Is Trump Flirting With Buyers' Remorse? (2)

Yesterday Trump made a couple of very good appointments. I include in that group the naming of Jay Bhattacharya to head the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Bhattacharya was a real public health hero during the Covid Hoax.

Unfortunately, many of the most important appointments continue to be troubling. And in that group I include Pam Bondi, who will be nominated to be Attorney General. This isn’t a question of qualifications—in those terms there’s no reason why Bondi shouldn’t be the AG. Rather the troubling aspect of the Bondi appointment has to do with her views on the First Amendment, and the right to freedom of speech in particular.

Yesterday Judge Nap discussed the Bondi appointment with Aaron Mate. I hasten to add that I am not—from the standpoint of political or moral philosophy—a supporter of the idea of “rights” as the basis for human conduct. Instead, I am a firm supporter of natural law morality, based on a God created human nature, according to which acts are adjudged to be good, bad, or indifferent based on whether they advance the good of human nature. Rights, from this standpoint, are no more than grants from human authorities—usually governments. The idea of “rights” was first advanced as an end run around theological and philosophical disputes. Now, with most of the West having rejected theology and philosophy altogether—along with belief in a God created human nature and any generally accepted civic theology (Eric Voegelin’s term)—we are at the point where “rights” have come to be more or less arbitrary grants of privilege by government to special interest groups involved in power politics. As such, the definition of rights is often used to oppress and harass disfavored groups. This dynamic has metastasized with the exponential growth of government and the surveillance state at virtually all levels—even local law enforcement engages in intrusive surveillance that would have been unthinkable prior to 9/11.

Of course, my brief summary paints a picture of pure philosophical positions that are polar opposites. The reality of Western society is messier, with most people inhabiting a vague middle ground. Still, the tendency is clear. Most people would be hard pressed to express human behavior in terms of good and bad, right and wrong, rather than in terms of “rights”. They might wish to do so in a hesitant sort of way, but most would probably not have the temerity to defy the cultural ascendancy of “rights talk.” In 21st century America we’ve arrived at the point where political campaigns have devolved into contests for the financial favor of wealthy Jewish Americans, who then pay politicians to oppress or harass other Americans (often enough, other Jewish Americans) in the name of “rights.” True to form, the objects of oppression and harassment respond with claims that their rights are being violated. It’s all dueling rights in the tug of war for raw power over others.

We see the dead end to which this leads in the interesting discussion between Judge Nap and Mate. For example, in speaking of free speech rights, Mate brings up the example of the use of the Russia smear that was deployed to “censor” or to silence or to render as pariahs supporters of Trump. And he’s absolutely correct in that regard. The problem, from a free speech standpoint, becomes, What to do about that? Should the government ban disinformation or lies? You can see the swamp this lands us in. There are no easy solutions.

With that in mind, here’s how the discussion of the Bondi appointment went:

Aaron Maté: Biden’s Reckless War Escalation.

Judge: Completing this unholy triumvirate of Mike Waltz and Sebastian Gorka is Pam Bondi, designated to become Attorney General of the United States, who made some horrific comments a little over a year ago on the freedom of speech. ...

We thought somebody made this up. No, she actually said it. Here she is:

Whether they're here [in the US] as Americans or if they're here on student visas and they're out there saying, 'I support Hamas'--you and I have seen that on all of these television shows--frankly, they need to be taken out of our country [if they're non-citizens] or the FBI needs to be interviewing them [if they're citizens] right away, when they're saying, 'I support Hamas, I am Hamas.' That's not saying, 'I support all these poor Palestinians who are trapped in Gaza'--that's not what they're saying. So I think their student visas need to be revoked. I think we need to reinstate president Trump's travel ban immediately. There's a lot of things that can be done to stop this but, yeah, the anti-Semitism that's rampant throughout this country now, and it's truly, truly heartbreaking to see what's happening to all of our Jewish friends in this country.

From the standpoint of constitutional law the government is, in principle, free to deport non-Americans. What’s really at stake here is whether the government can take official harassing action against Americans based on the substance of their speech—the ideas expressed in their speech. Sending the FBI out to interview people based on their political ideas is clearly a threatening action directed at “chilling” the exercise of free speech rights under the Constitution. For most people—and perhaps more so than ever—a visit from the FBI who wish to talk to you about your political views is intimidating—it smacks of “thought police.” This is long settled law in America and Bondi is well aware of that. What she’s also aware of is how long it takes to obtain justice—if ever—in America. The example of how long it took for the SCOTUS to decide that the J6 demonstrators were being unlawfully prosecuted in most cases is an example for all of us. Bondi knows that the government can get away with illegal behavior for long enough to silence most dissent. Oh, and she also knows that Trump supported similar measures during his campaign for Jewish money. And the presidency. No doubt Bondi knew that she was currying favor with Trump.

Judge: This woman will soon be directly in charge of the Justice Department and indirectly in charge of the FBI, whom she wants to interrogate students over their opinions. She obviously believes the government can evaluate the content of free speech--the very purpose for which the First Amendment was written--to prevent the government from doing.

AM: it's a real tragedy we don't have a a major party in this country that is committed to the principle of free speech--which means support for the free speech of everyone, especially those that that you disagree with. If you don't support free speech for people you disagree with then you don't support free speech. And we Democrats led the way, have become synonymous with cracking down on free speech, because of their efforts to police the internet, the whole campaign to label anyone who disagrees with them as a Russian asset and to silence them accordingly. A whole lot of censorship was also conducted around health issues, because in the aftermath of Covid--and that gave Democrats deservedly a reputation for being against Free Speech, which Trump and the Republicans have exploited. But now they [Trump and the Republicans] turn around and are talking about using that same censorship regime against people who express support for Palestinian rights, including Palestine's right to resist. People have the right to resist military occupation and you're not anti-Semitic or pro Hamas or whatever it is if you express support for that. Even if you are pro Hamas you have every right to speak in this country--that's the whole point.

Judge: But you see the danger of having an Attorney General who has a simplistic view--everything is either black or white. She doesn't understand the subtleties of free speech and has the power to dispatch FBI agents to the Columbia campus to harass these kids.

Note carefully what follows. The measure that passed the House is carefully constructed to really upon Department level so-called expertise in identifying “terrorist” groups—the SCOTUS may hesitate to challenge the supposed “national security expertise” at the cabinet level. Moreover, that designation alone is enough to deter many Americans from associating with groups that are so designated. It also serves as plausible justification for FBI activity—interviewing, background checking, surveillance of various sorts. It’s clearly designed to prolong any legal challenge to such designations. And it gets worse, because there’s also a threat of financial arm twisting:

AM: Yeah, and there's some very worrying developments. There's a new measure in Congress that would basically give the Treasury Department the unilateral authority to strip any group of its nonprofit status that the Treasury Department deems to be supportive of terrorism--which means, like, some bureaucrats in Washington could decide that people supporting Palestinian rights are now all of a sudden supporters of terrorists, as so many pro Palestinians are falsely accused of doing, and then take away their nonprofit status. Both parties support this--there's bipartisan support for that.

Judge: One Republican--there are many Democrats who opposed, but it passed the House. Every Republican but one supported it. The one was, of course, Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky.

And, of course, it won’t stop with supporters of existence for Palestinians. We’ve already seen how similar legal concepts have been applied against pro-lifers, dissenters from the Covid regime, etc. The now popular designation of speech as violence is being widely used to suppress speech. The sky is the limit under the Western regime of dueling rights.