SCOTUS and Free Speech 2024

 

ATTENTION!!! All FB friends and foes far and wide, The Supreme Court of the United States has made a ruling that affects you and me. I know crazy huh! Anyhoo, the SCOTUS has ruled that local government officials can block the public from their social media pages and NOT be in violation of the 1^st Amendment.

In the unanimous opinion in Lidke v. Freed (2023), Justice Amy Coney Barrett set guidelines for when public officials' accounts could be viewed as state action. Barrett said public officials’ social media accounts can only be considered part of their government duties if the official has the authority to speak on the state’s behalf and claims to use that authority when posting on social media. 

The court found that while public officials’ actions might look official, it is not the state acting unless there is a direct connection to that power or authority. Determining whether or not the official is exercising state power is nuanced, but Barrett said this authority has to be rooted in written law or longstanding custom. 

“The inquiry is not whether making official announcements could fit within the job description; it is whether making official announcements is actually part of the job that the state entrusted the official to do,” Barrett wrote.

The second prong of the test laid out by the court looks at the intention of the officials’ speech. The court said public employees speak in an official capacity when they use speech to fulfill official responsibilities. 

“If the public employee does not use his speech in furtherance of his official responsibilities, he is speaking in his own voice,” Barrett wrote. 

The complex case before the high court sought to differentiate between government officials’ public and private use of social media.

A federal judge had found two Poway, California, school board members had violated the First Amendment by blocking parents from their Facebook pages. 

Michelle O’Connor-Ratcliff and T.J. Zane used their social media pages to share information about the school district, like reports on school visits and policy plans. The board members also requested feedback from parents, using the online platform to circulate surveys or provide information for future meeting dates. 

Two parents in the district, Christopher and Kimberly Garnier, found social media the easiest way to interact with the board members, citing limitations on discussions during board meetings and unanswered emails. 

The Garniers commented on the members’ pages, criticizing the board’s response to financial mismanagement by the former superintendent and incidents of racism. The couple spammed the member’s posts, repeatedly commenting the same thing on dozens of posts. 

Eventually, O’Connor-Ratcliff and Zane blocked the Garniers from their Facebook pages. The Garniers then responded with a lawsuit, claiming O’Connor-Ratcliff and Zane had violated their right to criticize the government in the public forum freely. A federal judge ruled that the board members' social pages should be considered state action, limiting officials’ ability to block members of the public. The Ninth Circuit affirmed. 

At the Supreme Court in October, Pamela Karlan, an attorney with the Stanford Law School Supreme Court Litigation Clinic representing the couple, cautioned the justices against creating a “magic word test” that would allow politicians to use disclaimers to block constituents. 

The court also reviewed a similar case brought by Kevin Lindke, a resident of Port Huron, Michigan, who was blocked from the city manager's Facebook page. James Freed used his Facebook page to share health guidance during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, when he began to share photos of city leaders dining at expensive restaurants, Lindke became critical of the city leader. 

After repeated comments criticizing Freed’s pandemic response, Lindke was blocked from the page. Like the Garniers, Lindke sued, claiming Freed had violated his First Amendment rights. 

Barrett said the case before the court required an analysis of whether a state official engaged in state action or functioned as a private citizen. Public officials do not give up their First Amendment rights when taking office, and in this case, Freed acted in his private capacity to block Lindke and delete his comments. So, the court found Lindke could not use Freed’s status to claim his rights had been violated. 

“The distinction between private conduct and state action turns on substance, not labels: Private parties can act with the authority of the state, and state officials have private lives and their own constitutional rights,” Barrett wrote. “Categorizing conduct, therefore, can require a close look.” 

Barrett said considering if specific posts or comments are state action is easier than completely blocking an individual from a page. Sometimes social media pages are “mixed-use,” containing official and private speech. Barrett said public officials could face liability for blocking users from a mixed-use page because they would not be able to prevent someone from commenting on private posts without unlawfully barring them from official posts. 

“A public official who fails to keep personal posts in a clearly designated personal account therefore exposes himself to greater potential liability,” Barrett wrote. 

The court vacated both decisions, sending them back to the lower courts to be considered on a case by case basis. with the court’s new guidance.

I agree with this ruling. The SCOTUS got it right here. There has to be a time when a local government official, or any government for that matter to be free to comment or post on social media in real time. The couple from Poway California, didn’t get the response they wanted, so they spammed the school board member's private Facebook page. That is to say, they commented with the same post over and over, to the point that the page was unusable. So, the school board member blocked them, and then the fight was on. That is not appropriate. That is akin to doxing and call flooding. Doxing is when someone posts personal information about a government official online, or call floods a police station or any other first responder station, as a form of intimidation. Those people should be blocked, and if they have a beef with a government official then there are legal and more appropriate ways to do that. The public has a right to redress their grievances with government officials, they do not have the right to harass those government officials. Some in the public believe that the government employees work for them, so they can treat them however they wish. They do this with harassing behavior, that is in fact against the law in Arizona. Government employees are people, and employees are just like everyone else, they are also private people, and have a right to as much freedom and privacy as all citizens. This nonsense has to stop, and it stops here with this SCOTUS ruling. Below is a link to the ruling text straight from the SCOTUS, for clarity, transparency, and context.

SCOTUS ruling: Lindke v. Freed, No. 21-2977 (6th Cir. 2022)

 

 

Biden v. Trump 2024

 I am not necessarily putting them on the same level in character. As much as I am not a Biden fan, he is not as bad as Trump. One can't be in politics for 48 years and not be political, and not to have done something shady. That is the nature of politics. Biden doesn't walk on water, and he is not as pristine as he comes off. Just like Trump is not the courageous fighter he purports to be, or comes off as. Both are political animals, and as such are guided by appearance. Both are old men who are playing a young mans game in a young man's arena. Remember, politics is all about perception, and in politics, perception is reality, not truth. That is what I meant to articulate. That while they both are different, they both are the same.

Tik Tok V. Freedom of Speech

 

 have always maintained that a time would come when our Constitutional rights will collide with technology and our freedoms. That time has come with TikTok. Tik Tok by its ties to the Chinese government is a threat to our personal, and national security. That is why the government has the Constitutional authority to restrict or outright ban the app in the United States.

The restriction or ban of Tik Tok is some say a violation if the First Amendment, as it is  It is a restriction of free speech. The government can restrict free speech if it has a compelling interest to do so, which it does because of security both personal and national security. If the restriction is content-neutral, which it is, because the government wishes not to ban the content, but the app. The government offers an alternative which again it does with Facebook, Instagram. and other social media platforms. Those who say they are against it because it is important to their business, have other social media platforms that do the same thing.

Now to the dilemma, do we give up rights for security? That is the problem. Usually, I am against government restriction of any aspect of our life because as Ben Franklin said; “Those who give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve liberty or safety.”  We must look at the right we are abdicating and compare it to the threat it represents. I have no problem giving up the right to Tik Tok to gain security, both personal and national/ I am also well aware of the slippery slope argument about giving up a right. I subscribe to that thinking as a rule. This is different, I just don’t see how it is a good deal for our country. I support the ban. I believe the very concept that our country is based on; freedom, will be what is our undoing in the end.

Knowledge

 I know enough to know when I don't know enough. I try to know something at the end of the day, that I didn't know at the beginning of that day. I try to learn something new every day. Learning is a lifetime endeavor.

My Father

 I had been prepping all my life for the death of my parents. When one day the hospital called and said come see your father if you want to see him alive again. So I did. I got to see him. I told him that I was ok now, and would be ok later. We had made peace about 10 years before that. We were in a good spot, Which was funny, we were never really in a bad place, we just didn't see eye to eye. I got a call a week later from my mother that he had passed. So I drove 4 hours through the early morning hours, crying and mourning my father. All that prepping that I had thought I did, turned out to be a lie. Because I wasn't prepared at all. My father and I were tight. We were both truck drivers, worked outside at manual labor. We both had an appreciation for classic cars. My father was a a hot rodder and a gearhead from the 1950's. We went to car shows together. The last one we went to was the Barrett-Jackson Auction in Scottsdale AZ in 2007. We had the best time, as we always had. We worked together, we did recreation together, we discussed life together. After his passing, I had, and still to this day have no one in my family that relates to me. No one wants to go to car shows, or talk about truck driving, or cars, or anything else. My father worked his entire life to make it easier for all of us, and it took about 10 or so years off the end of his life. He knew it would, but he did it anyway, because that is what good men do. My father wasn't perfect, lord knows, look at me, and the problem child I was. he did his best with what he had, and he was always taking care of us. he was a good man who recognized good and fostered it, and saw need and tried to help. Thank you Mr. Gen X talks, you and I are a lot alike.

Business of Secession

 

I have been reading about the growing number of people who believe that we should break up our union, into blue states, and red states. There has been talk from Georgia through Texas to California. So, what is this talk of secession? Conservatives are upset with the federal government, and some Liberal Western States are also upset with the government all for different reasons. For the record, I am NOT in favor of secession. There are too many problems that would be created, and too few problems solved. There will be unintended consequences to that action.

The reasons given mostly for secession have to do with states not liking the direction of the federal government. The liberal western states are having a problem with the federal government's land grab from the states. Land usage and water rights are at the forefront of the Western states' concerns. In Oregon, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) takes land that was farmed and ranched for 6 or 6 generations of families. They take the land, and they take the water and leave private owners no recourse but to sell out to the government. 60% of land in Oregon is government-owned. In Arizona, 56% of the land is government owned. With the drought conditions in the western U.S. water is scarce and a whole other issue. In the Conservative rural bible belt part of our country, the issue is politics. They don’t like the progressive way of doing things. They want society to stagnate, like those states have. Let us take a hard look at the secession business. That is what I am going to call, the Business of Secession. I am going to go to a hypothetical state that has already seceded. To show the unintended consequences. With secession comes, political upheaval, economic upheaval, social upheaval, and Anarchy.

Let’s start with political upheaval. Upon secession, all military installations are retained by the Federal Government. None of the units or hardware will be in the States. If the state wants to try and take the military installations, and hardware by force with the guard, that will be on the table. Habeus Corpus will be suspended on a federal level, and the U.S. Constitution no longer governs the police, The country of Arizona must govern under their state constitution. Then a fence will have to go up around the state, as a line of demarcation, for trade. Only civil rights given to the citizens are state ones. Arizona becomes self-governing. No federal tax money, and no federal protection. The Arizona Guard has that duty now. Next comes the economic upheavals.

The economy of Arizona will change. The border with New Mexico, California, Nevada, and Utah, became international borders. Anything coming in or going out will be charged a tax. People will have to use passports to go to one of the states. Taxes on imports and exports will be higher. Arizona will have to use its resources to survive. No more federal money to build, or maintain highways, and other infrastructure. The power grid, unless self-sustaining, will have to be bought from some other place and will raise the cost. The cost of all goods and services will go up. Arizona will have to figure out its own money or just use the dollar. That will cause inflation. With all that comes the social upheaval.

The social upheaval will be people not having to get along, and getting what is good for them. People not helping each other, because there will be no social structure, or rule of law. The state will be ruled by one party, person, or family. The basic services that society provides will be suspended, then everyone is on their own. When that happens, anarchy has arrived, and by then we are quite a way down the rabbit hole of needless rebellion.

 

These are some of the unintended consequences of secession. Is this what we want? Are the problems we are going to create going to be worth tearing the country apart over? Or should we try a little harder to figure out a way we as a free and sovereign people can live with our Constitution, and the rule of law, together, and act like civilized people, rather than the fractured factions we have right now? Secession is never a good idea. It is bad juju and will do irreparable harm to our Republic and the Democracy that supports it. The Business of Secession is bad business.

Harvard President Resigns

“But she defended the value and originality of her scholarship, even while conceding that she had duplicated language from other academics “without proper attribution” in her published work. Several of the scholars whose work Gay was accused of plagiarizing had previously told news outlets they considered the citation issues highlighted by conservative media outlets to be relatively minor, or even not plagiarism at all, with one scholar calling it “technically plagiarism” but “minor-to-inconsequential”, and another saying: “This isn’t even close to an example of academic plagiarism.”

The above quote is taken from an article on the Guardian website. Here is a link to the site and the entire article. https://www.yahoo.com/news/claudine-gay-warns-broader-war-031530581.html

 

I am going to comment on this Havard president's resignation. Let us begin with the antisemitism on campus issue. The question she was asked was a simple yes or no.  The answer given by the President was atrocious. There is no context in which antisemitism is ok toward individuals, and groups. She misspoke and did not articulate her thoughts well. Maybe she is not comfortable speaking in public, so I give her the benefit of the doubt.

 

 

The above being said, the most egregious part about the President of Havard is the academic plagiarism. She is the President of one of the most respected institutions of higher learning in the world. Only the best and the brightest study at Harvard. The institution is supposed to educate. Part of that education is articulated through writing and publishing. Plagiarizing is not only stealing, but it is also misrepresenting or lying.  As a student, I was held to a high standard when it came to papers, essays, and other written communications. If I copied, then I was to properly attribute it, and if I didn’t then I failed. Which taught me that I must be truthful with my writing and that what I claimed to write, was in fact what I wrote. I never went to Havard, but it looks like to me, that the instructors at community and state college were holding me to a higher level than they do at Havard. What does that say about the quality of the education at Havard? What does that say about What they are teaching at Harvard, when the President, the leader of the institution, can’t or won’t hold herself, to a higher standard? How can she be the leader of an elite institution and hold her students and faculty to a higher standard while conceding that she had duplicated language from other academics “without proper attribution” in her published work;”

Her lackadaisical attitude is echoed by her peers, which points to a systemic corruption of the higher standards that were once the hallmark of Havard. Her peers claiming, “Several of the scholars whose work Gay was accused of plagiarizing had previously told news outlets they considered the citation issues highlighted by conservative media outlets to be relatively minor, or even not plagiarism at all, with one scholar calling it “technically plagiarism” but “minor-to-inconsequential”, and another saying: “This isn’t even close to an example of academic plagiarism.” This is why the value of a college degree from elite institutions of higher learning is not worth the exorbitant cost required to attend these places.

I have owned everything that I have ever said, written or done, without exception, excuse, or purpose of evasion. To see these “scholars,” not only condone, but defend the plagiarism that Ms. Gay committed, only shows why the value of a college education is diminishing.

 

She and her supporters are claiming that the conservatives are being racist toward her for the criticism. Well as far as I am concerned, her color has nothing to do with the fact that she lied and misrepresented her work. She did it to herself. From the looks of the President of the institution, it appears to be a “do as I say, not as I do” situation. Which means they are no longer teaching at Harvard. They are instead indoctrinating.