Every day is April Fools’ Day

By KAREN PARKER

County Line Publisher Emeritus

What if I were to include in this column information on a bar in Wilton that serves minors, and after getting them drunk, uses them to create child pornography? And what if I suggested that readers take their outrage to the government that issued this slimy business a liquor license, and perhaps armed with assault rifles and nooses, teach the village board a lesson?

Now, 95 percent of you (or at least I hope that many) would assume I have spent way too much time sucking down the last of the New Year’s champagne. But a smaller percentage might believe it. Perhaps the same percentage that, years ago, believed my April Fools’ story that Disney had bought the Elroy-Sparta State Trail or some of the other absurd April Fools’ stories I have spun over the years. Surely, no one would believe this, I would think to myself.

Wrong! Like the death of irony, I have discovered that sort of humor is no longer funny when every day has become April Fools’ Day, as it has the past few years. I don’t expect to live long enough to ever feel comfortable cranking out an April Fools’ story again.

And why did people believe them? Lots of papers did them and relied on our readers who had over the years come to expect truth from us. So even when we told them something patently ridiculous, they were hardwired to believe what they read.

Now we come to the issue of free speech, something we are hearing a lot about recently after Donald Trump was banned from Twitter and social media sites such as Parler were kicked off Amazon’s servers and banned from selling its apps in the Apple or Google stores.

While we don’t do a good job teaching civics, it is amazing how many folks seem to believe that “free speech” means one can say anything they want at any time to anyone.

WRONG!

The First Amendment text reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

In other words, free speech rights are directed at the relationship between the government and its citizens.

When Simon and Schuster canceled a book contract with Sen. Josh Hawley after his part in egging on the Capitol Hill riot (he was the one with the upturned fist directed to the crowd), he squealed like a stuck pig about his First Amendment rights?

How interesting that Hawley is a graduate of Stanford and Yale Law School and is considered a leading Constitutional lawyer and did not know free speech does not apply to private business. Of course he did, but his ambition to run for president in 2024 left him calculating the best way to lure Trump followers. It was a cynical calculation that might have very well smoked his political career.

Hawley knows there is nothing to stop him from publishing his own book, just as there is nothing to stop Donald Trump from calling a press conference and chattering away to his heart’s content. No, that is not as much fun as Twitter, and press conferences tend to include nosy reporters who ask questions, which may be why the last one was in November and no questions were allowed.

It should come as no surprise that an American right so vaguely written would have many clarifications from the Supreme Court.

While an individual cannot be restrained when it comes to airing out his opinions and views either orally, in print, or through other mediums of communication, limitations have been imposed.

Over the years, the court has determined that free speech rights do not extend to incitement of people to commit illegal or lawless activity, obscenity, defamation and something still vaguely defined — “fighting words.”

We could wander around in the weeds of court cases far beyond the limitations of this column. But suffice it to say, newspapers and television stations (not cable, as it does not use public airways) can and have been sued for violating these exceptions.

Over the years, many letters and articles have found their way to the bottom of the circular file because they were so libelous, they would have landed us in court.

Enter social media and a provision in the Communications Decency Act that allows platforms such as Facebook and Twitter from evading responsibility for what appears on their sites. They cannot be sued for what is posted by third parties on their platforms. And since this was adopted by Congress in the late ‘90s, we have created a monster.

It is why we have postings like a recent one on Parler urging the hanging of Vice-President Mike Pence. It is why we have legions of people who believe there is a deep state of Democrats who suck the blood of children and eat them for lunch. Every day is April Fools’ Day, and last week the fools showed how seriously they took this stuff when they invaded our capitol and potentially considered a mass slaughter of everyone from senators to the poor senate pages, college students who work for nothing except the experience of being part of federal public service. I imagine after last Wednesday they got more experience that they ever bargained for.

If you think this threat is far away, think again. Many of these deranged posters are urging their followers not only to invade Washington, but also to attempt a takeover of state capitols and local government.

Is it beyond belief they could show up at local board meetings? Is anything beyond belief anymore?

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