{"id":2008,"date":"2025-03-14T22:59:07","date_gmt":"2025-03-14T22:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/?p=2008"},"modified":"2025-03-14T23:16:20","modified_gmt":"2025-03-14T23:16:20","slug":"listen-carefully-its-actually-much-darker-how-the-left-is-framing-free-speech-as-a-front-for-fascism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/2025\/03\/14\/listen-carefully-its-actually-much-darker-how-the-left-is-framing-free-speech-as-a-front-for-fascism\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cListen carefully it\u2019s actually much darker\u201d: How the left is framing free speech as a front for fascism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The defense of free speech by Vice President J.D. Vance in Munich, Germany, has led to open panic on the left in fighting to maintain European censorship and speech criminalization. The response of the American press and pundits was crushingly familiar. From CBS News to members of Congress, Vance (and anyone who supports his speech) was accused of using Nazi tactics. It is the demonization of dissent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Article by Jonathan Turley republished from JonathanTurley.org<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In one of the most bizarre examples, CBS anchor Margaret Brennan confronted Secretary of State Marco Rubio<\/a> over Vance\u2019s support for free speech given the fact that he was \u201cstanding in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The suggestion that free speech cleared the way for the Holocaust left many scratching their heads, but it is an old saw used by the anti-free speech community, particularly in Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When they came to power, the Nazis moved immediately to crack down on free speech<\/a> and criminalize dissent. They knew that free speech was not only the \u201cindispensable right\u201d<\/em><\/a> for a free people, but the greatest threat to authoritarian power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Figures like Brennan appear to blame free speech for the rise of the Nazis because the Weimar Constitution protected the right of Germans, including Nazis, in their right to speak. However, the right to free speech was far more abridged than our own First Amendment. Indeed, it had many of the elements that the left has pushed in Europe and the United States, including allowing crackdowns<\/a> on disinformation and fake news.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Article 118 of the Weimar Constitution, guaranteed free speech but added that it must be \u201cwithin the limits of the general laws.\u201d It did not protect statements deemed by the government as factually untrue<\/a> and speech was actively regulated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, Hitler was barred from speaking publicly. It was not free speech that the Nazis used to propel their movement, but the denial of free speech. They portrayed the government as so fearful and fragile that it could not allow opposing views to be stated publicly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This ridiculous and ahistorical spin also ignores the fact that other countries like the United States had both fascist movements and free speech, but did not succumb to such extremism. Instead, free speech allowed critics to denounce brownshirts as hateful, dangerous individuals. To blame free speech for the rise of the Nazis is like blaming the crimes of Bernie Maddoff on the use of money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, before the last election, the left was unrelenting<\/a> in accusing those with opposing views as being Nazis or fascists. During the election, it seemed like a one-answer Rorschach test where Democrats saw a Nazi in every political inkblot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the narrative failed in spectacular fashion, the script has not changed. Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) expressed sympathy for the \u201cabsolute shock, absolute shock of our European allies\u201d to be confronted in this fashion. Rather than address the examples of systemic attacks on free speech, Moulton reached again for the favorite talking point: \u201cif you listen, listen carefully it\u2019s actually much deeper and darker. He was talking about the enemy within. This is some of the same language that Hitler used to justify the Holocaust.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like Brennan, Moulton is warning that free speech can be a path to genocide. However, his take is that anyone claiming to be the victim of censorship is taking a page out of the Nazi playbook. The logic is simple. The Nazis complained about censorship. You complained about censorship. Thus, ipso facto, you are a Nazi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others joined the mob in denouncing Vance and supporting the Europeans. CNN regular Bill Kristol called the speech \u201ca humiliation for the US and a confirmation that this administration isn\u2019t on the side of the democracies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By defending free speech, you are now viewed as anti-democratic. It is part of the Orwellian message of the anti-free-speech movement. Democracy demands censorship, and free speech invites fascism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is hardly a novel argument. It was the very rationale used in Germany after World War II to impose what is now one of the most extensive censorship systems in the world. It was initially justified as an anti-Nazi measure but then, as has occurred repeatedly in history, became an insatiable appetite for speech controls. Indeed, the country returned to the prosecution of anything deemed disinformation and fake news by the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more at: JonathanTurley.org<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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