Ketanji Brown Jackson, is concerned the First Amendment is “hamstringing the government.”

That’s a 5-alarm fire of a pull-quote from a sitting Supreme Court justice, and she should absolutely be impeached and removed from the Court over it. I’m as serious as a heart attack here. Nearly every sentence of this single thought of hers adds up to textbook fascism, (a hybrid economic system in which the private economy exists but under strict state regulations, and must give way to the national interest, which is whatever the government says it is.) So, let’s go. First the full quote, directly from the SCOTUS transcript, followed by seven handpicked doozies worth analyzing:

JUSTICE JACKSON: So my biggest concern is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government in significant ways in the most important time periods. I mean, what would -- what would you have the government do? I’ve heard you say a couple times that the government can post its own speech, but in my hypothetical, you know, kids, this is not safe, don’t do it, is not going to get it done. And so I guess some might say that the government actually has a duty to take steps to protect the citizens of this country, and you seem to be suggesting that that duty cannot manifest itself in the government encouraging or even pressuring platforms to take down harmful information.  So can you help me? Because I’m really -- I’m really worried about that because you’ve got the First Amendment operating in an environment of threatening circumstances from the government’s perspective and you’re saying that the government can’t interact with the source of those problems.

1. “My biggest concern is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government….”

Really? Your biggest concern is how the First Amendment hamstrings… the federal government? No, honey. No. Your biggest concern should be the federal government hamstringing the First Amendment. You have it exactly backwards. The “charter of negative liberties” is exactly that for a reason, intentionally crafted to restrict the government’s ability to deprive the people of their essential liberties. The entire point of the Bill of Rights is to “hamstring” the federal government; how does she not understand this down to her bones?

Also, what do we not understand about censoring ideas here? Suppressing tweets is the new book burning, and how’d that work out?

2.  “What would you have the government do?”

Are you kidding? Government has the biggest microphone imaginable to make her case; granted, it’s hard to make a case against the very legal foundation of the United States, but persuasion is a big part of the job one asks for when one asks to do the people’s work. Because what comes after persuasion? That’s right: force. So you’d better be good at the former. that’s the job she asked for when she asked to do the people’s work. Now if it’s compelling, the people will heed it; if it’s not, then it’s a weak argument. Don’t ask for such an awesome responsibility if you’re not up to the task, and definitely don’t ask for it if your first impulse is to suffocate it until it stops bothering you.

3. “In my hypothetical, you know, kids, this is not safe, don’t do it, is not going to get it done.”

That’s what parents are for. The end.

4. “Some might say that the government actually has a duty to take steps to protect the citizens of this country….”

Yes, from each other. From murder and mayhem. Not from ourselves. I’m a born-free American. I don’t need you to babysit me. I’m perfectly capable of sorting through information to make a reasoned decision. The solution to “dangerous” speech is more speech, not less, as Justice Brandeis so famously intoned when he said, “To expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied [to speech one does not like] is more speech, not enforced silence.”

Image created by author using public domain photo.

5. “You seem to be suggesting that that duty cannot manifest itself in the government encouraging or even pressuring platforms to take down harmful information.”

Damned right. Government is force. The simplest ask from the federal government to (any company, but in this case) a social media company to police opinions it does not like carries with it an implicit — if not explicit — “or else.” How does this have to be explained? To anyone?

6. “I’m really worried… you’ve got the First Amendment operating in an environment of threatening circumstances from the government’s perspective…”

Good. When the government feels threatened, when it fears the people, there is Liberty. And once again, we have to notice her baseline impulse is to protect government—not you, not me, and not the people. It’s not like the Feds are lacking any kind of influence whatsoever or at risk of being tyrannized by... tweets. Opinions. Good grief.

7.  “You’re saying that the government can’t interact with the source of those problems.”

Girlfriend’s got the “source” wrong. It’s not social media; it’s us. In her mind, whether she knows it or not, or would admit it or not, we, the people, are “the source of those problems.” Us and all our messy Liberty. Talking to each other. Debating. Arguing. Over this, over that. Ew. No wonder she’s upset.

Sarcasm aside, that really is her problem here. We the people. Until social media came along, the institutional left had near monolithic operational control of every information dispensing organ in the country: television, print, movies, education, and the federal bureaucracy. If they wanted to propagandize us, they could quite literally go full court press, with every quarter singing from the same songbook. But with Twitter and Facebook? Our opinions could be widely shared in a nationwide town square, and maybe even go viral—the left couldn’t have that!

So what did they do? Well, as was revealed in The Twitter Files, the Feds had a 21st Century “bat phone” they could pick up anytime they saw a post they didn’t like to “encourage” and “pressure” those agreeable companies into doing the government’s bidding. Tony Soprano would’ve loved that bat phone.

Because that’s textbook mafia fascism. For reals. The real thing. F-A-S-C-I-S-M. How KBJ does not understand this, all of this — down to her bones — is breathtaking.

Americans, freedom-loving Americans, who have been properly raised to understand our Constitution and cherish our inherent liberties would never, ever, in a million years, lament that the First Amendment had “hamstrung” government.

I would suggest that Ms. Jackson be brought in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee and asked to clarify her views on the First Amendment, but we don’t want to set an abusable precedent.  We don’t want justices afraid to ask questions during argument, and we don’t want them hauled before the very committee which was supposed to have vetted them thoroughly simply for asking one — albeit alarming — question.

However (and this is a big however), when that question exposes a foundational, fundamental, bedrock ignorance, dare we say inversion, of our first, most cherished principle, our soul’s right to breathe, that’s absolutely impeachable.

They’ll never do it of course. The entire Republican conference put together lacks the testicular fortitude of one Nancy Pelosi all by her diminutive self. So I guess all we can do is wag a finger and say shame on the Senate for not doing the due diligence we just did here. They could have mined her thoughts on every amendment. They didn’t. It’s too late for that, but it needs to be noted, for the record, that they gave us a Supreme Court justice whose first impulse is to worry about the federal government, and since they won’t remove her, every senator who voted for her must be removed, held accountable to us, those unruly, opinionated people.

Image: Public domain.