Hate 101
The intersection between demographics, party lines, and free speech
When I grew up in the 1980s and 1990s, it was ingrained in the American psyche that the Democratic Party represented the poor, working, and middle classes. That was true to a degree back them, but times have significantly changed, with the structure of our economy and workforce playing a huge role in that shift.
A widely discussed report in the mainstream media post 2020 election that was published by the thoroughly establishment Brookings Institution confirms the Democratic Party is now clearly the party of the wealthy from a geographic/economic point of view. In fact, it is by a landslide, it is not even close. As the noted study post 2020 Presidential election showed, President Trump won counties that only represented 29% of the American economy, while Joe Biden won the counties that together generate a staggering 71% of U.S. GDP.
Click here to view Brookings Institution Analysis of Election Voting Wealth
This has huge implications on our politics and is the base explanation of an enormous number of differences between the modern Democratic and Republican Parties. There is too much to review in one article, but the angle I would like to focus on is how I believe it explains the shift in why the Democratic Party is now the party that more overtly supports the war machine, censorship, and attacks on free speech.
Follow the money. I’ve learned over the years that everything related to politics truly comes back to the influence of money. In the age of hyper-connectivity, the people who hold more of the country’s wealth are generally going to be more in favor of curtailing free speech at an institutional level. True free speech increasingly is being viewed by those in positions of privilege and power as a threat to their positions. In addition, because so much of our GDP is tied to the military-industrial complex—which in a lot of ways is now the overall engine of our economy—it makes sense that all those wealthy suburbs that make money off our massive military (and all the white collar jobs either closely or loosely associated: intelligence, spying, data gathering, consulting, software, etc.) are going to be sympathetic to the war machine from a base financial perspective. Even our massive health care system increasingly is crossing ties with our military and broader colonial adventurism around the world. Especially after the pandemic, many have perhaps rightly expanded the definition to be our military-health care-industrial complex.
Western Europe has fallen. Not just activists, but ordinary people across the political spectrum are increasingly being arrested and thrown in jail (sometimes with insanely long sentences) for simply expressing their opinions in country after country in so-called “free” Europe, often times for relatively mundane speech. There are endless examples a person can find online of this happening. New laws are rapidly being created in Europe to curtail basic freedoms related to speech and expression. Canada already fell under Trudeau. Similarly, countries such as Australia and New Zealand demonstrated a frightening degree of 1984-style clampdowns on movement and speech during the pandemic. As much as free speech has been under assault in the United States, it cannot be stressed enough that the people of the United States and our First Amendment represent the final bulwark preventing the entire Western “free” World from falling into complete totalitarian rule by a fully fused global bureaucratic government and corporate elite.
The recent arrest of Telegram Founder Pavel Durov signals a massive increase in the war on free speech, as the establishment makes clear they are going hard at shutting down speech on social media as much as possible. There is full-on war on this front. His case will likely prove to be the new Julian Assange-like battle that shapes the next decade. It is distressing to see the seemingly rapid sentiment amongst establishment types in the US to openly expressing thoughts to arresting people like Elon Musk for how he operates the hugely important Twitter/X platform.
“I’m the biggest defender of the 1st Amendment, however…” Whenever you hear a politician or pundit start a comment with these words, you know they are about to say something real stupid and ignorant. This sentence usually finishes with something like “hate speech and misinformation is not protected by the Constitution.” We now hear these words or some version of these thoughts nonstop in our modern mass-brainwashing era. This idea is flat out false and is often pushed hardest by people who have no idea how to address challenges or refuse to address the root causes of challenges facing our society.
There are plenty of truly frighteningly recent video clips and quotes of Vice President Kamala Harris claiming free speech is a “privilege” and “not a right” and Vice-Presidential nominee Tim Walz saying nonsense such as “there is no guarantee of free speech for misinformation.” These statements are flat out wrong but are clear indicators of what a Harris/Walz administration would aim do with our most fundamental right (not privilege!) of free speech; a right enshrined/confirmed with the 1st Amendment.
Click here to watch Tim Walz flatly claim There's No Guarantee to Free Speech for "Misinformation"
“Hate speech” is protected by the 1st Amendment, which was written and put in place not to protect popular speech, but specifically to protect unpopular speech. The courts have repeatedly ruled this to be the case. A perfect example is that the vile people associated with the KKK have repeatedly been ruled to be allowed to spread their ignorant and hateful message via events such as KKK protests and marches through communities.
The ACLU famously argued and won in court the KKK’s right to march in parades and speak publicly on First Amendment grounds:
Of course, many will say in the age of social media, things are different, especially when dealing with private companies monitoring our speech. However, we now have plenty of evidence of the government’s heavy-handed dealings with internet and social media companies, with the government essentially dictating what can be said, but that requires a whole other discussion and article.
The politicians that spread this falsehood often times bring up the example that you cannot yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater, in order to defend their censorship push. This is true, but the fire example is a very specific and defined case, so, yes, there is certain narrow speech that is not protected. The big problem with our establishment declaring “hate speech”—or the in vogue Orwellian “misinformation” concept— as a violation, is that they are declaring it as such in the broadest concept that cannot be defined, which is likely the point of those trying to force this dangerous censorship push. The obvious question is who gets to decide what speech constitutes hate speech? It very quickly escalates and devolves into a campaign of trying to shut down and criminalize any speech that does not conform with the beliefs of those in power.
The big problem with our establishment declaring “hate speech”—or the in vogue Orwellian “misinformation” concept— as a violation, is that they are declaring it as such in the broadest concept that cannot be defined, which is likely the point of those trying to force this dangerous censorship push. The obvious question is who gets to decide what speech constitutes hate speech? It very quickly escalates and devolves into a campaign of trying to shut down and criminalize any speech that does not conform with the beliefs of those in power.
There are endless examples of this type of censorship in the name of “hate” now occurring wherever you look. We saw it (and still do) with the relentless censorship campaign during COVID/pandemic over anyone questioning the official narrative of COVID and vaccines. Many dissenters had and have been labeled as somehow being purveyors of hate speech for questioning policies regarding vaccine mandates, lockdowns, masks, etc.
This is the path to hell and the path to the destruction of the foundations of America. There are only two paths the United States can take: a free society centered on the 1st Amendment or Totalitarianism. Things are indeed escalating rapidly, not just with talk of jailing people for so-called hate speech, but we’ve now opened the pandora’s box of seizing people’s assets, such as their bank accounts for being merely somehow associated with protest that the establishment does not approve of. This was done famously by Dictator Trudeau who went all Martial Law and declared a full suspension of all citizen rights in Canada because of the trucker protest, but it is also now starting to happen with more frequency in the United States. What a terrifying North Korean level of oppression we are flirting with.
The establishment is on a relentless campaign to repeat many falsehoods enough times that the general public will simply grow to accept it. Despite this, I will always be first in line to protect our politicians right to repeatedly spread their stupid, hate-filled, and divisive propaganda speech against the American public. Still, it is our duty as American citizens to call it out though.
This discussion is so critically important and I encourage people to post their thoughts. Do you agree, disagree? Am I off on my argument? Is this truly the principal fight of our time, or is all this talk about protecting free speech and the Constitution overblown?