Fierce Patriots

Conservative Political News

  • Subscribe

<![CDATA[free speech]]>

Jordan Peterson Is Suspended from Twitter After 'Deadnaming' Elliot Page

by Leave a Comment

These days, speaking one’s thoughts can be treacherous — especially on social media.

Case in point: Clinical psychologist and best-selling author Jordan Peterson has been suspended for a comment concerning transgender actor Elliot Page.

As posted to Twitter by Jordan’s daughter, Mikhaila, on June 22nd, the Canadian intellectual tweeted the following remark about former Ellen now-Elliot:

“Remember when pride was a sin? And Ellen Page just had her breasts removed by a criminal physician.”

A screenshot provided by Mikhaila indicates Jordan violated the Bluebird’s rules against “hateful conduct”:

You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease.

“We have determined that this account violated the Twitter Rules,” the explanation reads.

As a result, we’ve temporarily limited some of your account features. While in this state…you’re limited to only sending Direct Messages… Your account will be restored to full functionality in: 12 hours and 0 minutes.

You can start your countdown and continue to Twitter once you delete the content that violates our rules.

There’s a reason they call it the “thought police.” Such a characterization was once ubiquitously used as a figure of speech. But these days, we’re boldly regulated regarding the notions we express.

And amid our modern monitoring, words such as “hate” have been wholly redefined. What is supposed to indicate an extreme emotion now means the side of an issue opposed by a regulating body’s singular intolerant point of view.

Somehow, we’ve taken a space larger than we once could have imagined — the worldwide web — and turned it into a space smaller than existed before we ever went online. Throughout America’s history, people sat in rooms and disagreed. Now we forego those personal encounters so we can stare into a screen and be prohibited from dissent.

Our idea of what’s allowable has so transformed that when Elon Musk proposed buying Twitter, TV’s talking heads decried a “Wild West” — where the chaos of free expression might nightmarishly reign:

Jen Psaki Decries the ‘Harm’ and ‘Misinformation’ of Free Twitter

MSNBC Warns That Free Speech On Twitter Would Be a ‘Danger’ to Free Speech — and It Perfectly Captures Where We Are

Former Clinton Official Calls Elon’s Free-Speech Vision the ‘Dream of Every Dictator’

Of course, it isn’t just happening online or on television:

Academics Fear the ‘Hate’ of Free Speech as a Liberated Twitter Looms

Host of School’s Free Speech Event Issues Language Guide Prohibiting ‘Man,’ ‘Woman,’ and ‘Mother’

Once Elon has taken Twitter’s reigns, will a comment such as Jordan’s be permitted?

Mikhaila posited to the billionaire, “Definitely not a free speech platform at the moment.”

Jordan’s managed multiple social media controversies as of late. In May, he asserted that plus-size Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Yumi Nu was “not beautiful”:

Earlier this month, he offered something similar about the NFL’s first transgender cheerleader:

Concerning beauty, the professor did give a potential “thumbs up” to Instagram model Paige Spiranac.

RedState Deputy Managing Editor Brandon Morse had thoughts:

Jordan Peterson can’t release a tweet without causing the left to fly into some sort of rage, but that’s what happens when you don’t toe the politically correct line set by the outrage mob. Peterson seems to be having fun saying and doing the things that make the left furious, but when you have as much hate coming at you as he does, you might as well do what you can to make it fun.

“Spiranac is beautiful and thousands of years of this being confirmed by our race isn’t going to suddenly stop because the leftist mob said it should,” Brandon wrote.

What will thousands of years of constant speech suppression stop? How about a hundred years? Or twenty-five? We’re quickly on our way to finding out.

-ALEX

See more content from me:

‘Friends’ Creator Surrenders One Percent of Her Reported Wealth to Atone for the Show’s Whiteness

Light on Our Path: America’s Last Living WWII Medal of Honor Recipient Leaves a Shining Example

WATCH: Man Assaults 7-Eleven Worker, Jiu-Jitsu Master Ties Him Into a ‘Pretzel’

Find all my RedState work here.

Thank you for reading! Please sound off in the Comments section below.

Case over guns on shirts in schools goes back to court

by Leave a Comment

School dress codes usually get some people fired up. One might be amazed at just how controversial such dress codes actually are.

That’s especially true when they interfere with a student’s right to free speech.

Such a case is heading back to court in Wisconsin.

Should students at a Waukesha County high school be allowed to wear T-shirts with guns on them to class?

A federal appeals court has revived that question, months after a Wisconsin judge ruled school administrators could lawfully ban the garments.

Students at Kettle Moraine High School and a Neenah middle school each sued their respective principals in February 2020. They claimed rules against the shirts violated their First Amendment rights to express support for the Second Amendment.

Last year, U.S. District Judge William Griesbach sided with the principals, noting the dress codes at both schools, and the gun-themed ban specifically, were viewpoint-neutral. Shirts with images of guns are prohibited, no matter the context, the administrators say. Shirts that support the Second Amendment with words are allowed.

However, I think the judge decided wrongly here.

First, there’s no compelling interest in banning guns on shirts anyway. A picture of a firearm cannot hurt anyone, nor is it indicative of a willingness to hurt anyone.

As such, there’s absolutely no reason to restrict it.

However, beyond that, it actually does interfere with students’ First Amendment rights.

You see, gun rights groups and gun rights messaging predominantly uses the image of firearms to convey an effect; the whole “a picture is worth a thousand words” thing. So, banning the image of guns severely restricts the ability of students to express their support for the Second Amendment while wearing clothing.

Meanwhile, gun control messaging generally doesn’t.

So while the judge can make the claim that the rule is message-neutral, it’s really not.

Even if it were, it’s still restricting free speech. A rule that says the word “abortion” can’t be included on a t-shirt would be message neutral since both sides of the debate use it, but it would interfere with the students’ First Amendment rights to speak freely on the subject.

It doesn’t matter whether one or both sides are restricted from speaking freely on a subject, it’s still an infringement on free speech.

Then there’s the fact that there is likely some degree of selective enforcement of such rules. As we saw a few years ago during the student walkout, a number of teachers and administrators supported gun control, thus allowing and even assisting students in making a political statement.

Am I to believe that the picture of a gun inside a circle with a slash through it would be treated the exact same way under such rules?

After all, gun control has a long history of selective enforcement. Early gun control laws following the Civil War didn’t explicitly mention race, but white folks didn’t get arrested for carrying a gun.

By almost any metric, this shouldn’t be permitted and the judge was wrong in his ruling. Here’s hoping they get it right this time.

Dave Chappelle Takes Name Off Alama Mater Theater and Trolls the Free Speech Haters With New Name

by Leave a Comment

Dave Chappelle continued to court controversy recently when he made a huge donation to his high school alma mater in Washington D.C. and encouraged his haters to do the same. Amid heavy criticism for his Netflix specials and supposedly “anti-trans” jokes, Chappelle challenged those angry with his comedy to donate to The Duke Ellington School of the Arts in order to build a new theater and support their arts program. The school then pressed to name the theater after the ground-breaking artist.

“Having the theater named after me is a great honor. Although, that was not my idea, aim or desire. At the request of our beloved school’s founder, Peggy Cooper Kafritz, I accepted,” he continued.

“In April, I intend to honor that request. If you object to my receiving this honor, I urge you to donate to the school noting your objection. If you are in favor of the theater being named ‘Chappelle’, I urge you to donate to the school, noting your approval.

But Dave Chappelle is a comedian, and despite still facing backlash and insults for his comedy routines, he hasn’t quite finished trolling the ‘woke’ masses.

Chapelle has announced that he has turned down the offer to add his name to the new theater at Duke Ellington. Instead, the theater will be named the Theater for Artistic Freedom and Expression.

Now, students and patrons will always be reminded oof the value of freedom of expression for artists, without being given the ammunition to disparage the generosity of one of the greatest comedians of this century.

Dave Chappelle Takes Name Off Alma Mater Theater and Trolls the Free Speech Haters With New Name

by Leave a Comment

Dave Chappelle continued to court controversy recently when he made a huge donation to his high school alma mater in Washington D.C. and encouraged his haters to do the same. Amid heavy criticism for his Netflix specials and supposedly “anti-trans” jokes, Chappelle challenged those angry with his comedy to donate to The Duke Ellington School of the Arts in order to build a new theater and support their arts program. The school then pressed to name the theater after the ground-breaking artist.

“Having the theater named after me is a great honor. Although, that was not my idea, aim or desire. At the request of our beloved school’s founder, Peggy Cooper Kafritz, I accepted,” he continued.

“In April, I intend to honor that request. If you object to my receiving this honor, I urge you to donate to the school noting your objection. If you are in favor of the theater being named ‘Chappelle’, I urge you to donate to the school, noting your approval.

But Dave Chappelle is a comedian, and despite still facing backlash and insults for his comedy routines, he hasn’t quite finished trolling the ‘woke’ masses.

Chapelle has announced that he has turned down the offer to add his name to the new theater at Duke Ellington. Instead, the theater will be named the Theater for Artistic Freedom and Expression.

Now, students and patrons will always be reminded oof the value of freedom of expression for artists, without being given the ammunition to disparage the generosity of one of the greatest comedians of this century.

Twitter Board of Directors Unanimously Recommends Sale to Elon Musk

by Leave a Comment

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission now available to the public, Twitter’s board of directors have unanimously endorsed the sale of Twitter shares to Telsa CEO and free speech advocate Elon Musk.

The filing, available on the SEC’s site, makes it clear that Twitter’s Board of Directors believes that the sale is in the best interest of Twitter’s shareholders.

Twitter’s Board of Directors, after considering the factors more fully described in the enclosed proxy statement, unanimously: (1) determined that the merger agreement is advisable and the merger and the other transactions contemplated by the merger agreement are fair to, advisable and in the best interests of Twitter and its stockholders; and (2) adopted and approved the merger agreement, the merger and the other transactions contemplated by the merger agreement.

Twitter’s Board of Directors unanimously recommends that you vote:

(1) “FOR” the adoption of the merger agreement;

(2) “FOR” the compensation that will or may become payable by Twitter to its named executive officers in connection with the merger; and

(3)“FOR” the adjournment of the special meeting, from time to time, to a later date or dates, if necessary or appropriate, to solicit additional proxies if there are insufficient votes to adopt the merger agreement at the time of the special meeting.

The next step is for the shareholders to officially vote on the sale, which would be the final step in Elon Musk’s acquisition of the social media giant.

The filing comes a week after Musk met virtually with Twitter employees and months after he announced his intention to buy Twitter and take it private in the hopes of re-establishing Twitter as a platform for free speech.

Activists and politicians on the Left have been extremely wary of Musk’s buyout, going so far as to portray him as mentally unstable and a white supremacist. Despite some pushback seen in leaked communications from staff, however, the board of directors understands that, for investors, this is probably the best deal they’ll ever get.

If shareholders vote to approve the sale, it would make Musk the chief of one of the biggest social media platforms online.