War on free speech: Politicians and commentators label war critics “traitors”

This article is like a breath of fresh air for me. Silencing critics is about as anti-American values as it gets, in my opinion.

It can be rough supporting free speech by those who we might disagree with, but life is not always easy.

I am especially disappointed by Mitt Romney - I thought that he was a decent guy but his recent comments are untrue and misleading.

A little off topic: I would love to see an accurate list of how much money each Congress person gets from defense industry lobbyists and I would like to also see how defense lobbying affects the news media. After spending half a working lifetime in the defense industry, I can both support my country while at the same time think clearly about the financial motivations for war and conflict.

"The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said 'This is mine', and found people naïve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody."

⇐ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

"The superior worth of simplicity of life, the enervating and demoralising effect of the trammels and hypocrisies of artificial society, are ideas which have never been entirely absent from cultivated minds since Rousseau wrote; and they will in time produce their due effect, though at present needing to be asserted as much as ever, and to be asserted by deeds, for words, on this subject, have nearly exhausted their power."

⇐ John Stuart Mill

Turley fails to make crucial distinctions of degree here.

It's one thing for people to criticize your speech and problems with it, which is the most common case. And that's just known as more speech.

It's another for people to withdraw private associations or memberships, but unless you're gonna say that people can't stop talking to their racist uncle if they don't like it or that a church can't excommunicate vocal atheists, well, you believe that's fine too.

Things start to get important when we're talking about questions of economic livelihood. But then again, if you believe in boycotts or any form of voting with your dollars, then drawing a straightforward line against retaliation here is hard.

The civil line that's most important is whether speech is criminalized. Whether someone can end up paying legal penalties merely for something they've said. Even THAT line is sometimes walked up to with slander/libel (though those are civil not criminal as far as I know) or incitement. But as far as I can tell, we're not particularly closer to it in the last month.

There's just more pointing out that people like Gabbard and Cawthorne and a whole lot of others are on the wrong side.

Turley's job is supposed to be making crucial distinctions of degree. Are most lawyers just really this bad at it, or is he avoiding making distinctions that people examining the issue in good faith would make for more subtle rhetorical purposes?

Can someone explain to me why writing an article condemning people for using a word to describe other people is not also part of the war on free speech? This whole debate has a real snake-eating-its-tail aspect to it that I find completely exhausting.

There is something weird going on with the language where apologists for the aggressor who is imposing the war and without whose continued active action there would be no war are being described as “war critics”; it's kind of like defenders of conservative gender stereotypes being described as “gender critical”.

> This movement began by targeting Russian artists and athletes who were told that they will be cancelled or blacklisted if they do not expressly denounce the Russian invasion of Ukraine and President Vladimir Putin.

Do people realize they are giving these artists and athletes a choice between cancellation and prison?

If that is what you indeed want to do, it would be more fair to simply cancel them, without pretending that you generously gave them a choice which they refused.

Alternatively, how about you make an anti-war statement before their performance? Then you deliver the message, without putting their lives in danger.

What makes our free democracy more valuable if we implement practices of enemy that we are fight against?

Nobody answer my question yet if I ask this about topic of censorship.

In my country DNS provider blocked 12 so called disinformation websites after invasion. No law, no definition of disinformation etc. Gonverment actually accept it. Now ministry of health create list of sites that offer "dangerous medical products".

When we start to block "dangerous thinking"?

> Anonymous says:

> Today, some firefighters (those most-trained to deal with fires) refused to enter a burning building because they didn’t want to anger the fire and escalate the situation.

Calling people traitors is free speech. If you don't like it, grow a pair.

Republicans complaining that the word treason is sometimes used in a sense different from the one in the constitution is rich... It sorta went mainstream with their last guy.

And, arguably, this instance is far closer to the tradition meaning of the word than, say, Barack Obama when he was labeled as such: treason is supporting a foreign enemy in war. Gabbard et al clearly have connections to and sympathy for Putin and people close to him. There's quite a bit of money changing hands, as well. The only formal element missing is that the US is not officially at war with Russia.

Ya, well, as a war critic, I label them as traitors.

Nothing will take the West down harder then wastefully spending money it doesn't have and making enemies around the world by culvert and overt military actions.

And nothing is less Democratic then powerful agencies that aren't properly overseen by elected representation.

Tulsi Gabbard certainly does not deserve the benefit of the doubt after her trip with a Syrian Social Nationalist party delegation to meet Assad in Syria.