Blog 7: Anti-War

 

    I explored both Antiwar.com and the American Conservative because of the strong anti-war voices that are showcased on both. For context I would consider myself to be heavily anti-war, I consider the atrocious spending on the military so we can continue to commit inhumane acts in other countries to be one of if not one of the biggest issues we have as a society. For me it was actually refreshing to find news outlets that are pointing out many of the tragedies being committed by the military.

    These anti-war voices are rarely heard in the mainstream media for a number of reasons, with the top one being that the owners of mainstream news outlets benefit heavily from war. The news that is broadcasted on major outlets are influenced by what connections the owner has to other industries or groups, and anything that could jeopardize or even negatively impact those connections will more than likely be shot down. An example of this is how MSNBC is owned by General Electric, which is a company that stands to make heavy profits from war, so MSNBC will almost never broadcast anything anti-war.

    Another big reason you have to seek out obscure websites in order to find these anti-war voices is that many news outlets and social media platforms censor these voices because of their political affiliations. Most if not all media outlets have some affiliation to either the Republican or Democratic parties, and both sides benefit from the U.S being in war. Government parties like us to be in war because they are able to use it as a means of rallying the people and pulling them to their side. Instead of voices calling for an end to war, it benefits these parties to steer the discourse to “What is the best way for us to go to war?”, and spin the message into patriotic propaganda like, “We need to band together in order to stop this threat”.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/01/anti-war-protest-repression-bush-iraq-iran

https://www.democracynow.org/2014/11/18/no_debate_antiwar_voices_absent_from

https://mronline.org/2020/01/23/u-s-clearing-anti-war-voices-off-social-media-in-vast-censorship-operation/

Blog 4: Trump, Dominion, and the First Amendment

    

    A recent news story I wanted to examine under the lens of what we have learned about the First Amendment, is the current potential lawsuit former president Donald Trump is facing from Dominion Voting. A brief overview of the situation is that because of claims the former president and his team made both during and after the recent 2020 Presidential Election that Dominion Voting, the company that owns the electronic voting machines in twenty eight different states, had altered votes and changed the outcome of the election, Dominion is trying to sue for damages, while the former president and his team claim that they are protected by the first amendment. While I know many different individuals and groups have different opinions on the last election and how it was conducted, for the sake of this discussion and how this topic relates to the first amendment, I will be operating under the assumption that the claims against Dominion Voting are false since they have yet to be proven.

    So let me start off by addressing my thoughts on the big question, in this situation is the former president and his team protected by the First Amendment? From my current understanding of the First Amendment, I do not think so. This case to me is a fairly clear case of slander and defamation which is not protected by the First Amendment, and there are a few questions that support my belief. First, is the claim being made false? Again for the sake of this discussion we are assuming it is. Second, was the claim made to someone other than the plaintiff? Since these claims were made to the public through various news outlets and press conferences, this is also true. Third, was the defendant acting with malice or disregard for the truth of their claims? Due to the lack of evidence presented by the defendant I would say this is true. Finally, were the plaintiffs harmed or damaged by the false claims? Because of the severity of the claim, that being Dominion tampered with the election which is a serious crime, and the harassment members of Dominion faced such as doxxing and death threats, this is true. Due to all of the factors above being true, at least to the best of my knowledge, the claims by the former president and his team fall under defamation, and would not be protected by the First Amendment.

Blog #2: Supreme Court

  

    While before this class I had some knowledge of the Supreme Court and how they operate, it was only after reading the History Channel article that I learned many of the specific details around them. For one, I did not know that the way that someone joins the supreme court is by being nominated by the president and then either being accepted or rejected by the senate. This makes sense to me as it is a natural part of the checks and balances that are critical to preventing corruption and abuse of power in our government.

There are also quite a number of laws and rights that I did not know came from important decisions the supreme court has made. For example I did not know that the origin of the Miranda Rights come from the Miranda vs Arizona Case. In addition there are case rulings that I am surprised at how late it took for certain precedents to be set. There are of course ones that morally should have occurred earlier such as Obergefell vs. Hodges legalizing same sex marriage, but even more surprising are cases such as U.S vs. Nixon stopping the president from withholding evidence in criminal trials. These kinds of cases are more shocking to me because unlike same sex marriage, which has a long history of prejudice keeping it from becoming legal, I would have thought the prevention of abuse of presidential powers in something like the Nixon case, which is a key principle in our checks and balances, would have been established much earlier than it was.

However I think one of the biggest takeaways from learning about the Supreme Court, is understanding that they are far from perfect. How they chose to handle cases in the past such as Dred Scott vs. Sanford, and Plessy vs. Ferguson, show that decisions made by the supreme court should not be viewed as absolute. It is important for us as American citizens to constantly reevaluate and reconsider the decisions made by our government, and make sure that they are suitable for the current times.

Blog #3: Values of Free Speech

After reading through and learning about the eight values of free expression, I thoroughly believe that each of them are extremely important to how our country operates. However, of the eight values I believe that Check on Governmental Power, and Protect Dissent are the two most important from the bunch.

Check on Governmental Power is important to the checks and balances system in place in government. The freedom of the press to inform citizens of scandals and abuses of power being committed by the government. If we did not have this freedom, the government could keep citizens ignorant, and would lead to corruption and abuse of power. Because of the power that members of the Government have, it is critical for the people to know if and when government officials, commit actions that the nation they are sworn to serve find unacceptable.

Protect Dissent is the other most important value of free expression because it is giving protection to the people I believe need it the most, the minority. Allowing the minority to express their views is critical to the very idea of freedom of speech and the first amendment. In fact I would go as far to say that the views of the minority are the ones that need the most protection, because they do not have the inherent protection, and are not able to defend themselves like the majority can. Without this value of free expression many important and influential groups and movements would not have been able to function due to being the minority, such as the LGBT group with homosexual rights and marriage, and the African American Community with the Civil Rights Movement.

While I believe that these are the most important of the eight values of free expression, I also recognize the importance of the other values, and see them as ways of expanding on the ideas and freedoms of the above values. Promote Tolerance, means that hate speech is protected by the first amendment, and to me is an extension of the Protect Dissent value, because even though some groups like the Westboro Baptists use hate speech, and do not share the same views as the majority of country, they still should be able to express their views. 

I would also consider Participation in Self-Government to be heavily connected to Check on Governmental Power. Because the main idea behind Participation in Self-Government is having citizens who are voting in elections be informed about the candidates policies and positions. Without Check on Governmental Power, citizens are not able to stay informed, and are able to be lied to by candidates much easier, because they would not hear and learn about any actions by the candidates that are contrary to the policies and claims they present to the public.

To me Check on Governmental Power, and Protect Dissent are the most critical values of free expression that help keep our country functioning properly. Without these two values, I would consider the First Amendment to be useless because it is not protecting the free speech that is most important to protect.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-1/freedom-of-expression-speech-and-press