About That Book
Jan. 11th, 2021 10:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutThe new Senator from Missouri had a book coming out, basically saying that private companies did NOT have the right to limit speech on their platforms. That’s a relatively standard “misunderstanding” of the first amendment, which is actually a reprehensible political position and often a form of fraud, extortion, coercion, leverage, you name it.
Then the Senator from Missouri engaged in fundraising during the middle of the violent attempt to disrupt a ceremony associated with the transition of power in the US Capitol last Wednesday, an attempt which lead to several deaths immediately and continues to directly cause death in ensuing days.
The First Amendment right to free speech and freedom of the press and associated freedoms has always had some limitations. You can’t yell Fire in a crowded theater, type of thing. But there have always been limitations on criminal threats, and advocacy of violence. These limitations used to be quite sweeping and have been eroded in the last century.
However, there continue to be limitations on advocacy of violence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action
It’s pretty clear that this Senator is a bad person. There are reasons to believe he had very good training in the law, and he made use of that training. What he is doing with that ability and training is appalling. His publisher choosing not to participate is unlikely to be overturned in a court on free speech grounds, and if it is overturned on contract grounds, the Senator from Missouri is in for a whole lot of surprises in terms of what publishers routinely get away with when they want a book not to sell, and its author not to make any money from it.
ETA:
Coverage at NYT. The last paragraph or two has a weird comparison between Simon & Schuster Hawley’s publisher) and Regnery (Cruz’s publisher). This is roughly like comparing what a head of state says on TV and what your crazy uncle mutters to himself. I’m not saying no one listens to your crazy uncle when he is muttering to himself, but Regnery back in the day was pretty infamous for not even answering their phone consistently. When someone was trying to buy their books to sell in a bookstore. A not very small bookstore.
Then the Senator from Missouri engaged in fundraising during the middle of the violent attempt to disrupt a ceremony associated with the transition of power in the US Capitol last Wednesday, an attempt which lead to several deaths immediately and continues to directly cause death in ensuing days.
The First Amendment right to free speech and freedom of the press and associated freedoms has always had some limitations. You can’t yell Fire in a crowded theater, type of thing. But there have always been limitations on criminal threats, and advocacy of violence. These limitations used to be quite sweeping and have been eroded in the last century.
However, there continue to be limitations on advocacy of violence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action
It’s pretty clear that this Senator is a bad person. There are reasons to believe he had very good training in the law, and he made use of that training. What he is doing with that ability and training is appalling. His publisher choosing not to participate is unlikely to be overturned in a court on free speech grounds, and if it is overturned on contract grounds, the Senator from Missouri is in for a whole lot of surprises in terms of what publishers routinely get away with when they want a book not to sell, and its author not to make any money from it.
ETA:
Coverage at NYT. The last paragraph or two has a weird comparison between Simon & Schuster Hawley’s publisher) and Regnery (Cruz’s publisher). This is roughly like comparing what a head of state says on TV and what your crazy uncle mutters to himself. I’m not saying no one listens to your crazy uncle when he is muttering to himself, but Regnery back in the day was pretty infamous for not even answering their phone consistently. When someone was trying to buy their books to sell in a bookstore. A not very small bookstore.