As we all know, there’s nothing more unthinkable than restricting the right of foreign Muslims to immigrate here because they or their descendants might go on the Internet someday and learn that Allah wants them to commit Jihad at the office Christmas party. You’d have to be a Republican frontrunner to doubt the absolute sanctity of the Zeroth Amendment: that everybody in the rest of the world has the presumption of a right to move here. Granted, exceptions could be made for migrants visibly wearing suicide bomb vests, but to, say, disproportionately pat down Muslim migrants based on the stereotype of Muslim terrorists would be a hideous violation of the Zeroth Amendment.
A U. of Chicago law professor says in Slate that the thing we can do is junk some of the First Amendment:
ISIS Gives Us No Choice but to Consider Limits on Speech
America faces unprecedented danger from the group’s online radicalization tactics.
By Eric Posner
It has become increasingly clear that terrorist groups such as ISIS can extend their reach to American territory via the Internet. Using their own websites, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other platforms, they lure young men and women to their mission—without having to risk the capture of foreign agents on U.S. soil. The Americans ensnared in ISIS’s net in turn radicalize others, send money to ISIS, and even carry out attacks.
Never before in our history have enemies outside the United States been able to propagate genuinely dangerous ideas on American territory in such an effective way—and by this I mean ideas that lead directly to terrorist attacks that kill people. The novelty of this threat calls for new thinking about limits on freedom of speech.
COMMENTS:
* Expel all Muslims and watch freedom of speech flower in the aftermath. The few make the sacrifice for the many.
* Posner also posted the first legal defense of a Muslim immigration ban. His father is probably the most prominent man in America to openly discuss IQ racial inequality.
Generally he’s a utilitarian legal realist who lacks a romantic attachment to abstract rights.
* The novelty of this threat calls for new thinking about limits on freedom of movement.
* I’ve noticed this seems to be emerging as the open-borders fallback position since it’s started to become clear that the yokels in flyover country are not going to drop their concerns about immigration. Since the invite-the-world crowd is apparently incapable of considering that an “all open borders all the time” approach might be less than optimal, they’re looking around for some alternative that might pacify the boobs out in the hinterlands while they continue to flood the country with peasants who vote for socialism.
“We’ll just take away the First Amendment for Muslims!” you can almost hear them saying (along with other malefactors to be named later, but they’ll make sure to bury that in the fine print). “That’ll satisfy the rubes!”
We’ll get to see endless clips of liberal politicians (and a few clueless conservatives) trying to strike a chest-beating Trumpian tone on taking rights away from “radical terrorist elements.” (The template here would be the way some liberals used to try and sell gun control back in less-politically-correct times: They’d heavily imply that nearly all guns were owned by scary black drug dealers, and banning guns was a way to protect good white people. I recall seeing ads along those lines back in the 80s that would never pass muster today.)
Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if a few liberals manage to reason themselves into supporting FDR-style internment camps — though they’ll be quick to assure us that only the “bad,” extremist Muslims will be kept in such camps. Anything necessary to keep the Third World spigot turned on until they’ve got enough votes to imprison their REAL enemies — traditionalist whites.
* The threat from terrorism is *tiny* in terms of actual danger to Americans, but it is an endless justification for whatever knuckleheaded thing the elites want to do next.
Want to bomb the hell out of some random third-world country to keep the no-bid military contracts flowing? Want to give the president the power to have US citizens assassinated on his say-so alone? Want to use a gazillion dollars of high tech equipment to spy on annoying journalists and opposition politicians? Want to shut down irritating public protests and arrest all the ringleaders? Want to impose speech restrictions so you can silence those dangerous radical views the ruling class finds uncomfortable?
Just utter the magic word “terrorism,” and some large fraction of people will nod their heads sagely and go along with it all. You can tell people you’re doing it all to keep them safe, and it doesn’t even matter that none of what you’re doing is making them any safer. The NSA can’t point to a single terrorist attack their massive surveillance has foiled, but they still get to keep doing it because terrorism. The TSA routinely fails to detect simulated bombs their testers bring onto planes, but they still stay as-is because terrorism.
This works, I think, because most voters aren’t too well informed, and media *love* stories that play up fear. And because the ruling class is overwhelmingly in favor of this stuff, because it’s power for them. (Also, probably because the spy agencies and military contractors make bad enemies.). And the result is that every day, we get to watch our country descend further in its progression toward some kind of high-tech police state, where people will get arrested or disappeared for reading the wrong stuff or expressing the wrong opinions online. Even people who should know they’ll soon be targets for this stuff can be gotten to support it by saying the magic word. We are *so* fucked.
* Trump is providing a threat to the stable arrangement the powerful in the US prefer. Had laws regulating speech, Trump would be facing prosecution for at least two of his statements. This is precisely how these laws are used in European countries that have them–as a way to push back on opposition politicians whose ideas are upsetting to the elites. Even if folks at the top were considered off-limits, Steve wouldn’t be.
Jihadis pose little threat to the elites–some loser shooting up a Christmas party or scoring an own-goal[1] while trying to build a bomb isn’t going to cost anyone their billion-dollar no-bid contract or their 1000-man personal empire within the federal government. But outsiders upsetting the applecart by irresponsibly giving the voters the wrong sort of ideas, they might actually mess up those things.
[1] Aka what you call it when the terrorist blows himself up while trying to make or transport his homemade bomb. I think I read this from the War Nerd, and the term stuck in my head.
* I don’t know a lot about Eric Posner’s work, but every time I have seen an opinion piece written by him, it has been a justification for taking away liberties from regular people and giving more power to the people at the top. Does he ever argue things the other direction?
* “Never before in our history have enemies outside the United States been able to propagate genuinely dangerous ideas on American territory in such an effective way”
What about the fellow travelers of the Frankfurt School?
* The only way to understand Posner is to realize he is just an unhinged left of center Neocon in the mold of his mentor “Crazy Marty Peretz”.
Scratch Posner and just below the surface is an ultra Zionist as insane as any compulsive head bobbing Yeshiva scholar. Posner day dreams that if the Invite the World lunacy can only go on a bit longer and we can just get lucky enough to have some Jihadis saw off the heads of an entire Christian kindergarten in lets say Tulsa while celebrating Easter then those Rednecks in middle American will gladly commit mass murder of the entire Middle East as a “Final Solution” of the “Arab Question”.
In back of Posner’s mind is the thought that if we could get those ignorant Christian Dispensationalist Bible thumpers to demand the Nuking or should we say RIPLEYING of Mecca, Riyadh, Bagdad, Damascus,Tehran,…., then there will be nothing stopping the establishment of the Covenant of Abraham as far as the banks of Euphrates.
Or will the Rabbis now tell us it was the Tigris that Jehovah promised for his people???
Shorter Posner: “F” the 1st Amendment!!!, Nothing, And I mean nothing can stop Invite the World, until Israel can wash off its blood stained hands in the waters of the Tigris.
Oy Vey!!!
When will the Goyishe Kop ever learn to think like one of Chosen?
* Has this Posner person not heard of the KGB, communism, the Cold War, Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs? Islamist radical terrorists can easily be beaten if enough of them can be shot, they are not an existential threat to any nation around with the possible exception of Afghanistan.
* Posner teaches a course on Plutocracy (description below), and fwiw he bears a rather strong resemblance to Rahm Emanuel.
Course Description: Plutocracy means “rule by the wealthy.” It is firmly rejected by modern democratic principles, yet over the last decade influential commentators have argued that plutocracy has reappeared around the world, including in the United States and Europe. We will discuss whether plutocracy really exists, and if it does, why, and what can be done about. Our tentative reading list includes Jeffrey Winters, Oligarchy; Scott Radnitz, Weapons of the Wealthy: Predatory Regimes and Elite-Led Protests in Central Asia; Chrystia Freeland, Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else; David Rothkopf, Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making; and Robert Frank, Richistan: A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich. Graded Pass/Fail.
* We are always being told immigrants come because of our unique sets of freedoms. We are the freest country in the world which in turn attracts people the world over. And those freedoms are enshrined in the Constitution which is the envy of the world. If that is the case, then wouldn’t curtailing our freedoms and the Constitution harm that which is so special about the USA?
Of course if immigrants are coming here for purely economic benefits, whether earned by their labor or provided by the taxpayer, then maybe our Constitution is not that big of a deal to them. Maybe our unique set of rights, which natives seem to regard as central, aren’t what is drawing people here.
Of course this would lead to question another concept we are forever being told. Namely, that he USA is a propositional nation and that all that matters is that immigrant and citizen share a common belief in the sanctity of our founding documents, most especially the Bill of Rights.
Yet if we are seriously thinking about changing our most cherished rights because of the presence of an increasing number of immigrants, how valid is that proposition?
* What about the CPUSA? Posner would have supported prison for Anita Whitney. Louis Brandeis didn’t. American Jews will some day have to choose between Brandeis and Posner.
And by the way, even in WWII, it was not as simple to get pro-German speakers sentenced as Posner believes. The “Great Seduction Trial” ended without a sentence. Well, a lot of German Americans went into custody without trial. But the judicial system only cracked, it was not broken. Why? Because Roosevelt could only win bipartisan sympathy by emphasizing the “four freedoms”, which made open limiting of the First Amendment nearly impossible. Posner wisely doesn’t try to give us precise parallels what part of Roosevelt legislation he wants to reestablish.
* So according to Posner you can’t have diversity and free speech. If we had to pick one, I know what I and most Americans would pick.
I find it strange that Muslim immigration is a huge deal now, while after 9/11 and 3,000 dead Americans it was never a topic of conversation. It must be solely due to the Trump effect. This shows you that it is always the people at the top that set the terms for debate and discussion. I’m sure Muslim immigration could have become an issue after 9/11 if a prominent politician had merely mentioned it.
In fact, the main argument that Bush used during his entire administration is that we are fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them here. But no one asked the simple question, “how are they going to get over here?” The only two ways are legal or illegal immigration. But stopping either one is considered heresy to the ruling elites.
* Raises the issue of whether Islam is really a religion as the men who wrote the Bill of Rights understood the term. How much did they actually know about the tenets of Islam? Not much I am guessing. I happen to be reading a sympathetic biography of Muhammad written in 1970 by Sir John Glubb and the barbarities described, condoned, and prescribed by “the prophet” are no different than those practiced by Isis today. Right down to helping a five year old child push a spear into a man who is being crucified on a cross!
Let us suppose Islam were given the status of Bolshevik Leninism back in the day. How would we combat it? Would the President have authority to close Mosques, outlaw Islamic schools, prohibit (or seize) Saudi money? What about calls to prayer, public prayer, etc.?? Repatriation of self-declared Muslims? Might we make an exception for Sufis? It is hard to imagine how we might combat what had come to be understood as a totalitarian ideology based on a correct reading of the Koran and the hadiths.
* There’s a tremendous disparity between what Posner proposes to do — limit free speech — and the event, that is, the San Berdoo massacre. Moreover, the limitation he is looking for is troubling.
Note that if ISIS was using social media to give precise instructions or calls for terror attacks they could be shut down under existing legislation. On the other hand, Posner seems to want to shut down websites that “alienate” people in a certain direction. This is nothing more than establishing the groundwork for crimethink.
Of course, once it becomes legitimate to shut down websites that disseminate views that fail to foster love of country and obedience, then ultimately any contrarianism on any number of issues could be outlawed. And they would, because that’s the whole point.
* Anyone watching SyFy’s adaptation of Childhood’s End?
I can see why the Overlords imposed a diversity regime on humanity. The carefully indoctrinated nonjudgmentalism made it easier for humans to accept the Overlords’ appearance when they finally revealed themselves.
Gee, that bears no resemblance to trends in the real world, does it?
* If we’re going to start stripping first amendment protections, how about we implement a change that would only impact the small portion of the population that is creating the need for this? In other words, limit the free exercise clause to allow the prohibition of, or severe restrictions on the practice of, Islam.
* The late Larry Auster proposed something along these lines: an amendment to the First Amendment stating that the practice of Islam was not protected by the First Amendment and could be subject to government regulation, including required approvals of sermons, supervision of worship services, etc. I think that Kemal Ataturk had similar restrictions in Turkey. Islam needs to be understood as an ideology that may work just fine in Muslim countries, but is quite dangerous in other countries.
* Our nation’s Founders comprehended that Islam is inimical, hostile to our republic, to our Constitution. Here’s our sixth President John Quincy Adams, son of our second president:
“The precept of the koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Mahomet is the prophet of God. The vanquished may purchase their lives, by the payment of tribute; the victorious may be appeased by a false and delusive promise of peace; and the faithful follower of the prophet, may submit to the imperious necessities of defeat: but the command to propagate the Moslem creed by the sword is always obligatory, when it can be made effective. The commands of the prophet may be performed alike, by fraud, or by force.”
* Current estimates by PEW put muslim population in the US at 0.9%. In 2007, in was 0.4%. Extrapolating back a bit (conservatively), let’s assume that on Sep 11, 2001 it was less than 0.3% (and probably even less). Makes total sense to me as a policy. What could be a more rational response to 9-11 than more than tripling percentage of the muslim population in about a decade?
* Hitler’s big mistake was not founding his beliefs on Odin worship. Had he packaged it as a religion, he would have snuck in under radar. He had the conquering the world part and the death to infidels/lesser races part like the Muslims, he just didn’t have a deity.
If only he had said he was a Messenger from Odin and transcribed everything Odin told him in Mein Kampf we would all be speaking German now and wearing helmets with horns in church.
