Two important cases involving government censorship, Surgeon Gen. v. Missouri (Docket # 23-411) and NRA v. Vullo (Docket # 22-842) are before the Supreme Court of the United States. On March 18th, 2024, SCOTUS, heard Oral Arguments to determine just how much the present administration can undermine the nation’s First Amendment.
Those who support policy that suppresses opposing views help create elitist masters and then we all must deal with devils. By censoring opposition, authorities who wield power can reign in totality and permanency.
Everyone must submit to believing and obeying only what an administration decrees, and trust they will rule over us benevolently. The censorship curse has existed in some form or another throughout history, and in America, it blossoms when voters succumb to their desire to silence others.
Many cannot see the self-destructive path ahead, but once an administration gains power by this method and refuses to relinquish their hold, they resort to even greater despotic means to keep control.
Society begins its descent into the tyranny that this nation’s Founders tried to avert by establishing The Bill of Rights with its First Amendment’s Freedom of Speech.
These cases before the Supreme Court exemplify not merely the government’s attempt to subtlety control the populace but exposes openly aggressive methods of coercion, extortion, and force upon the citizenry.
Excerpt Docket # 23-411:
“The district court described Petitioners’ conduct as “arguably … the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.” *
Oral Arguments
Surgeon Gen. v. Missouri
For the most part, the Supreme Court Justices’ questions tore apart most of the Federal Government’s case and this administration’s attempt to control media. As one example, Justices repeatedly referenced President Joe Biden’s statement about the media during the Covid19 pandemic, “They’re killing people.”
After discussions of whether the government was engaging in State Action pressure, coercion and interference with social media, a Court decision in favor of the Injunction against the government’s attack on Free Speech should remain in effect.
However, there were some bizarre questions, mostly as to when the government can interfere with media, what constitutes a crisis, or when the courts can use Strict Scrutiny. This was magnified by the one Justice’s “clownish” statement about the possibility of the First Amendment “Hamstringing the federal government,” reminiscent of the historic buffoon phrase, “I’m not a biologist.”
NRA v. Vullo
In essence, while the question of whether this case technically rises to a Free Speech violation, the obvious overreach by New York State politicians to target, debank, censure and penalize businesses and organizations that support the NRA is irrefutable.
Despite the state’s illogical dance to blur whether politicians were guilty of “Coercion” or simply “Making Recommendations,” the Court’s conclusion should be in favor of the NRA.
The Supreme Court should reverse New York’s lower court’s decision which would protect all businesses and organizations from unethical political attacks.
Unlimited Unchecked Censorship
Lost Souls – How can so many remain indefinitely ignorant and unmoved as the Administration spews censorship through biased media, along with obliging drones on college campuses?
Many people warily observe how a media outlet constantly presents videos or audio tapes to impress a message only to have another media source expose how these videos were edited out of reality.
But those indoctrinated into the pseudo-moral mob turn a blind eye by accepting the unreal and absurd. This warped embracing of fantasy confounds the intellect. For who can be conned repeatedly, day after day, year after year, hoax after hoax only to plead for more?
In all fields, we admire dedication, skill, imagination – perhaps the search for meaning, purpose and truth. Michelangelo chipped away at a chunk of marble to reveal the masterpiece hidden inside the stone.
Yet, all around us, through the fallacious media, our revisionist schools and governing political propaganda, we see it is Meaning, Truth and our Inalienable Rights that are being chipped away.
Rather than a masterpiece, we have begun to resemble a chunk of mutilated rock. Partisan students and professors bar speakers in the nation’s top Universities.
Here before the Court, the present administration manipulates the law to silence opponents. And the press has degenerated into such a state of darkness that all manner of Truth is lost.
Out of some bizarre necessity, in midsentence, note how the press edited out a sportsman’s thankful words to God.
Out of desperation, the Brazen Biden Administration does not even try to hide their censoring. ** Contrarily, a Trump Administration has already proven itself prudent despite media censors working against them.
Simultaneously supportive of individual rights and freedoms, the Trump Administration put into motion a logical path to prosperity. From acknowledging Israel’s capital, Jerusalem and helping negotiate the Abraham Accords, to Border Security, to Energy Independence, to banning schools from teaching that some races are superior to others, on and on the Trump Administration accomplished much.
Biden reversed every achievement the first day of taking office except The Abraham Accords, which arguably under a weak presidency has lost substance after the October Hamas terrorist attack on Israel.
What Is Needed
The law of the land must be maintained despite any “Harlequin” Justice that might attempt to perform an elegant verbal dance around the Constitution. Americans do not want two and a half centuries of history transformed into a suicidal tragicomedy by robed “Pagliacci.”
The Supreme Court needs to deter government agencies that stifle the voice of opposing parties. They must admonish threats, intimidation, or favoritism toward any party’s businesses, or the media.
Satirical Side Notes
Amicus Brief examples of pseudo “Support of Neither Party” or others that argue with complex pages of rhetoric that can be satire-simplified into the following illogical circular reasoning or other gobbledygook: Surgeon Gen. v. Missouri
Columbia University
Censoring Free Speech is bad except when the government or the University determines it is for your own good.
The International Municipal Lawyers Association
The government forcing you into silence does not necessarily affect Freedom of Speech.
Floor64
Not allowing censorship is unconstitutional because stopping your free speech is my free speech, just as stopping me from censoring you is censoring me.
American Academy of Pediatrics
It is important to censor people for their own good, otherwise it will deny us extraordinary amounts of funding.
The Lawyers Committee For Civil Rights Under Law
If the government cannot censor media, the administration in control might lose that control.
New York
We love censorship in New York. We need it everywhere.
Some of the Amicus Briefs in NRA v. Vullo conclude:
We hate Freedom of Speech. Let the State of New York decide what we need to hear.
*The State of Missouri desires the Lower Court’s decision to stand, and responded to the U.S. Surgeon General’s petition: Docket # 23-411
“Senior Executive Branch officials-including senior White House officials-threaten, pressure, and coerce social-media platforms to silence the core political speech of millions of Americans. They pressure the companies to censor disfavored viewpoints, and they also force the companies to rewrite their policies to ensure that future speech disfavored by the government will also be suppressed. In doing so, they impose a nationwide, de facto prior restraint against expressing disfavored viewpoints on some of the greatest debates of our time. Federal interference fundamentally transforms online discourse, rendering entire viewpoints virtually unspeakable on social media. Social-media platforms once provided “the most powerful mechanisms available to a private citizen to make his or her voice heard.” Packingham v. North Carolina, 582 U.S. 98, 107 (2017).
Under pressure of federal censorship, that is no longer true-a situation that is intolerable to the First Amendment. The lower courts unanimously found egregious, systematic First Amendment violations. The Fifth Circuit held that this Court “has rarely been faced with a coordinated campaign of this magnitude orchestrated by federal officials that jeopardized a fundamental aspect of American life.” Pet. Appx. 239a.1
The district court described Petitioners’ conduct as “arguably … the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.” Pet. Appx. 2a. These conclusions rest on the district court’s extensive, specific findings of fact, based on overwhelming evidence of federal interference-none of which the Government challenges here. The Court should let the injunction take immediate effect.”
**The Petition of the NRA: Docket # 22-842
“The Second Circuit’s opinion below gives state officials free rein to financially blacklist their political opponents – from gun-rights groups, to abortion-rights groups, to environmentalist groups, and beyond. It lets state officials “threaten[ ] regulated institutions with costly investigations, increased regulatory scrutiny and penalties should they fail to discontinue their arrangements with” a controversial speaker, on the ground that disfavored political speech poses a regulable “reputational risk.” App. 199 ¶ 21 (cleaned up). It also permits selective investigations and penalties targeting business arrangements with disfavored speakers, even where the regulator premises its hostility explicitly on an entity’s political speech and treats leniently, or exempts, identical transactions with customers who lack controversial views. In sum, it lets government officials, acting with undisguised political animus, transmute “general backlash” against controversial advocacy into a justification for crackdowns on advocates (and firms who serve them), eviscerating free speech rights.”