excuses for those companies on social media and in the liberal media, claiming that they are "free to do what they want" because of their status as privately-owned companies, not realizing that the collusion of those platforms to censor and ban InfoWars and other conservative companies and individuals for their political views potentially violate antitrust laws.^[22] In February 2019, removed 22 pages related to Jones and InfoWars.^[23]
• U.S. Representative Ted Lieu stated that he "would love" to regulate free speech before admitting that the First Amendment would not let him do this.^[24][25]
• Facebook banned several people whose views it opposed, labeling them "dangerous," even though they did not violate the site's terms^[26] – Facebook continued allowing actual left-wing hate speech to go unpunished, however.^[27]
• As an example of the public's decreasing knowledge of the First Amendment and its purpose, Joy Behar asked by President Trump had not been criminally charged with "hate speech" for making a politically incorrect statement.^[28][29] Additionally, a Georgia state representative who faked a "hate crime" wanted criminal prosecution against an individual simply because he allegedly said something offensive to her.^[30] The New York Times has also written against free speech rights.^[31] Other examples exist of the liberal-fueled declining support for free speech.^[32]
• In September 2019, the New York City Commission on Human Rights ruled it would ban people from using the term "illegal alien," particularly if one's intent was to offend.^[33]

European Union

• In 2018, the European Commission pushed for adopting EU-wide laws restricting internet freedom, including freedom of speech.^[34]
• In 2018, the European Court of Human Rights ruled against a pro-life German activist, stating that it was legal and "necessary in a democratic society" to censor his view that abortion is murder, even though the court admitted that his rights were being violated in the process.^[35]
• European Union officials have called for banning speech they don't like through media regulations, inaccurately labeling it "hate speech" and opposing what they describe as "dangerous nationalism."^[36][37]
• In 2018, the European Court of Human Rights upheld the prosecution and fining of a woman simply for calling Muhammad a pedophile because he had an arranged marriage to a six-year-old when he was in his 50s,^[38] and the court made its decision final in March 2019.^[39]
• An EU resolution passed on October 25, 2018, called for censoring organizations and prosecuting people for holding and advocating for certain views.^[40]
• The European Court of Justice, in response to a left-wing politician being mocked online, ruled that EU governments can force social media to remove content.^[41]

United Kingdom

• In 2010, a Christian street preacher was arrested for causing "harassment, alarm or distress" by calling homosexuality a sinful practice according to biblical teachings.^[42] In 2015, another street preacher was fined for calling homosexuality an abomination.^[43]
• A pastor in Northern Ireland was charged and tried for making comments (in 2014) in one of his sermons against Islam that were considered "grossly offensive." Although he was found not guilty (in 2016), he should have never been tried in the first place, as Christians should be able to freely express and advocate their biblically-based theological positions.^[44][45][46]
• In early 2017, two Christian street preachers in Bristol were convicted for quoting the King James Bible in public because they supposedly used "threatening or abusive words or behaviour or disorderly behaviour within the hearing or sight of a person . . . and the offence was religiously aggravated."^[47]
• Despite allowing Jihadists who had joined ISIS re-enter the country, in 2018, the United Kingdom banned conservative activists Brittany Pettibone, Martin Sellner, Lauren Southern, Lutz Bachmann and Rafał Ziemkiewicz from entering simply because of their views.^[48]
• Conservative journalist and activist Tommy Robinson was illegally arrested on May 26, 2018 for filming members of an alleged Islamic child grooming gang as they entered a court for trial, and the judge presiding over his case, Geoffrey Marson,^[49] illegally ordered all details related to his arrest and trial, including his identity, to be banned from being published by the country's media.^[50] In response to the illegal actions of the police and the corrupt judge who sentenced Robinson, the politicians standing behind those actions and the liberal media complicitly covering for them by their refusal to report on both the trial and on Robinson's illegal arrest and imprisonment, thousands of British citizens have begun protesting outside of British Prime Minister Theresa May's residence at 10 Downing Street in London and outside the British Parliament to demand Robinson's release.^[51] In a blatant display of double standards, a Muslim activist who violently beat a policeman at a Tommy Robinson rally avoided any jail time and only received a six-month suspended sentence, despite Robinson serving actual jail time for a much longer sentence for a non-violent act.^[52] Robinson was released on bail on August 1, 2018.^[53]
• In February 2019, a mother was arrested in front of her children simply for calling a man – who claimed he was a woman – a man.^[54]
• In April 2019, National Police Chiefs' Council leader Martin Hewitt warned pro-Brexit politicians to watch their language because it would "inflame people's views."^[55]
• A new definition of "Islamophobia" adopted by the "All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims" threatened the freedom to express criticism of Islam or its practices.^[56]
• In 2019, the National Health Service changed its policy to allow it to refuse service to any patient it considered "racist" or "sexist."^[57]
• In 2019, the NHS began refusing medical services to those that it deemed "racist" or "sexist."^[58]

France

• In 2016, the French Senate passed a bill making it "illegal" to post pro-life information on the internet.^[59] In February 2017, both houses of the French parliament passed the bill, with the National Assembly's more severe and broad wording ultimately being adopted.^[60] As of March 2017, the bill was being reviewed by France's Constitutional Council.^[61] Regardless, this law would effectively criminalize the freedom of speech (at least on the internet) of those who support the true human right to life for unborn human beings,^[59] and it illustrates the opposition to equal rights in the country.^[62]
• Marine Le Pen, right-wing populist French political figure, was likely to face prison time simply for sharing an image of ISIS on Twitter.^[63]
• In 2018, conservative French politician Nicholas Dupont-Aignan was given a fine of 5,000 euros for speaking about a "migrant invasion" a year prior.^[64]
• In November 2017, liberal French President Emmanuel Macron proposed making "gender-based insults" illegal in France, a politically correct move that would lead to the further reduction of free speech rights in the country.^[65] In an April 2018 speech in front of the U.S. Congress, Macron called for media censorship in order to combat what he called "fake news."^[11]
• In July 2019, France's parliament approved a law to force social media companies to remove posts considered "hate speech" by the French government.^[66]

Germany

• The German government, with the help of major corporations such as Facebook, censors conservative points of view.^[67] In 2017, the German government passed an even stricter anti-free speech law.^[68] The German police have raided the homes of people accused of making comments on the internet that the German government deemed "hateful."^[69]
• CDU leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer called for enacting laws prohibiting people from expressing certain points of view on the internet prior to elections.^[70]
• A German member of parliament – and a member of one of the country's governing parties – called for denying the rights of free speech and assembly to right-wing conservatives, who he labeled "extremists."^[71]
• In November 2019, Angela Merkel spoke out against free speech rights, stating that some forms of speech must not be tolerated.^[72]

Austria

• In 2018, the Austrian government brought charges – under a law intended for use against the mafia – against an anti-mass migration and Identitarian movement for voicing politically incorrect views on issues such as Islam.^[73]

Italy

• In Italy, like in many other European countries, it is illegal to say or think certain things,^[74] meaning that whatever the government considers "hate speech" is not free speech – even if the speech is morally wrong, a free society still is able to tolerate it.

Sweden

• In 2017, a Swedish local government unit forced a Christian preschool to ban prayer to God under the country's Education Act, but the preschoolers were subsequently instructed to thank the sun and the rain before meals.^[75][76][77]

Switzerland

• In 2018, the Swiss National Council voted to criminalize speech that it called "homophobia" and "transphobia."^[78]

Canada

• In 2017, a local Canadian school district, the Battle River School Division, ordered a Christian school to stop teaching "offensive" passages from the Bible, something that would alter the Christian message and omit key portions of the Bible from being taught.^[79][80][81]
• In January 2018, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau claimed that pro-life speech is not protected speech. When asked on where the Canadian government limits free speech, Trudeau mentioned abortion, stating that "an organization that has the explicit purpose of restricting women’s rights by removing rights to abortion, the right for women to control their own bodies, is not in line with where we are as a government and quite frankly where we are as a society."^[82][83] Similarly, while Trudeau funded a left-wing group protesting a pipeline because of "free speech", he refused to fund any organizations opposed to abortion and the homosexual agenda.^[84]
• The Canadian province of Ontario, under the Ontario Liberal government of then-premier Kathleen Wynne, illegally enacted a bill in 2017, in violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, that banned pro-life speech around abortion clinics.^[85]
• Canadian pro-family activist Bill Whatcott, who opposes the homosexual agenda and has spoken out in public and online against the dangers of homosexual behavior to the health of its practitioners, was hit with a frivolous $104 million lawsuit by homosexual activists (and whose participating litigants also include Justin Trudeau and Kathleen Wynne, an open lesbian^[86]) for handing out flyers speaking the truth about homosexuality at a Toronto "gay pride" parade in 2016,^[5] and was also served with a false arrest warrant against him on a false charge of "inciting hatred" by the Wynne-backed Ontario Attorney General's office. After surrendering to police in Calgary on June 22, 2018 (amid a protest by Christian activists against his illegal arrest outside the police station^[87]) with the intent of challenging the false charge, Whatcott was subjected to illegal persecution and criminal mistreatment on the false charge by the Calgary police, as well as by Toronto police when he was later transferred to that city (which included being falsely branded a "hate criminal" and being denied food and needed medication and otherwise criminally abused by a corrupt Calgary Police Service officer, being locked up with dangerous, drug-addicted and mentally ill criminals and denied personal care items in jails in both Calgary and Toronto, being criminally harassed by corrupt homosexual Toronto Police Service officer Sgt. Henry Dyck, and unjustly losing his job as an Alberta oil fields bus driver due to coercion against his employer by homosexual activists^[6]), all in attempts to illegally deny Whatcott his right to free speech to spread the truth about the dangers of homosexuality. Whatcott unjustly faces up to two years in prison for what his persecutors speciously claim is "Wilful [sic] Promotion of Hatred against an identifiable group" for passing out the pamphlets at the "gay pride" parade – even though the pamphlets also talked about God's love and "the free gift of eternal life" that comes through repenting of all sin.^[88] The homosexual activists who originally filed the frivolous lawsuit against him dropped the lawsuit in 2019, but in March that year, Whatcott was fined $55,000 for publishing flyers telling the true gender of a gender-confused local candidate,^[89] and he continues to be illegally and criminally harassed by the LGBTQ movement and its corrupt liberal political allies for speaking the truth about homosexuality, its related sexual behaviors and their resulting consequences as he faces a trial on the false charges against him in Toronto in June 2020.^[86]
• Pro-life advocates have been censored and intimidated on Canadian university campuses.^[90]
• In 2019, Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party pledged to force social media companies to remove whatever it considered "hate speech."^[91]

Belgium

• Belgium has banned "sexism" in public places.^[92]
• In December 2018, the Brussels police arrested a van owned by the Hungarian government because it had anti-mass migration messages on it.^[93]

Australia

In August 2019, Australia's prime minister announced his government would block "extremist" online content.^[94]

New Zealand

• The New Zealand government, along with social media websites, ISPs, and the media, made it illegal to possess content related to a deadly terrorist attack in 2019.^[95][96]

Brazil

• The Brazilian Supreme Court banned "homophobia" – criminalizing the very opposition to homosexuality as expressed in words or nonviolent actions rather than simply violent actions.^[97]

United Nations

• In 2018, the United Nations Human Rights Council effectively called for making nationalist-populism illegal and cracking down on those who voice conservative and Christian beliefs.^[98]
• U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced in a speech that the UN would target so-called "hate speech."^[99]

See also[edit]

• Free Speech Clause
• Religious freedom
• Palo Alto mafia

References[edit]