America: Where Misinformation Roams, But Not Freely
This article is an opinion piece from Bill Lockwood. Catch American Liberty with Bill Lockwood weekly at 11 a.m. Saturdays on NewsTalk 1290.
“Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.” – Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, 1801.
The current popular campaign, primarily Democrat-led supported by the MSM, to curtail freedom of speech with the feeble excuse of limiting “misinformation,” is in reality the final act in a totalitarian drive to erase American liberty. Embedded within this drive is the elitist disposition that believes we the people need rulers over us to filter information for public consumption.
It is this “aristocratic” attitude, this self-inflated opinion of politicians who congratulate themselves that they are the “nobles” — unlike us peasants — that makes it necessary for them to sort out for us what is “true” and what is “false” before we consume. The Democrats pretend themselves to be our parents so that we, the children, have the right foods on our plates before we eat.
These bloated snobs are represented by, but certainly not limited to, men such as former President Barack Obama. Who, according to The New York Times article "Barack Obama Takes on a New Role: Fighting Disinformation," has been complaining for years about “misinformation," so he “embarked on a new role” to warn about the “scourge of online falsehoods” which erode the “foundations of democracy.”
King Obama lobbies Silicon Valley privileged to create “regulatory measures” to stifle the free flow of information. Obama is quoted in the article saying, “I think it is reasonable for us as a society to have a debate and then put in place a combination of regulatory measures and industry norms that leave intake the opportunity for these platforms to make money but say to them that there’s certain practices you engage in that we don’t think are good for society.”
Obama the autocrat will help decide “what is good for society.” How pompous and arrogant.
President Joe Biden also has lashed out at "misinformation.” In the same article, he is quoted that it is those “platforms” that allowed “falsehoods” about coronavirus vaccines to spread that ended up “killing people,” he complained. There it is again: We are the nobles — we will decide what is good for your health. You are the peasants. Your duty is to obey.
Earlier this year, Biden’s U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy “formally requested that the major tech platforms submit information about the scale of Covid-19 misinformation on social networks, search engines, crowdsourced platforms, e-commerce platforms and instant messaging systems.”
California Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell) introduced a bill aimed at “stopping the spread of COVID-19 misinformation” in February of this year. In October, the state of California enacted the COVID-19 “misinformation” law for physicians which was signed by Governor Gavin Newsom. No more debate. No discussion — just suspension of medical licenses if “misinformation” – defined by the government-- is generated.
Podcaster Joe Rogan has been under fire by the streaming platform Spotify for conducting interviews with physicians such as Dr. Robert Malone and Peter McCullough who dispute the government narrative about COVID-19.
And then there is the Department of Justice arm, the FBI, which itself purposefully spread misinformation regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop during the election of 2020. This is the same government which is pressing to become the gatekeeper of “correct information.”
Is America free?
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Evidence is mounting that our once free government, supposedly managed by the people, has become an oppressing force against the American citizenry by suppressing the free flow of information.
How opposite the basic premise of the founding of America! As Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to Edward Carrington in 1787:
The people are the only censors of their governors: and even their errors will tend to keep the true principles of their institution. To punish these errors too severely would be to suppress the only safeguard of the public liberty.
It is “the people” who censor governors and governments. Not vice-versa. This is the difference between freedom and slavery.
The remarkable thing about Thomas Jefferson is that he stood by those principles of free speech in spite of the fact that he had been savaged by the press in his election for president. How sad it is that we have allowed elected leaders to in effect erase this principle of freedom. “We the People” are the only guardians of our own liberties and it is we who need to censor our governors and politicians, not our politicians censoring us.
Every totalitarian government that has ever existed has moved to quash dissenting opinions. Now ours is doing the same. Once again, as Jefferson warned, efforts to control the flow of information “ought to produce universal alarm, because it is leveled against the right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon, which has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian of every other right.”
In short, the loss of freedom of speech to government overlords, in the name of “protecting” us from “misinformation,” is the loss of the very essence of liberty.
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