Hillary Demonstrates Why Eric Posner’s Proposal to Curtail Free Speech Is Dangerous
The other day I wrote about anti-speech law professor Eric Posner and his crazy idea to shut off Americans’ access to ISIS Web sites. Popehat piled on here. Posner replied to his critics (naming none) here, and Popehat called Posner’s rebuttal a lie here.
But Hillary Clinton, in last night’s debate, made it clear why Posner’s proposal is so dangerous. Hillary made a claim about ISIS showing people videos of a Republican candidate to recruit jihadis.
Many people will be running their mouths over the next day or two about whether her claim is true, whether she has evidence for it, and so forth. That’s not the point of this post. My point here is this:
If Posner’s law passed, Hillary could claim anything she wanted to claim about what ISIS Web sites say. And you would not be allowed to check her claim.
In the age of the Internet, we have learned beyond doubt that what we always suspected is true: you can’t trust anyone. Candidates lie to you. Big Media covering candidates lies to you. The “fact-checkers” who claim to correct others’ lies . . . yes, they lie to you too.
And the way we learn this is by checking primary sources. Sorry, guys, he didn’t really say that in the video. The candidate never made that claim. Nope, you guys are lying. We know because we examined the evidence ourselves.
Posner “reassured” people that there would still be a place for people to look at ISIS Web sites, saying “the law could contain broad exemptions for people who can show that they have a legitimate interest in viewing ISIS websites.”
And who would decide if their interest was legitimate?
Why, the government.
So the government would hand-pick the people fact-checking their claims.
Eric Posner doesn’t much care about any of this, because I bet you he thinks there’s nothing wrong with what Big Media says. He probably thinks the fact-checkers always get it right. He probably thinks that the Democrats don’t lie, and that the Republicans lie all the time but are set straight by Big Media and fact-checkers. He thinks we can trust government to decide who has legitimate access to ISIS Web sites.
If he thinks that, he is a fool. Based on his recent pieces, that conclusion would not be surprising.
And by the way? I have no idea if ISIS is showing videos of Trump to recruit jihadis.
It’s almost impossible to believe they’re not.
But if they’re not, Hillary just gave them a pretty good idea.
Patterico (2e1e5e) — 12/20/2015 @ 9:21 amThis is an important election. Thanks for another reminder why.
Simon Jester (39754a) — 12/20/2015 @ 9:26 amFrom what I have seen of Chump, he would be all for an idea like Posner’s.
Someone should ask him about it.
Patterico (2e1e5e) — 12/20/2015 @ 9:31 amPeople like Bill’s wife and Eric Posner are typical of ass-backwards liberals. They have a knack for citing the wrong thing (handguns! Grr!) or wrong person (the guy who made that mean anti-Islamic Youtube video around the time of the Benghazi bloodletting!! Grr!) when determining who or what is to blame, and, in turn, never citing the thing (political correctness all around Nidal Hasan) or person (well, for starters, the typical liberal similar to a Hillary or Eric) who truly deserves repudiation.
Mark (f713e4) — 12/20/2015 @ 9:34 amSomeone should ask him about it.
I’d also be interested if he thought What’s-His-Name was a patriot or not.
Mark (f713e4) — 12/20/2015 @ 9:36 amisn’t this Hillary the same hooch what said Chelsea was jogging around the World Trade Center on 9/11?
happyfeet (831175) — 12/20/2015 @ 9:43 amMark hey picklehead guess what i have in my pocket
happyfeet (831175) — 12/20/2015 @ 9:54 amI’m exercising my discretion to remove two of my comments angrily popping off at Mark and one of his comments responding to it. My reasons are my own. Let us speak of it no more.
Mark, this subject is extremely, extremely tiresome. Not just to me but to everyone here. Drop it.
Patterico (2e1e5e) — 12/20/2015 @ 10:12 amPatterico, given the socio-political circumstances in this society going back several years, or decades, if a person (you, me and everyone else) isn’t showing signs of particular anger at this moment in time, then something is wrong with him or her. In effect — and given the Xmas-themed movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” — the US has become one giant Potterville, and more of us (or certainly me) have become increasingly cynical, suspicious, disheartened and pissed off.
What’s-His-Name actually reminds me of the corrupt, devious, amoral banker in that movie starring Jimmy Stewart.
Mark (f713e4) — 12/20/2015 @ 10:41 amISIS may show recruits vids of Trump, but they get far more mileage showing them vids of western leaders tying themselves into knots to avoid mentioning the root of the problem, turning on their own people, and destroying their own civilization.
Remember the documents the government entered into evidence in the Holy Land Foundation trial. The MB’s plan for overthrowing the west is to tear down “their own miserable house with their own hands.” The MB’s ideology is the jihadist ideology. So now the jihadis can sit and laugh and watch fools like Merkel and Cameron and most especially Prom Queen do it. So now we’re going to trash freedom of speech, one of the foundational principles of western civilization. Yup, here we are tearing down our own house ourselves.
Steve57 (ade9b5) — 12/20/2015 @ 10:42 ami wanna make you a drink so bad
happyfeet (831175) — 12/20/2015 @ 10:42 amMark mostly but for sure I got a special tasty red cup season scotch for you Mr. 57
for Mark I was thinking like a sidecar
happyfeet (831175) — 12/20/2015 @ 10:43 amThe post actually addresses a topic, and I invite people to comment on the topic raised in the post.
Patterico (2e1e5e) — 12/20/2015 @ 10:43 amSo the government would hand-pick the people fact-checking their claims.
this is what they do already by not releasing the data they falsified about the global warming hoax
happyfeet (831175) — 12/20/2015 @ 10:52 amWe also don’t get the actual videos and audio tapes by al Qaeda and ISIS.
And there’s one question I have: I’ve been wondering all along if Tashfeen Malik actually posted the pledge of loyalty to ISIS herself.
It just might be a convenient conclusion by the government.
The indictment of Enrique Marquez:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/18/us/san-bernardino-enrique-marquez-charges-justice-department.html
Gives the following timeline: (Go down to the end of the article.)
How does that jibe with the timeline of the attack? If she did it herself, would she do it after the attack, or before? And from what device was her Facebook page altered? (her later-to-be-smashed cellphone? Or some other device? BTW, I think it was her profile page that had the pledge of allegiance added to it, not a post, but nobody has seen it, except Facebook eventually said it said “we” Facebook discovered it that day, probably after her name had been released, because an e-mail she had once used was linked to it, and took it down the next day after consulting the government)
Her account is also said to have spent time that morning looking at ISIS pages.
Was this all a false flag? (by al Qaeda, let’s say?) Did she even know she was supposed to be acting on behalf of ISIS? (It’s true ISIS now has some loyalists in Afganistan/Pakistan)
Another thing from terrorists that nobody saw, or nobody has published, is the Ansar al Sharia claim of responsibility for Benghazi posted on Facebook the night of the Benghazi attack September 11, 2012. This is what Hillary Clinton says she and others were relying on when tghey first said it was a terrorist attack, but then Ansar al Sharia retracted it, or claimed it was not authorized, and the CIA accepted the retraction.
What it exactly said is not known.
Sammy Finkelman (a69e24) — 12/20/2015 @ 11:26 amFree speech allows the media to cover stories in a agenda promoting scenario. So bill’s wife says what she wants and gets away with it anyhow. For her ilk, it does not matter.
mg (31009b) — 12/20/2015 @ 11:29 am@13, yes, and part of the the topic is that Posner is a fool for thinking and believing a number of idiotic things. Underlying it all is a foolish belief that freedom of speech, which includes the free flow of information, isn’t important. It doesn’t occur to him that he’s harming anything that’s worth much. But free speech is responsible in great part for the advance of western civilization. I wanted to point out that our “betters”in government here and abroad can’t think of a reason to keep this principle around either. And that is the best help they can give ISIS. Posner came up with this stupidity in response to the tbreat ISIS poses. But our ignorance is their gr www atest ally. An c.f. d Posner, Clinton, Obama, Cameron, Merkel, et al, would strengthen that ally.
Steve57 (2e8a60) — 12/20/2015 @ 11:53 amFor me, the biggest problem is the idea that we have to curtail freeflowing speech in this country because it MIGHT make bad people do bad things. This ignores the fact that bad people will do bad things anyway, with or without an excuse. But what it WILL do is limit discussion and research to areas the powers-that-be feel comfortable with. You will not be allowed to leave the reservation of approved thought and expression.
Tragic Christian (813e3a) — 12/20/2015 @ 1:35 pmyes, we need more information not less, I’m not buying that they didn’t know about the text messages, in part because of CISA,
narciso (732bc0) — 12/20/2015 @ 2:47 pmfor example Carlos Slims and the Bezos Post, have left out these details,
http://nypost.com/2015/12/19/obama-is-releasing-terrorists-to-wage-jihad-against-america/
narciso (732bc0) — 12/20/2015 @ 2:51 pmPosner “reassured” people that there would still be a place for people to look at ISIS Web sites, saying “the law could contain broad exemptions for people who can show that they have a legitimate interest in viewing ISIS websites.”
–It occurs to me that someone looking at a parody of an ISIS website (they exist) could face the censure of US government officials who *do not understand that person was looking at a parody website.*
Oh, the possibilities!
JP (ed49ce) — 12/21/2015 @ 5:31 am