Joe Biden has hired a ‘transition team’ leader who isn’t a big fan of the First Amendment. It’s fair to say that Biden’s hire, Richard Stengal, is a fan of free speech the way that Joe Biden is a fan of the Second Amendment.
Check out the New York Post’s summary of Stengal, here:
President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team leader for US-owned media outlets wants to redefine freedom of speech and make “hate speech” a crime.
Richard Stengel is the Biden transition “Team Lead” for the US Agency for Global Media, the US government media empire that includes Voice of America, the Middle East Broadcasting Networks and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
Stengel, an Obama administration alumnus, wrote last year in a Washington Post op-ed that US freedom of speech was too unfettered and that changes must be considered.
He wrote: “All speech is not equal. And where truth cannot drive out lies, we must add new guardrails. I’m all for protecting ‘thought that we hate,’ but not speech that incites hate.”
Stengel offered two examples of speech that he has an issue with: Quran burning and circulation of “false narratives” by Russia during the 2016 election.
“Even the most sophisticated Arab diplomats that I dealt with did not understand why the First Amendment allows someone to burn a Koran. Why, they asked me, would you ever want to protect that?” Stengel wrote.
It Matters MORE Now Than Ever
Free speech is not just a cornerstone of America’s past. It’s our only hope for a peaceful future if the left decides to go full tyrant. If we can’t speak out against government policies without risk of a ‘hate speech’ crime, we can’t redress our government.
For example, in the last four years the media declared it “racist” to call for a wall on our southern border. What happens when asking your elected officials to build a wall is a crime?
For gun owners, these ‘hate speech’ crimes would make them ineligible to own a gun! Imagine if you said something that’s not politically correct — “I don’t like Black Lives Matter protestors burning our homes and businesses” — and could get charged with a hate crime for saying it? And then, once convicted of a hate crime, you can’t own a gun for the rest of your life!
These types of laws silence anybody who opposes the radical leftist takeover of our country, and they pretend it’s because they’re tolerant of other ideas.
Gun owners know better than anybody just how intolerant the left is of ideas different from their own!
Who Defines These Things? The Radical Left, Of Course!
Stengal didn’t go into detail about what would fall into this category — and we’re not surprised. After all, the left wants ever fluid, changing definitions so that they can continually widen the net! And what he did offer for a definition was even worse:
Stengal did say, “We call them hate speech laws, but there’s no agreed-upon definition of what hate speech actually is. In general, hate speech is speech that attacks and insults people on the basis of race, religion, ethnic origin and sexual orientation.”
Did you catch that? “attacks and insults people….” You don’t have to call for violence or encourage it. If you so much as say, “I don’t like these darn BLM rioters! They should stop burning cities and get back to work!” then you’re guilty of “insulting” speech directed at a specific group. Never mind that a huge majority of BLM protestors are the brainwashed white college kids!
Doesn’t matter! It’s a racist hate crime!
The Left Wants To Silence And Disarm Us
Gun owners already know how much Joe Biden and his controllers hate our gun rights. And now, by hiring somebody who would so willingly throw away the First Amendment, it’s obvious that the left fears both our guns and our ideas.
If the pen is mightier than the sword, the radical left would just assume that our side has neither.