The hacking of the American mind

Something in the American mind has been hacked, and while the meat of the case rests on the erosion of barriers between citizens and government, one excellent lead to follow might be burgeoning threats to the First Amendment by the very people charged with preserving it.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is a good example. By suggesting, during his debate with Senator JD Vance, that it is illegal to shout “fire” in a crowded theater he did two things. First, he lied. It is not illegal to shout fire in a crowded theater. The history of that notion, rooted in legislation from the World War I era, is quite clear. Secondly, he betrayed an increasingly hostile view of first amendment protections held by government officials — elected or otherwise — most notably those on the progressive left.

Note the sudden blooming of a new lexicon to describe speech that they do not like: misinformation, disinformation or, from Kamala Harris’ vibe-filled brain, this invention: malinformation. This is the label instantly slapped on anything someone might offer that strays from progressive-think, regardless of whether the dissent is founded in truth and/or legitimate skepticism and disagreement. Worse, what underwrites this ludicrous grasp at censorship is the idea that anything that does not agree with groupthink is, and can only ever be, dangerous.

The most recent example was offered just days ago by FEMA Chief Deanne Criswell, who claims that any narrative contrary to the one offered by the Biden administration regarding its response to Hurricane Helene is a “truly dangerous narrative,” allegedly stoking fear in the minds of government employees.

This is, incidentally, what was behind Matt Taibbi’s excellent reporting on the “Twitter Files,” which showed conclusively that the Biden administration did, in fact, wield the government’s considerable weight against social media behemoths, and individual journalists, to erase information that ran counter to their COVID policies — many of which have now been unmasked as outright invitations to fraud or tyranny — such as shuttering small businesses, arresting parishioners for holding services in a parking lot, or shanghaiing elementary school kids for not wearing masks at the spelling bee.

It’s also worth noting that Walz’s “fire” canard is rooted in the same fundamental notion: that disagreeing with the government is dangerous and should not only be illegal, but severely punished.

This is a thing that Hillary Clinton felt comfortable enough to say out loud, and apparently without shame. Comrade Clinton, whose campaign funded an enormous information fraud called the Steele Dossier, had this to say about whatever she — and her party apparatchiks —consider to be disinformation: “there are Americans who are engaged in this kind of propaganda and whether they should be civilly, or even in some cases, criminally charged, is something that would be a better deterrence.”

In this case, “propaganda” is merely a colorful substitute for “people who disagree with me.” But it isn’t entirely surprising, coming from a woman who served in the Obama Administration, which even the cratering New York Times noted “has pursued more journalists than other administrations, secretly looking at phone records and credit card transactions and surreptitiously tracking their movements.”

Some of those pursued ended up in jail for refusing to toe the government line.

The Orange Man has made great hay out of “fake news,” which is at least a cousin to “malinformation”, but he also didn’t throw any journalists in jail.

John Kerry, another drug-resistant parasite who is continually attaching himself to various jet-setting oligarchies, recently bemoaned the First Amendment as an impediment to governance. From the mouth of Herr Kerry: “It’s really hard to govern today…people self-select where they go for their news or their information…so it’s really hard to build consensus.” Kerry went on to say that his desire was that government be “free to govern.”

Kerry doesn’t like it that people can disagree with him. He views social media as a threat to the kind of obstacle-free government that many of the world’s worst tyrants yearn for — and always have. That he was speaking at the World Economic Forum — which, if you didn’t know, is a vile consortium of the über wealthy who seem to believe that mere wealth gives them the right to set policy for the entire world, makes perfect sense.

What’s more concerning is that so many Americans now agree. Disagreement bothers them. The exercise of the First Amendment terrifies them. The reason it terrifies them is because they aren’t able to control what other people think or say, and when your agenda requires the exertion of control over other people — manifest by endless efforts to disarm you, to limit your speech, and by deciding what you should eat, what you should drive, where you can live, what stove you are allowed to use — ad-infinitum — their frustration bubbles over.

Taibbi, in his recent speech in Washington, noted that, “Institutional impunity is the chief characteristic of our current form of government.” He’s right about that. And that sense of entitlement to absolute power, of impunity in its execution, has leaked all the way down to local chambers of government — even HOAs — where it is more apparent than ever that your freedoms enrage them.

Which is why it is more important than ever to exercise them vigorously. As Taibbi noted: “The end game is not controlling speech. They’re already doing that. The endgame is getting us to forget we ever had anything to say.”