Are YOU Politically Correct? Everything Cool With The Trigger Alerts Lately?

Yesterday, libertarian think tank CATO released some interesting polling, their annual State of Free Speech and Tolerance in America, which seeks to measure attitudes about free speech, campus speech, religious liberty and tolerance of political expression. You may not agree with their conclusions but they're worth paying attention to because they help explain the non-Fox News listeners' hatred for Hillary, Pelosi and other Democrats beyond just knee-jerk defensive assumptions about the sad state of American voters' intelligence. Let's start with this one: 71% of Americans believe that political correctness has silenced important discussions our society needs to have. Just 28% of Americans believe that political correctness has done more to help people avoid offending others.

The consequences are personal-- 58% of Americans believe the political climate prevents them from sharing their own political beliefs.

Democrats are unique, however, in that a slim majority (53%) do not feel the need to self-censor. Conversely, strong majorities of Republicans (73%) and independents (58%) say they keep some political beliefs to themselves.

It follows that a solid majority (59%) of Americans think people should be allowed to express unpopular opinions in public, even those deeply offensive to others. On the other hand, 40% think government should prevent hate speech. Despite this, the survey also found Americans willing to censor, regulate, or punish a wide variety of speech and expression they personally find offensive:

• 51% of staunch liberals say it’s “morally acceptable” to punch Nazis.
• 53% of Republicans favor stripping U.S. citizenship from people who burn the American flag.
• 51% of Democrats support a law that requires Americans use transgender people’s preferred gender pronouns.
• 65% of Republicans say NFL players should be fired if they refuse to stand for the anthem.
• 58% of Democrats say employers should punish employees for offensive Facebook posts.
• 47% of Republicans favor bans on building new mosques.

Americans also can’t agree what speech is hateful, offensive, or simply a political opinion:

• 59% of liberals say it’s hate speech to say transgender people have a mental disorder; only 17% of conservatives agree.
• 39% of conservatives believe it’s hate speech to say the police are racist; only 17% of liberals agree.
• 80% of liberals say it’s hateful or offensive to say illegal immigrants should be deported; only 36% of conservatives agree.
• 87% of liberals say it’s hateful or offensive to say women shouldn’t fight in military combat roles, while 47% of conservatives agree.
• 90% of liberals say it’s hateful or offensive to say homosexuality is a sin, while 47% of conservatives agree. 

Americans Oppose Hate Speech Bans, But Say Hate Speech is Morally Unacceptable

Although Americans oppose (59%) outright bans on public hate speech, that doesn’t mean they think hate speech is acceptable. An overwhelming majority (79%) say it’s “morally unacceptable” to say offensive things about racial or religious groups.

Black, Hispanic, and White Americans Disagree about How Free Speech Operates

African Americans and Hispanics are more likely than white Americans to believe:

• Free speech does more to protect majority opinions, not minority viewpoints (59%, 49%, 34%).
• Supporting someone’s right to say racist things is as bad as holding racist views yourself (65%, 61%, 34%).
• People who don’t respect others don’t deserve the right of free speech (59%, 62%, 36%).
• Hate speech is an act of violence (75%, 72%, 46%).
• Our society can prohibit hate speech and still protect free speech (69%, 71%, 49%).
• People usually have bad intentions when they express offensive opinions (70%, 75%, 52%).

However, black, Hispanic, and white Americans agree that free speech ensures the truth will ultimately prevail (68%, 70%, 66%). Majorities also agree that it would be difficult to ban hate speech since people can’t agree what hate speech is (59%, 77%, 87%).

Two-Thirds Say Colleges Aren’t Doing Enough to Teach the Value of Free Speech

Two-thirds (66%) of Americans say colleges and universities aren’t doing enough to teach young Americans today about the value of free speech. When asked which is more important, 65% say colleges should “expose students to all types of viewpoints, even if they are offensive or biased against certain groups.” About a third (34%) say colleges should “prohibit offensive speech that is biased against certain groups.”

But Americans are conflicted. Despite their desire for viewpoint diversity, a slim majority (53%) also agree that “colleges have an obligation to protect students from offensive speech and ideas that could create a difficult learning environment.” This share rises to 66% among Democrats, but 57% of Republicans disagree.

76% Say Students Shutting Down Offensive Speakers Reveals “Broader Pattern” of How Students Cope

More than three-fourths (76%) of Americans say that recent campus protests and cancellations of controversial speakers are part of a “broader pattern” of how college students deal with offensive ideas. About a quarter (22%) think these protests and shutdowns are simply isolated incidents.

However, when asked about specific speakers, about half of Americans with college experience think a wide variety should not be allowed to speak at their college:

• A speaker who says that all white people are racist (51%)
• A speaker who says Muslims shouldn’t be allowed to come to the U.S. (50%)
• A speaker who says that transgender people have a mental disorder (50%)
• A speaker who publicly criticizes and disrespects the police (49%)
• A speaker who says all Christians are backward and brainwashed (49%)
• A speaker who says the average IQ of whites and Asians is higher than African Americans and Hispanics (48%)
• A speaker who says the police are justified in stopping African Americans at higher rates than other groups (48%)
• A speaker who says all illegal immigrants should be deported (41%)
• A speaker who says men on average are better at math than women (40%)

Are political correct demands the reason Trump does as well as he does? Over and above what this survey shows, I'd say it's a real factor. No one likes being told how to live their lives and what they can say and not say. Civil society has to somehow figure out authoritarian tendencies of snowflakes with a functioning democracy with rapidly fraying shared values. Trump will only acerbate the mess as part of the divisiveness he cultivates to expand his power. Eye on the ball!

Bring Me The Head Of Donald J. Trump: Was Kathy Griffin Simply Ahead Of The Curve?

-by Noah

I've never been a fan of Kathy Griffin, and I'm certainly not a fan of CNN, but she may just have been ahead of the curve with her infamous "severed head" bit. I admit that what she did was more than a bit strong; forgive the pun; too cutting edge. But, in light of what our evil orange Kim Jong-un imitator and wannabe has done with his anti-Earth decision, I suspect more people will eventually come to see Griffin's action as maybe not so far beyond the pale after all. Perhaps, in the meantime, she could just pose with a depiction of a burning, cracking Earth.

Kathy Griffin has apologized, saying what she did went too far. Fellow comic Jamie Foxx had this to say:

Listen, as comedians, sometimes you do go beyond, past the line. I still love Kathy Griffin. She went past the line, she’ll pay for it in the way she pays for it, and we’ll go out and laugh with her again.

Another fellow comic, Jim Carey, has defended her. As Carey said, "The joke is not the problem."

Context matters. In one instance, a comedian held a depiction of the severed head of one asshole. In the other instance, an asshole has gravely endangered the lives of billions of human beings, born and as yet to be born. So, where should Kathy Griffin stand on the scale of inappropriate behavior? I even have to wonder how these two events would have been received if their chronological order had been reversed.

Don the Con, who once characterized Megyn Kelly as having "blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her-- whatever," responded to Griifin’s action by saying that Griffin is sick (pot calling the kettle black there) and that his 11-year-old son, Baron, was having a hard time with what she did. Then again, I am sure that many 11-year-old girls were freaked to hear a presidential candidate bragging about grabbing girls by the pussy and walking into the dressing rooms of naked 13 year old models, etc.

Apparently, like father like son, little Baron has no problem with his mommy’s fab collection of porn pics. Either way, the kid is going to grow up muy warpo just because of his lineage.

Comedy isn’t always pretty. At its darkest, the edgy stuff can even seem to be not comedy at all, but, whatever you want to call it, it sends a message. It is still, under our Constitution, free speech, and, let’s face it, when Republicans are rightly excoriated for literally hanging and burning effigies of Barack Obama and indulging in their birtherism conspiracies and worse, they are the first to yell "free speech" and whine about political correctness.

El Señor Trumpanzee himself has encouraged violence at his rallies, saying that he would even cover the legal fees. Like others in his party, he has hinted about second amendment solutions to his political rivals such as Hillary Clinton. So, Trump is a fine one to jump all over Kathy Griffin for what she did. Dear Don the Con, how ‘bout seeing to your own backyard.

By and large, most Americans, regardless of where their individual politics land on the political spectrum condemned Griffin’s action. However, Trump and his supporters are now engaged in one of the things that is a favorite pastime of Republicans, bullying and even death threats. For what? Free speech? The stench of hypocrisy is strong with these people.

Why our sorry excuse for a so-called leader does what he does is much discussed. He is a Marvel Comics or DC Comics Lex Luther-esq villain come to life, right down to his freakish facial expressions and bizarre hair. The serious mental illness of the man is a given. It actually goes without saying. How any clear-headed person can watch him and listen to him speak without seeing the obvious sickness is beyond any rationality.

Does Trump support the mass death-causing elimination of healthcare for millions after promising the opposite because, like a comic book villain, he is so angry at humanity over some misperceived slights in his past? Did he withdraw our country from the Paris Accords, eliminate millions of future renewable energy jobs, and, lower our standing in the world community for the same reason? How many Americans will his environmental policies end up killing? The answer to that one is more than all terrorist attacks to date.

Is Trump’s megalomania so far out of control that he is determined to have his name writ huuuge in history by continually committing crimes against all of humanity no matter what? History is full of horrifically disturbed Lee Harvey Oswalds, mad bombers, and authoritarian despots who felt the same way. For true psychopaths, having their names in the bright lights and history books is the important thing, not necessarily how they got there.

Suppose that, later this year, it is proven that Donald J. Trump is what he appears to be, a Russian agent, a Manchurian President who has been doing Putin’s bidding every step of the way, from eliminating the sanctions on Russia to dividing us away from our strongest allies, and hampering our future economy. Renewable energy jobs? Who needs ‘em? How many Americans then will agree with or feel a bit better about what Kathy Griffin did? How many will see her as yet another artist who once presented a prescient glimpse of the future?

In what is left of that future, our grandchildren will suffer from the results of a Trump presidency. Trump’s grandchildren may very well have to change their surnames.

And, a little thank you from all of us at DWT for a Saturday night/Sunday morning... a kind of bonus. Enjoy:

An eighth-grader can't wear an incendiary T-shirt like this in a class photo, can she?

Apparently she can't in Owensville, Ohio, where her school principal ordered the T-shirt Photoshopped out. (Sophie, the student in question, supplied this photo of herself holding the T-shirt to the website Women You Should Know.)

by Ken

Just this afternoon in my previous post I was reduced to spluttering in the face of the continued misunderstanding emanating from the Vatican, which doesn't quite get that female people are people just like male people are. Of course the Vatican isn't alone. The Vatican motto enshrined by Pope John Paul II and Pope Cardinal Ratguts, and apparently now tolerated by Pope Francis, is "Them Bitches Be Hos." They're okay to cook and clean, and of course to bear children, for which purpose it's even okay to have s*x with them. But otherwise, they're just accessories.

In case you were wondering why it matters that an organization as influential as the Catholic Church champions the mental deformity that produces this bullshit, we have a case in point this week coming out of Ohio. For once, thank goodness, it's not a case of rape or other violence perpetrated against a woman. But it's pretty appalling nonetheless, not least for being perpetrated by a school.


Since I was extremely un-confident about an embedded version of this clip loading, I'll suggest that you watch it onsite.

A picture is supposed to be worth a thousand words, but sometimes it's what's not in the picture that sends the words flying. As with the eighth-grade photo from Clermont Northeastern Middle School in Owensville, Ohio, in which the principal had a T-shirt with the word "FEMINIST" worn by a student in the front row Photoshopped out, apparently because it might cause controversy -- or even "upset" some people.

Here's Ian Millhiser reporting the story for ThinkProgress:

An eighth grade student at Clermont Northeastern Middle School in Batavia, Ohio wore a black T-shirt on class photo day which included the word “FEMINIST” written across the shirt in white letters. Yet, while the shirt does not violate any school rule and the student has worn it to classes before, the school chose to doctor her class photo to remove the word.

According to the site Women You Should Know, which identifies the student as “Sophie,” Sophie asked principal Kendra Young why the word “FEMINIST” was removed from her shirt in the class photo that was distributed to students, and was told that “the photographer called me and brought it to my attention and I made the decision to black it out because some people might find it offensive.”

Principal Young has reportedly apologized to Sophie for doctoring her shirt, and Young also offered to provide Sophie with an unaltered copy of the class picture. According to a local news report, however, the doctored photo is displayed within the school.

And here's a more detailed account provided by the student's mother, Christine, to the website Women You Should Know:

A couple of weeks ago Sophie wore a t-shirt to school that she had made that said “FEMINIST.” She wore the shirt all day without any issues. It also happened to be the day the 8th grade class pictures were taken.

On Monday, the pictures were handed out to the students and Sophie sees the photo and notices that the word FEMINIST had been blacked out on her shirt. Sophie went to the school principal, Mrs. Young, to find out why this happened. Mrs. Young said, “the photographer called me and brought it to my attention and I made the decision to black it out because some people might find it offensive.”

A friend of Sophie’s called me and I went to the school. Mrs. Young walked out and wouldn’t talk to me about what had happened. I have emailed her twice and she has yet to contact me at all.

Sophie was not violating dress code, she was not inappropriately dressed. Being a feminist is not a bad thing. She should be allowed to express herself.

She just wants everyone to be treated equally. That’s it. The end. She thinks everyone should be treated kindly and with love and that we should all have the same rights. Merriam Webster’s definition of feminism is the belief that men and women should have equal opportunities. Most people, especially in this area, seem to think feminism and misandry go hand and hand and that’s a common misconception. You can still love men and be a feminist. You can still be a homemaker and be a feminist. That’s where we are with this. We just want equality.

I am completely dumbfounded by the situation. I’m upset that the principal won’t speak to me or return my emails regarding the situation. I would think she would want our involvement. I’m just shocked by how the entire thing is being handled.

Wednesday afternoon, the same blogpost reports Christine provided this update:

I actually had a meeting with Mrs. Young (the one who blacked out the shirt) today. She apologized to me profusely, of course, after the local news station called her this morning! She asked me if we were good? I told her she needed to apologize to Sophie and ask her that question. She seemed dumbfounded by that. So she called Sophie down to the office. She apologized to Sophie and asked “What do you want from this?” Sophie replied, “I want everyone to realize that we NEED feminism. I want you to have someone come into the school and educate everyone about feminism. I want us to go to the news station together and show the people that we are working together the make this school and our community and better place for everyone. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.” I was so proud of her. She never once said I want a public apology or anything like that. She just wants to give to others. She is such a great kid.

Surely of all people a school principal, charged with educating the students under her oversight, should understand that if there are people who are violently upset by the mere word "feminism," then the one person whose problem it isn't is the student wearing the T-shirt. It's certainly the problem of any such people who would have made a stink about it, but the solution is for them to get over it -- or go the hell back where they came from, which can't possibly be the U.S.A. And I guess it's a problem for the school and for society insofar as we allow censorship merely to coddle their diseased sensibilities and deformed understanding of how our country is designed to work.

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Those goddamn Frenchies . . . oh wait, suddenly we love the French

This week's New Yorker cover -- "Solidarité," by Ana Juan

by Ken

I've refrained from comment on the horrors in Paris, because really what is there to say? The realities of the situation are at once clear and deeply twisted, at once a challenge to conscience and a summons to abject hopelessness. But one thing you can count on is that the American Right, which can always be counted on not just to get it wrong, but to get it wrong from every imaginable angle, will get it violently wrong, displaying perhaps unprecedented depths of ignorance, imbecility, dishonesty, vileness, degradation, and savagery. Take the case of Texas Rep. Randy Weber, who in his now-famous tweet put himself in the position of urging, as washingtonpost.com's Alexandra Petri put it, "Oh, President Obama, why can't you be more like Hitler?"

The congressman has apologized, of course, but it's hard to think what a suitable apology might be for screeched ignorance of such violence, even with the obvious explanation that the screecher is screeching without benefit of a working brain. Note that I say "explanation," not "excuse."

I was especially grateful to Dana Milbank for his ripe appreciation, in his Washington Post column today, of the irony of the American Right's sudden-found solidarity with the French.

A decade ago, Republicans in Congress were renaming French fries “freedom fries” and French toast “freedom toast” because of that country’s refusal to support the Iraq war. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld belittled the “old Europe” French, President George W. Bush mocked an American reporter for speaking French to the French president, and conservative critics called the French “weasels,” “appeasers” and worse. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, was ridiculed by the Bush administration for being “too French” and looking French, and his fluency in French was a liability in the campaign.

And now, that very same Monsieur Kerry, the secretary of state, and his boss, President Obama, are being condemned by conservatives for . . . not being nice enough to the French.

Quelle horreur!

And Dana goes on to note with special astonishment the fatuousness, as well as historical obliviousness, of charging Secretary Kerry with insufficient sympathy for the French.

BUT TO RETURN TO REALITY --

Contrary to the delusive imagining of GWB-era Pentagon buttwipe Dov Zakheim, who spoke of "what may have been the most important demonstration for decency since the fall of the Berlin Wall," beyond the feel-good symbolism of the even, it has no practical significance. All those leaders can get together and wag their fingers at the terrorists, but that won't lessen either (a) the underlying grievances of the peoples among whom terrorism has arisen or (b) our general powerlessness to protect ourselves from the terrorists even as the would-be bullying in fact strengthens them.

Even as the French nation makes its brave show of standing up for freedom of expression, the result will be the opposite, in part because the French legal system's stakehas never been in protecting free speech but in limiting it, making sure that any exercise of it that's subject to challenge falls into the extremely limited categories of speech that are protected under law. And meanwhile, not only in France but most everywhere else, the defense of freedom of expression will be carried out mostly by clamping down on it.

Of course you could argue that this suits the right-wing thugs just fine, since clamping down on freedom of expression has always been high on their list of priorities. Oh sure, the American Right over the last decade or so has come to fall back repeatedly on free speech as its bulwark, but of course they're no less opposed to free speech, to all freedom of expression really, than they ever were. The whole point about the freedom of expression is that it's meant to cover the people you don't agree with. The Righties have no interest in the freedom of expression of people they don't agree with. All they care about is their right to lie, smear, and brutalize with every resource at their disposal. If all else fails, they seem to say, we'll Second Amendment you into oblivion.

Which brings us to the latest outbreak of right-wing psychosis. With their brains, as usual, set to Absolulte Zero IQ mode, they have -- surprise -- arrived at a state of affairs where the villain of this dramedy is (who else?) President Obama, and maybe Secretary of State Kerry.

Yes, the U.S. should have had some sort of representation in Paris. But as Dana Milbank puts it, this falls "in the category of faux pas," not diplomatic crisis.

Sending the president across the ocean on 36 hours’ notice to an open-air rally of hundreds of thousands of people was never a possibility, for security and logistical reasons. But Vice President Biden could have gone; instead, the closest he got to Paris was dining at the French restaurant Le Diplomate in Washington on the eve of the attack. At least Attorney General Eric Holder, already in Paris, might have dropped by. Officials I spoke to said it was a simple screw-up: They didn’t understand how significant the event would be, with leaders of some 40 countries in attendance.

To imagine that the demonstration, beyond its very low-level feel-good quality, is of any practical importance is to show an absolutely total lack of understanding of absolutely any of the issues involved, from the simplest to the most complex.

The fact remains that the people who believe in free speech will now be looking over their shoulders, even as they can't be protected from violence, while the people who don't believe in free speech have the pleasure of attacking it and circumscribing it -- in the name of protecting it! This is so preposterous that it ought to be funny. It just happens not to be.

This is actually not much different, if you think about it, from the way the paradox of the right-wing call for brutal repression of terrorism, which has the effect -- so obvious that even the brain-deadest right-winger should be able to see it -- of creating broader, deeper, and more tenacous support for the grievances that underlie it. Even as George W. Bush was blundering his way through Iraq, wasn't it blindingly obvious that the long-term effect (and I don't mean all that long-term) would be to create more terrorists with deeper and wider support? But this turns out to suit the interest of the right-wing blowhards, because it ensures them of a permanent subject for blowing hard on.

So we have people (and I use the term in its broadest, most genetically fundamentalist sense) like Rafael "Ted from Alberta" blithering about it with an even more example of his invariable cretinousness and viciousness. Is there any possible explanation for him not being safely confined in a maximum-security mental facility, for both his own and the world at large's benefit?

In other words, it's business as usual.

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You're des-THPIC-able, Miss Mitch! (You tell it, Daffy!)

Isn't this a better look for Senate Minority Leader "Miss Mitch" McConnell? Even with the still-clenched body language, doesn't he seem worlds kinder and gentler?

by Ken

So this morning on the radio they were playing clips from the Senate dialogue on a bill that I gather is intended to increase transparency in political contributions.

So there was Maine's Independent senator, Angus King, saying that you couldn't get up and speak at a town meeting, perhaps our truest form of democracy, with a bag over your head. After all, he went on, who you are is an important part of the package of comment you're delivering; listeners need this information to help evaluate the comment.

Interesting, no?

Then there was "Miss Mitch" McConnell, declaring in that repulsive lying drone we've come to know and hate that that this is nothing more than yet another atttempt to limit free speech.

Now I'm not sure either senator had it quite right, or quite meant exactly what he was saying. As I'm sure Miss Mitch might have pointed out, if it had been paying attention, you certainly could speak at a New England town meeting with a bag over your head. Who's to stop you? I think Senator King is certainly correct to the extent that such speech wouldn't be taken terribly seriously, but I don't see that you couldn't do it.

And I for one regret that Miss Mitch didn't stick it to Senator King by wearing a paper bag over its own personal head, as illustrated above. Not only is it allowable on the Senate floor, it's an unarguable improvement.

To go with this much-improved new look, I think Miss Mitch could look to deploying a new voice. Once no one has to look at its loathsome face, there will be even less tolerance for the droning sound of savage imbecility that accompanies it. My first thought was something along these lines:



But on reflection, I had to conclude that Daffy is too upright, too characterful to serve as the voice of Miss Mitch. I think something more along these lines might be more suitable:



NOW, AS TO MISS MITCH'S FIBBING --

Even as hopelessly pathological a liar as Our Miss Mitch knows that limiting free speech isn't what this legislation is about. It just says that because . . . well, because even an "it" has free speech and knows it can say it.

We already know that what Miss Mitch thinks of as "free" speech isn't free at all; it's in fact quite expensive -- it might be better to call it "top-dollar speech." This Miss Mitch believes in fervently. It also believes fervently in dishonest speech, which after all is the lifeblood of its public career.

And, regrettably, neither of these -- top-dollar speech nor dishonest speech -- is being challenged here. The Supreme Court, alas, regards it as a done deal that money is speech, and as for dishonest speech, well, it's well established that it's as much protected as honest speech; we don't distinguish, except in the most extraordinary circumstances. The traditional remedy for objectionable speech is supposed to be more free speech., though of course when it's actually top-dollar speech, it's not so easy to counteract, which of course is what proponents of Miss Mitchified "free" speech count on.

Which still leaves the "secret" part, and here Senator King's town-hall analogy seems to me quite interesting. The last I checked, even as fervent an upholder of the dictatorship of the overprivileged as Supreme Court Justice Nino Scalia was writing in no uncertain terms that the Constitution provides no protection for the identity of a free-speechifier. So when Miss Mitch demands protection for Top-Dollar, Lying, Secret Speech, in reality only two of those things are protected. And the legislation at issue is in fact aimed at the unprotected "secret" part.

Consider that even with a paper bag over its head, we'll still know that it's Miss Mitch.

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About this judge who ruled that Facebook "likes" aren't "speech" -- is this guy really a judge?

"Merely 'liking' a Facebook page is insufficient speech to merit constitutional protection. In cases where courts have found that constitutional protections extended to Facebook posts, actual statements existed within the record."

-- Newport News (VA) U.S. District Judge Raymond A.
Jackson, in a preposterous January ruling

by Ken

Judge Jackson's brilliant ruling about Facebook "likes," I should explain, was the reason, or one of the reasons, why he summarily dismissed the complaint of Daniel Ray Carter Jr., a sheriff's deputy in Hampton, VA, who alleged that he was fired by Sheriff B. J. Roberts because he "liked" the Facebook page of an official in their office who was running against the sheriff for reelection. The case has come back to life because a bunch of briefs have just been filed in support of Carter's appeal by Facebook and the ACLU with the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, as reported by the Washington Post's Justin Jouneval ("A Facebook court battle: Is 'liking' something protected free speech?").

Daniel Ray Carter Jr. logged on to Facebook and did what millions do each day: He "liked" a page by clicking the site's thumbs up icon. The problem was that the page was for a candidate who was challenging his boss, the sheriff of Hampton, Va.

That simple mouse click, Carter says, caused the sheriff to fire him from his job as a deputy and put him at the center of an emerging First Amendment debate over the ubiquitous digital seal of approval: Is liking something on Facebook protected free speech? . . .

Carter's troubles began in the summer of 2009, when longtime Hampton Sheriff B.J. Roberts was running for reelection, according to the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Newport News in March 2011. Roberts learned that some of his employees, including Carter, were actively supporting another high-ranking Sheriff's Office official, Jim Adams, in the election.

Carter liked Adams's campaign page on Facebook, according to court records. When Roberts learned of the campaigning on the site, he became "incensed" and called a meeting of employees, according to the lawsuit. He allegedly told them that he would be sheriff for "as long as I want it."

After the meeting, the lawsuit says, Roberts approached Carter and told him: "You made your bed, now you're going to lie in it -- after the election you're gone."

About a month after Roberts was reelected, Carter and five other employees who supported Adams or did not actively campaign for Roberts were fired, according to the lawsuit. The other employees are also parties in the lawsuit.

Now are you getting this? Judge Ray is saying that Deputy Carter's Facebook "like" doesn't qualify as "protected speech" because it isn't even "speech." And yet whatever it was, it was, so the suit alleges, sufficient to get him fired. The judge isn't disputing that; he didn't get that far because, after all, Carter didn't make any speech and so he isn't entitled to protection on constitutional grounds.

Even a right-wing judicial ideologue like Eugene Volokh was offended by the genius judge's ruling.

Jackson's decision has also drawn criticism from some legal experts. Eugene Volokh, a law professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, said firing government employees for speaking out about matters of public concern is generally unconstitutional.

He said there are some exceptions, such as when a high-ranking employee's political affiliations are relevant to the job, or if the speech greatly disrupts the workplace or diminishes public confidence in the government agency.

In the Sheriff's Office case, Volokh said, Jackson upset a precedent with deep roots in U.S. law.

"The judge's rationale that a like on Facebook is insufficient speech is not right," Volokh said. "The First Amendment protects very brief statements as much as very long ones. It even protects symbolic speech, like burning a flag."

Volokh, like the ACLU, says liking is similar to putting a bumper sticker on a car, so it should be protected. He said he thinks the 4th Circuit will probably overturn the district judge's ruling -- but if it does not, it would be a significant moment.

"If the 4th Circuit agrees with the judge -- that liking is not protected speech -- that would suggest an overturning of precedents," Volokh said. "It would be interesting to see what the Supreme Court would do with that decision."

One would like to think that the Fourth Circuit will find this an easy case, open and shut, at least to advance beyond the idiotic roadblock thrown up by Judge Jackson to consider the merits of the case. As the Post report documents, this is but one of a host of cases now wending their way through the courts seeking to align new technologies with existing law and precedents. And as such, it's certainly an interesting story.

Which is what attracted me to the Post story to begin with. But I have to say, I found myself a lot more interested in the case itself. I'll say this on Sheriff Roberts's behalf: It's a tricky business, having an election going on between the incumbent and another, respected official of the Sheriff's Office. But is there anyone who doesn't suspect that the truth is the sheriff overstepped wildly, and used intimidation tactics that are blatantly unethical and, one would like to think, just as illegal?

Unfortunately for Deputy Carter this looks to me like the kind of thing that's going to be awfully hard to prove in court but that instinctively I think most of us would say is pretty clear: that Sheriff Roberts is a bully who runs his office by fiat, without regard to nancy nuances like laws and regulations.

For the record, the sheriff denies everything.

In filings in response to the suit, Roberts's attorney disputes Carter's version of events and says the firings were not politically motivated. The attorney did not return a call for comment, and Roberts could not be reached.

"All employment decisions involving plaintiffs were constitutional, lawful, not the result of any improper purpose or motive, and not in retaliation for political expression," the sheriff's attorney wrote in the filings.

Roberts said that some of the fired deputies had unsatisfactory work performance and that the campaigning had disrupted the workplace.

LET'S TRY AN UNSCIENTIFIC AND EXTRA-
LEGAL TEST OF THE PROBABILITIES HERE

What I'm about to propose obviously doesn't and shouldn't have any legal standing, but I'm still going to invite you to rate the following statements drawn from the Post story on a truth-probability scale of 0 (most improbable) to 5 (most probable):

(a) When Sheriff Roberts learned of the campaigning on the site, he became "incensed" and called a meeting of employees and told them that he would be sheriff for "as long as I want it."

(b) After the meeting, Sheriff Roberts approached Deputy Carter and said, "You made your bed, now you're going to lie in it -- after the election you're gone."

(c) All employment decisions involving plaintiffs were constitutional, lawful, not the result of any improper purpose or motive, and not in retaliation for political expression.

(d) Some of the fired deputies had unsatisfactory work performance.

(e) The campaigning had disrupted the workplace.

My truth-probability ratings:

(a) and (b): 5 (highest probability)
(c) and (d): 0 (lowest probability)
(e): 1 (a smattering of probability -- but then, is this the fault of the people running against the sheriff or of the sheriff himself?)

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"What happens to a democracy when its highest court dedicates itself to defending privilege?" (E. J. Dionne Jr.)

"The United States Supreme Court now sees its central task as comforting the already comfortable and afflicting those already afflicted."

-- E. J. Dionne Jr., in his WaPo column "The Supreme
Court’s continuing defense of the powerful"

by Ken

After I put up my Monday post on the last day of the Supreme Court term, I looked at the photo I included of Chief Justice "Smirkin' John" Roberts -- a happy choice, I thought, showing the chief in stomach-churning full smirk -- and the block of text that accompanied it:

"Laws like Arizona's matching funds provision that inhibit robust and wide-open political debate without sufficient justification cannot stand."

-- Chief Justice "Smirkin' John" Roberts, in his opinion
in Arizona Free Enterprise Club v. Bennett

And I kept thinking, somebody here is stark, staring nuts, and I don't think it's me.

Listen to the chief thunder away in high rhetorical "let freedom" ring mode against laws that inhibit robust and wide-ranging debate. How can you not want to stand and salute?

Unless, that is, you happen to have a working brain. Not necessarily a particularly good one, just a working one -- with, say, a measurable IQ. In which case you know that this is unmitigated bulldoody. The chief purports to be defending our sacred value of free speech, but of course he isn't at all. He's talking about the raw, and apparently undiminishable, brute force of money. And nobody with a functioning brain could under any imaginable circumstances confuse that with "speech."

With the exception of a small group of mental defectives who have found their way onto the Supreme Court and there enshrined as constitutional law that money is speech.

Now Smirkin' John, whatever else he is, is not an imbecile. He knows that this "laws that inhibit robust and wide-ranging debate" is a flat-out lie. There simply isn't any possibility that he doesn't. And so he lies. But then, he spends most of his time on the High Court lying -- lying in the service of the people who matter most to him, the people who can afford to buy the most "free" speech, apparently including his.

Similarly, when Nino Scalia clambered up on his high horse (poor horse!) earlier this week, striking down the California law seeking to end sales of especially violent video games to minors, an blithered in his usual bullying sarcastic (and of course cretinous) way about there being no difference in rights between children and adults, longtime NYT Supreme Court watcher Linda Greenhouse blogged the other day about this now-you-see-it, now-you-don't ability to recognize such differences. It's an interesting piece, but she got bogged down in speculation about the connection to traditional right-wing hatred of the Miranda decision and rule. I think that's way too specialized.

Throw out a challenged to orthodox social values, especially the right-wing ones, and the kiddies' rights will vanish faster than the speed of light. A case, say, about a school newspaper's right to publish without administration censorship. I admit I can't be absolutely sure about "Slow Anthony" Kennedy (though I wouldn't be terribly optimistic), but I don't think there's any question what tune the thug chorale of Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito would sing.

Because these thugs don't believe in the First Amendment. I actually heard some clown on NPR this morning talking about the just-completed Supreme Court term having been a big one for the First Amendment. No, it wasn't. They only use the First Amendment now as a weapon for forcing right-wing messaging upon the innocent. Right, like the rights of free expression of the powerful are in any danger of being infringed. Throw them a few cases where it's the rights of the powerless -- or even, probably, the marginally less powerful -- are at issue, and I think you'll see their Stalinist stripes come out of hiding right quick.

And the chance that Smirkin' John (or Clarence or Nino or Sammy) would ever do anything to actually encourgage "robust and wide-open political debate"? I believe the technical term is "slim to none."


E. J. DIONNE JR. ON THE COURT'S COMMITMENT
TO FREE SPEECH IN THE ARIZONA ELECTION CASE

This is the column from which I poached the lead for the top of this post, to which E.J. adds: "If you are a large corporation or a political candidate backed by lots of private money, be assured that the court’s conservative majority will be there for you, solicitous of your needs and ready to swat away those pesky little people who dare to contest your power."

He goes on to talk about the striking down of the Arizona adopted-by-referendum election law's provision of providing additional funds to candidates who accept public financing face big-spending privately financed candidates, with reference to Justice Elena Kagan's notably stinging dissent.

If you are a large corporation or a political candidate backed by lots of private money, be assured that the court’s conservative majority will be there for you, solicitous of your needs and ready to swat away those pesky little people who dare to contest your power.

For years, opponents of campaign finance reform have accused those who want to repair the system of trying to reduce the amount of political speech. But Arizona’s law, as Kagan pointed out, “subsidizes and so produces more political speech.” And then there was this shot at Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority opinion: “Except in a world gone topsy-turvy, additional campaign speech and electoral competition is not a First Amendment injury.”

Indeed, Roberts had to argue that those terribly downtrodden candidates financed with private money had their speech “burdened,” simply because their publicly financed opponents had the means to respond.

Kagan and the dissenters stood up for free speech. Roberts’ majority defended paid speech. The dissenters want to allow candidates to talk; the majority wants to enhance money’s ability to talk.

Roberts was especially exercised over any notion of “leveling the playing field” between private-money candidates and their challengers. He even included a footnote calling attention to the Citizens Clean Elections Commission’s Web site, which once said the law was passed “to level the playing field when it comes to running for office.” Horrors!

Kagan archly noted the “majority’s distaste for ‘leveling’ ” and then dismissed its obsession, observing that Roberts failed to take seriously the Arizona law’s central purpose of containing corruption. Leveling was the means, not the end.

I'm not doing justice to E.J.'s careful discussion of the ins and outs of the election-law case, so I hope you'll read the whole column. I'm more interested at the moment in the larger implications. Of course E.J. is on top of those as well:

[P]ay heed to how this conservative court majority bristles at nearly every effort to give the less wealthy and less powerful an opportunity to prevail, whether at the ballot box or in the courtroom. Not since the Gilded Age has a Supreme Court been so determined to strengthen the hand of corporations and the wealthy. Thus the importance of the Wal-Mart and AT&T cases, the latter described by the New York Times as “a devastating blow to consumer rights.” Will the court now feel so full of its power that it takes on the executive and legislative branches over the health-care law?

In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt warned that the courts had “grown to occupy a position unknown in any other country, a position of superiority over both the legislature and the executive.” Worse, “privilege has entrenched itself in many courts just as it formerly entrenched itself in many legislative bodies and in many executive offices.”

What happens to a democracy when its highest court dedicates itself to defending privilege? That’s the unfortunate experiment on which we are now embarked.

I don't see how it could be said better than that.

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