Entertainers bow in near-unison to Cancel Culture dictates. We see it everywhere, from white actresses quitting voice roles for biracial characters to celebrities denouncing their white privilege in cringe-worthy videos.
When the most popular movie of all time, “Gone with the Wind,” got temporarily pulled from HBO Max, no prominent star spoke in its defense.
No Spielberg, Coppola or Tarantino rose up to say, “enough is enough.”
The atmosphere in La La Land couldn’t be more tense following the rise of Black Lives Matter and the fallout from George Floyd’s death at the hands of a white police officer. Stars probably fear a “problematic” tweet from their past, one long since forgotten, could resurface to wreck both their present and future.
Their concern is justified given the ferocity of the speech police, but it’s hardly the portrait of bravery we often hear from the glitterati, like when Charlize Theron <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/may/07/charlize-theron-is-being-called-brave-for-gaining-weight-for-a-role-heres-why-thats-a-problem">“bravely” gained weight</a> for a film role.
The following figures deserve to be called “brave” … and then some.
Terry Crews
The muscle-bound star of “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” and “Idiocracy” is no culture warrior. Or, at least he didn’t start out that way.
Crews simply got dragged into current events – twice. Following Harvey Weinstein’s precipitous downfall, Crews revealed a man had <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-terry-crews-details-sickening-incident-when-paul-bois">sexually groped him</a> years earlier, and he finally felt comfortable speaking about it.
More recently, Crews dared to suggest BLM’s rhetoric may not be as unassailable as the press insists. The far-left group, he suggested, “<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/celebrity/terry-crews-slammed-suggesting-black-lives-matter-could-morph-black-n1232549">must ensure #blacklivesmatter doesn’t morph into #blacklivesbetter</a>.”
That caused a media firestorm, with most outlets presuming Crews had uttered classic “wrongthink.”
The former football star could have apologized and/or cut a large check to BLM to atone for his sins.
He did neither.
Instead, he correctly noted a frightening number of <a href="https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jul/6/terry-crews-declares-all-black-lives-matter-after-/">black children have died</a> in the wake of BLM’s ascendance. He also acknowledged the cultural forces lined up against him, and gently told them <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/terry-crews-doubles-down-on-desire-to-unite-people-despite-leftist-outrage-i-decide-to-die-on-this-hill">to pound sand</a>.
“Are all white people bad? No. Are all black people good? No. Knowing this reality – I stand on my decision to unite with good people, no matter the race, creed or ideology. Given the number of threats against this decision – I also decide to die on this hill.”
He offered nuance, positive thoughts and, most of all, didn’t immediately beg for forgiveness like 99 percent of his peers might have done.
<div id="attachment_125956" style="width: 810px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-125956" class="wp-image-125956" src="https://editorial.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Terry-Crews-1024x576.jpg" alt="Terry Crews arrives for the 72nd Annual Directors Guild Of America Awards at The Ritz Carlton on January 25, 2020 in Los Angeles, California." width="800" height="450" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/07/Terry-Crews-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/07/Terry-Crews-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/07/Terry-Crews-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/07/Terry-Crews-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/07/Terry-Crews-2048x1152.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />Frazer Harrison/Getty Images</div>
J.K. Rowling
The mind behind the Harry Potter realm may be the toughest person on this list. Why? Cancel Culture, and the media, have done everything they can to punish her for speaking her mind.
Rowling is both an ardent liberal and full-throated supporter of trans individuals. Still, she stepped off the LGBTQ reservation when she spoke against <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/threats-to-cancel-j-k-rowling-grow-amid-transgender-controversy">erasing the concept of sex</a> and questioned elements of the far-left’s platform on trans issues.
For that she was assaulted in the press, mocked by peers like <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/stephen-king-swipes-jk-rowling-trans-women-are-women">Stephen King</a> and denounced by the very stars she made famous, including Harry Potter himself, Daniel Radcliffe.
This week she doubled down on her views via a lengthy series of Tweets. She’s not backing down, even after news outlets reach out to her publisher and film studio contacts to see if they’ll be canceling her officially next.
It’s a not too subtle pressure campaign, but so far it’s not working.
<div id="attachment_122840" style="width: 810px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-122840" class="wp-image-122840" src="https://editorial.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/GettyImages-1061228896-818x576.jpg" alt="J.K Rowling attends the UK Premiere of &quot;Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald&quot; at Cineworld Leicester Square on November 13, 2018 in London, England." width="800" height="563" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/06/GettyImages-1061228896-818x576.jpg 818w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/06/GettyImages-1061228896-300x211.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/06/GettyImages-1061228896-768x541.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/06/GettyImages-1061228896.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />Samir Hussein/WireImage/Getty Images</div>
Adam Carolla
Carolla and Jimmy Kimmel bonded years ago and, by all accounts, remain the best of chums. Kimmel followed a more traditional path and found fame via “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” Carolla, in turn, failed to duplicate Howard Stern’s radio fame and found himself out of a terrestrial radio gig in 2009 following a format flip.
Then Carolla channeled his inner entrepreneur.
He created “The Adam Carolla Show” podcast and blazed his own trail. In the process he created what he calls his “pirate ship,” a company immune to the PC Police or, later, Cancel Culture.
Only Carolla can fire himself.
The Libertarian-leaning comic essentially gave that crowd the finger via this summer’s “I’m Your Emotional Support Animal: Navigating Our All Woke, No Joke” culture. The hilarious book starts with a disclaimer-slash-promise. No apologizing for jokes. Ever.
Cancel Culture knows not to knock on his door.
<div id="attachment_118942" style="width: 810px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-118942" class="wp-image-118942" src="https://editorial.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Adam-Carolla-959x576.jpg" alt="Adam Carolla performs onstage at the International Myeloma Foundation 13th Annual Comedy Celebration at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on October 17, 2019 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Araya Diaz/Getty Images for International Myeloma Foundation)" width="800" height="480" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/06/Adam-Carolla-959x576.jpg 959w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/06/Adam-Carolla-300x180.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/06/Adam-Carolla-768x461.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/06/Adam-Carolla.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />Araya Diaz/Getty Images</div>
Ricky Gervais
The British comic’s take-no-prisoners approach isn’t new. He’s been slaying and flaying his targets for some time, but he’s grown bolder in recent years.
We all know why. He takes extra pleasure angering the PC scolds, and it’s infectious.
Earlier this year he torched woke Hollywood at the Golden Globes, and he’s regularly rejecting calls to censor his stand-up. He broke down why Cancel Culture exists and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/gervais-says-the-woke-mob-wants-to-shut-you-up">its true purpose.</a> during an illuminating podcast chat.
He also refused to budge during a woke Hollywood Reporter roundtable most recently, when far-left comic Kumail Nunjani worried his comedy would <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/kumail-nanjiani-ricky-gervais-comedy-harmful-actor-roundtable-a9599156.html">embolden hate</a>.
<div id="attachment_77481" style="width: 810px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-77481" class="wp-image-77481" src="https://editorial.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Screen-Shot-2020-01-08-at-6.31.52-PM-917x576.png" alt="n this handout photo provided by NBCUniversal Media, LLC, host Ricky Gervais speaks onstage during the 77th Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 5, 2020 in Beverly Hills, California." width="800" height="503" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/01/Screen-Shot-2020-01-08-at-6.31.52-PM-917x576.png 917w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/01/Screen-Shot-2020-01-08-at-6.31.52-PM-300x189.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/01/Screen-Shot-2020-01-08-at-6.31.52-PM-768x483.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/01/Screen-Shot-2020-01-08-at-6.31.52-PM.png 942w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />Paul Drinkwater/NBCUniversal Media, LLC via Getty Images</div>
Anthony Cumia/Dave Landau 
The duo’s very existence on a platform Cumia created warrants their inclusion on this list. It doesn’t end there, though.
Cumia, repeatedly fired from terrestrial and satellite radio for his brash antics, finally had enough in 2014. He created his own “pirate ship,” to paraphrase Carolla, letting his fans directly access his material sans middle men on what he later dubbed Compound Media.
The result? The kind of unexpurgated comedy that once was the norm. Anything goes, with Cumia and Landau embracing the notion that jokes are just that – jokes. The duo treats “The Anthony Cumia Show” like a comedy workshop, riffing through ideas that are often as funny as they are tasteless.
Don’t like that brand of humor? No one is forcing you to sign up. Ain’t that America?
Their uncensored commentary on the relentless riots, in particularly, offer a tonic to those aghast at the corporate media’s gaslighting on the matter.
<div id="attachment_126589" style="width: 810px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-126589" class="wp-image-126589" src="https://editorial.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Anthony-Cumia.jpg" alt="Anthony Cumia at Carolines On Broadway on April 17, 2014 in New York City." width="800" height="495" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/07/Anthony-Cumia.jpg 926w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/07/Anthony-Cumia-300x186.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/07/Anthony-Cumia-768x475.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />Cindy Ord/Stringer/Getty Images</div>
Dean Cain
The erstwhile Superman uses social media to share uplifting messages, chat with fans and, occasionally, share his right-of-center views.
He did more than that recently. During a Fox News appearance Cain slammed Cancel Culture and worried he wouldn’t be able to say, “Truth, justice and the American way” if he played the Man of Steel now.
He’s right, of course. The 2006 film “Superman Returns” <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/dean-cain-superman-american-way/">stripped “American way” out of that iconic phrase 14 years ago.</a>
Honorable Mention: Actors Nick Searcy and James Woods routinely stand up to the PC police no matter the cultural conditions.
More from Christian Toto: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/toto-shouldnt-hamilton-get-canceled-next">Shouldn’t ‘Hamilton’ Get Canceled Next?</a>
<div id="attachment_126591" style="width: 810px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-126591" class="wp-image-126591" src="https://editorial.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Dean-Cain-965x576.jpg" alt="Executive producer Dean Cain attends the premiere of 'Architects Of Denial' at Taglyan Complex on October 3, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Tara Ziemba/Getty Images)" width="800" height="477" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/07/Dean-Cain-965x576.jpg 965w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/07/Dean-Cain-300x179.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/07/Dean-Cain-768x458.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/07/Dean-Cain.jpg 1002w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />Tara Ziemba/Getty Images</div>

Terry Crews

Meet The Few, The Proud, The Free Speech Heroes of Hollywood

Adam Carolla

Free Speech

Hollywood

JK Rowling

Ricky Gervais

Numerous books have been pulled from the shelves of libraries in Hong Kong after the Chinese Communist Party&#8217;s (CCP) new Hong Kong security law went into effect last week.
&#8220;Books written by prominent Hong Kong democracy activists have started to disappear from the city&#8217;s libraries, online records show, days after Beijing imposed a draconian national security law on the finance hub,&#8221; Voice of America <a href="https://www.voanews.com/east-asia-pacific/voa-news-china/democracy-books-disappear-hong-kong-libraries">reported</a>. &#8220;Among the authors whose titles are no longer available are Joshua Wong, one of the city&#8217;s most prominent young activists, and Tanya Chan, a well-known pro-democracy lawmaker.&#8221;
Experts and activists say that the removal of the books increases concerns that the Chinese Communist Party will use the new law to censor political statements that dissent from the oppressive political party, which has been responsible for the deaths of <a href="https://www.heritage.org/asia/commentary/the-legacy-mao-zedong-mass-murder">tens of millions</a> of its own citizens since its inception.
The new security law &#8220;criminalizes four categories of crimes, including secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign or external forces to endanger national security,&#8221; The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/hong-kong-libraries-pull-books-for-review-under-chinas-security-law-11593963424">reported</a>. &#8220;In contrast to mainland China, Hong Kong historically has had robust protections on free speech, and the city has been a haven for publishers and journalists. However, episodes such as the disappearance of several booksellers who sold titles in Hong Kong critical of China’s leaders have heightened anxieties that China is trying to import its style of social control into the city.&#8221;
Two of the books that were removed were written by activist Josh Wong, who responded by writing on Twitter: &#8220;Less than a week after #NationalSecurityLaw has been put in place, #Hongkong&#8217;s public libraries started to put books under review and suspend them from lending, including two of mine published in 2013 and 2015.&#8221;
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Less than a week after <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NationalSecurityLaw?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NationalSecurityLaw</a> has been put in place, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Hongkong?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Hongkong</a>&#39;s public libraries started to put books under review and suspend them from lending, including two of mine published in 2013 and 2015. <a href="https://t.co/Dbuj62rEfj">pic.twitter.com/Dbuj62rEfj</a>
&mdash; Joshua Wong 黃之鋒 😷 (@joshuawongcf) <a href="https://twitter.com/joshuawongcf/status/1279309613431762944?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo responded to the new moves by Beijing, writing on Twitter: &#8220;With the ink barely dry on the draconian National Security Law, HK authorities are now removing books from libraries, banning political slogans, and requiring censorship in schools. The U.S. condemns these Orwellian assaults on the rights and freedoms of the Hong Kong people.&#8221;
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With the ink barely dry on the draconian National Security Law, HK authorities are now removing books from libraries, banning political slogans, and requiring censorship in schools. The U.S. condemns these Orwellian assaults on the rights and freedoms of the Hong Kong people.
&mdash; Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) <a href="https://twitter.com/SecPompeo/status/1280310515915513866?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 7, 2020</a></blockquote>
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China expert Gordon Chang told Fox News on Sunday that China&#8217;s new security law appeared to give &#8220;China the ability to imprison anybody that it wants.&#8221;
&#8220;And, indeed, you don&#8217;t even have to go to Hong Kong to be at risk, because Hong Kong and China have extradition treaties with other countries,&#8221; Gordon said. &#8220;And Article 38 of this law says that any comment, any statement on foreign soil by a foreigner is a violation of the national security law if it advocates succession, terrorism, collusion, sedition, all the rest of it. &#8221;
&#8220;China is saying that it not only demands the total obedience of people in China. It demands the total obedience of people in Hong Kong,&#8221; Chang added. &#8220;China demands total obedience from everybody else in the world. It can&#8217;t enforce that right now, but that really is the message.&#8221;
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Demonstrations Continue In Hong Kong Against China&#8217;s National Security Law

China Begins Repressive Crackdown On Hong Kong, Removes Books From Libraries That Promote Democracy

China

Hong Kong

San Francisco’s District 6 supervisor is pushing to remove Mark Zuckerberg’s name from a public hospital.
The Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center received its name in 2015 after the Facebook founder and his wife donated $75 million to the hospital’s foundation. San Francisco District 6 Supervisor Matt Haney says the tech CEO’s name is “unseemly” on the public hospital.
In a tweet <a href="https://twitter.com/MattHaneySF/status/1277309042390523904">thread</a> posted on Sunday, Haney said that Zuckerberg’s name should be taken off the hospital because of his refusal to &#8220;regulate hate speech&#8221; and &#8220;disinformation&#8221; on his social media platform, and because large donations should not “purchase permanent advertising on public buildings.”
“Massive advertising boycott of Facebook for failing to regulate hate speech &amp; disinformation Huge staff walk outs &amp; protests. Cozy relationship w Trump, $ to Republicans. Much of it seems directly tied to Mark Zuckerberg. Why is his name still on our SF public general hospital?” Haney began.
Zuckerberg has repeatedly defended his platform&#8217;s commitment to empowering free expression. In a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/mark-zuckerberg-defends-free-speech-amid-political-blowback-i-believe-in-people">speech</a> at Georgetown University last year, Zuckerberg spoke out strongly in defense of freedom of expression. &#8220;We can continue to stand for free expression, understanding its messiness, but believing that the long journey towards greater progress requires confronting ideas that challenge us or we can decide the cost is simply too great,” he said. “I’m here today because I believe we must continue to stand for free expression.”
More recently, amid pressure to follow the lead of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in censoring more posts, particularly President Trump&#8217;s, Zuckerberg renewed his defense of free speech, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/facebook-employees-stage-virtual-walkout-to-protest-ceo-zuckerbergs-stance-on-trump-posts">writing</a> in a May 29 post, &#8220;I know many people are upset that we’ve left the President’s posts up, but our position is that we should enable as much expression as possible unless it will cause imminent risk of specific harms or dangers spelled out in clear policies.&#8221;
Removing the CEO&#8217;s name may have consequences for the San Francisco hospital. Zuckerberg and Chan reached an agreement with the city’s Board of Supervisors to donate the money to the hospital in exchange for their names to remain on the care center for 50 years.
Haney contends that if enough people call for the name to be changed, Zuckerberg may not sue to enforce the agreement.
“There are options to still remove it, and nurses who have been working on a strategy that wouldn’t lose us millions,” Haney said. The hospital nurses’ union has been pushing for the hospital to be renamed for several years.
“The option the nurses prefer — a ballot measure calling for it to be changed, put up for a public vote. Their view is that if it passed, Zuckerberg wouldn’t sue to stop the name from being removed,” Haney continued. “The name on the PUBLIC hospital is unseemly, even regardless of his recent inactions.”
“$75 million is a big donation, and it’s welcomed and appreciated. It shouldn’t require permanent naming rights, advertising, on our public hospital. SF taxpayers have given billions to the hospital, it’s their building,” Haney said.
In 2018, San Francisco District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin campaigned to have Zuckerberg’s name removed from the hospital over the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/mark-zuckerberg-heres-what-really-happened-james-barrett">Cambridge Analytica</a> scandal in which a British consulting firm was reportedly given access to data on millions of Facebook users without their consent, according to the <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/SF-politician-wants-to-remove-Mark-Zuckerberg-s-13429100.php">San Francisco Chronicle</a>.
At the time, hospital CEO Susan Ehrlich asserted that Zuckerberg and Chan’s gift had purchased the hospital life-saving equipment and supplies, while noting that memorializing people who give large donations encourages more giving.
“In acknowledgment and appreciation of that gift, our hospital now carries their names,” Ehrlich said. “Naming is an important convention in philanthropy that encourages additional donors. &#8230; We are honored that Dr. Chan and Mr. Zuckerberg thought highly enough of our hospital and staff, and the health of San Franciscans, to donate their resources to our mission.”
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Mark Zuckerberg

San Francisco Supervisor Wants Zuckerberg’s Name Scrubbed From Hospital After $75M Donation

Facebook

China has passed a sweeping national security law that human rights activists are describing as a &#8220;weapon of repression to be used against government critics&#8221; in Hong Kong, as the Chinese Communist Party continues to tighten its grip on the region.
Chinese President Xi Jinping signed into a law on Tuesday a bill banning acts of sedition, subversion, and terrorism, according to the <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3091241/national-security-law-chinese-president-xi-jinping-signs">South China Morning Post</a>. The National People’s Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC), China’s top legislative body, reportedly passed the legislation in a 162-0 vote on Tuesday morning.
Violation of the law carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. NPCSC Chairman Li Zhanshu said the law’s unanimous passage is a “reflection of the will of comrades in the whole of the nation including Hong Kong.”
Joshua Rosenzweig, who heads the China team of the international human rights group Amnesty International, said the bill’s passage has sparked fear that “Beijing has calculatingly created a weapon of repression to be used against government critics, including people who are merely expressing their views or protesting peacefully,” according to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/29/china/hong-kong-national-security-law-passed-intl-hnk/index.html">CNN</a>.
The law, consisting of six articles and 66 clauses, has not been made public, and a draft copy has yet to be provided to officials in Hong Kong. The legislation is set to take effect July 1 without Hong Kongers knowing much of anything about what it says. The passage of the bill is another extensive erosion of the civil and political liberties of Hong Kong’s citizens.
Hong Kong&#8217;s Chief Executive Carrie Lam, widely viewed as a mouthpiece for the Chinese Communist Party, defended the bill in remarks to the United Nations Human Rights Council
“The legislation will not undermine ‘One Country, Two Systems’ and Hong Kong’s high-degree of autonomy,” Lam <a href="https://www.scmp.com/video/china/3091249/carrie-lam-defends-national-security-law-speech-united-nations">said</a>. “Hong Kong is a free and diversified society. We respect differences of opinion and thrive on reaching consensus, but the One Country principle is non-negotiable and could not be compromised as without one country, two systems will stand on shifty ground and Hong Kong’s stability and prosperity will be at risk.”
Joshua Wong, who led pro-democracy protests against China in Hong Kong six years ago, said the new law is the beginning of Beijing’s “reign of terror” over the region.
“It marks the end of Hong Kong that the world knew before,” Wong said on Twitter. “From now on, #Hongkong enters a new era of reign of terror, just like #Taiwan’s White Terror period in history, with arbitrary prosecutions, black jails, secret trials, forced confessions, media clampdowns and political censorship.”
“With sweeping powers and ill-defined law, the city will turn into a #secretpolicestate. #HongKongProtesters now face high possibilities of being extradited to China’s courts for trials and life sentences,” Wong continued. “However, even under the ill wind of #China’s direct authoritarian rule, #Hongkongers will continue to fight for our freedoms and democracy for the city’s next generations. When justice fails, our fight goes on.”
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2. From now on, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Hongkong?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Hongkong</a> enters a new era of reign of terror, just like <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Taiwan?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Taiwan</a>’s White Terror period in history, with arbitrary prosecutions, black jails, secret trials, forced confessions, media clampdowns and political censorship.
&mdash; Joshua Wong 黃之鋒 😷 (@joshuawongcf) <a href="https://twitter.com/joshuawongcf/status/1277794270393643008?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 30, 2020</a></blockquote>
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4. However, even under the ill wind of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/China?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#China</a>’s direct authoritarian rule, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Hongkongers?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Hongkongers</a> will continue to fight for our freedoms and democracy for the city’s next generations. When justice fails, our fight goes on.
Photo: Lam Yik Fei
&mdash; Joshua Wong 黃之鋒 😷 (@joshuawongcf) <a href="https://twitter.com/joshuawongcf/status/1277794273174474759?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 30, 2020</a></blockquote>
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The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Xi Jinping

‘Weapon Of Repression’: China Passes Hong Kong National Security Law Cracking Down On Dissent

Chinese Communist Party

If you are a Jew or Christian in America, the seriousness of your Judaism or Christianity is now being tested.
People look back in time and wonder how religious people, especially religious leaders — specifically, the clergy — could have failed in times of moral crisis. The failure of most rabbis, priests and pastors to speak out today — when the risk to personal safety is so much less than it was in communist and fascist countries — should provide the answer: Religion doesn&#8217;t have all that much impact on most religious people. During comfortable times, it provides two essentials to a happy and fulfilled life — community and meaning — but when tested, it often fails like an umbrella that fails to expand just as it starts to rain.
America is being taken over by violent mobs; a vast amount of destruction and stealing has taken place (with little police intervention and the apathy of our political leaders). Why aren&#8217;t all clergy delivering thundering sermons about the Seventh Commandment, &#8220;Thou shalt not steal&#8221;? Does it now come with an asterisk?
A central part of a major American city has been seized and occupied by people who hate America and its values, including its Judeo-Christian values. Heard any clergy (aside from some evangelical Christians) speaking out against it?
And most ominous by far, for the first time in American history, free speech — the mother of all freedoms — is being widely suppressed, not by the government but by the press, the universities, the high schools, the elementary schools, all the giant internet media, Hollywood and virtually every major business in America. Christians and Jews place repentance at the center of their theologies, yet there is no place for repentance if you did or said one insensitive thing — real or alleged — even if it was 20 or more years ago. Yet all we get from American religious leaders on this matter is &#8230; silence.
The freest, least racist, most opportunity-providing country in history — &#8220;the last best hope of earth,&#8221; in Abraham Lincoln&#8217;s words — is smeared as &#8220;systemically racist&#8221;; all white people are declared &#8220;racist&#8221;; and the statues of the greatest Americans, including George Washington and even Abraham Lincoln, are toppled and/or defaced. And all we get from most American religious leaders is either agreement or silence.
It leads this religious American to ask the question the anti-religious ask: Of what use is religion?
Take the claim that being &#8220;colorblind&#8221; is racist.
If you are a religious Jew or Christian — let alone a rabbi, priest or minister — do you believe that? Do you believe that the human ideal is not to be colorblind? Do you believe that the ideal is to see every person, first and foremost, as a member of a race? Is that what you learned at seminary? Is that what you have taught from your pulpit all of your life?
I doubt it. I assume that, until as recently as a year or even six months ago, you have always believed and preached that we are, in Martin Luther King Jr.&#8217;s words, to measure people not by &#8220;the color of their skin but by the content of their character.&#8221;
Isn&#8217;t it fundamental to all Bible-based religions that we are all created in God&#8217;s image, that God has no race and that Adam and Eve, from whom we all descend, had no race? If you are a Christian, do you see Christians of other races first as fellow Christians or first as members of their race? If you are a Jew, do you see Jews of other races as anything other than fellow Jews? Does God?
So, why the silence? Why aren&#8217;t all rabbis, priests and pastors telling their congregations and telling America — in tweets, on Facebook, in letters to the editor, on television and radio, in opinion pieces — that there is one race, the human race, and that the only antidote to racism is to deny that race determines our worth, not to affirm its significance?
Does an ideology that affirms the significance of race have an honorable pedigree? Has it ever led to anything good? Isn&#8217;t that exactly what Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan advocated?
So, how are we to explain this tragic failure of religious Jews and Christians — and their clergy — to speak up against looting (aka stealing) and for freedom, for America, for Western civilization and for being colorblind?
The answer to this question also goes to the core of what it means to be religious. At the center of our two religions is the notion of fear of God: &#8220;Fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man&#8221; (Ecclesiastes 12:13). But what is now apparent is that most Jews and Christians fear the left, fear The New York Times, fear being shunned by &#8220;friends&#8221; on Facebook and mobbed on Twitter more than they fear God.
That&#8217;s what this moment comes down to. Jews and Christians who fail this test will not only lose their freedom, lose the great American hope for mankind and lose the West; they will have also lost their souls.
Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His latest book, published by Regnery in May 2019, is &#8220;The Rational Bible,&#8221; a commentary on the book of Genesis. His film, &#8220;No Safe Spaces,&#8221; came to theaters fall 2019. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.

Prayer

PRAGER: America’s Jews And Christians Are Failing The Test Of Their Lives

Christianity

Judaism

Judeo-Christian Values

Leftism

The first responsibility of government is to protect its citizens and their inalienable rights. As the Declaration of Independence puts it, “to secure these rights [of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness], Governments are instituted among Men.” But what happens when the government officials whose first job is protecting your rights are the ones who are violating them? If government officials can violate your constitutional rights and not be held accountable, your rights aren’t worth the parchment they’re written on. Qualified immunity is the judge-made law that allows government officials to fail their first responsibility and avoid accountability. Conservatives, as much as anyone, should oppose it.
The 1871 Civil Rights Act, passed in the aftermath of the Civil War, authorizes lawsuits against state and local government officials who violate your constitutional rights. But the Supreme Court has judicially amended the law to completely protect police, university, or other officials who violated your rights if the law was not already “clearly established.” In practice, this is an extraordinarily high bar that shields “all but <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/475/335/">the</a> plainly incompetent” government officials. Another court must have already said that another official violated the Constitution when he did the exact same thing to someone else that an official did to you. That’s why police officers have recently been deemed immune from civil liability <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicksibilla/2020/05/13/should-cops-accused-of-stealing-over-225000-have-legal-immunity-supreme-court-urged-to-hear-case/#70872ed02877">for stealing money</a> from people whose homes they searched or ordering <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/baxter-v-bracey/">police dogs to attack suspects</a> sitting on the ground and giving themselves up.
As Justice Clarence Thomas has <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-1287_09m1.pdf">recently written</a>, there is “no basis [in the Civil Rights Act] for the objective inquiry into clearly established law” that the Supreme Court has imposed to protect government officials from accountability. This is not an approach to your constitutional rights that conservatives or anyone else should support. And that’s why many civil liberties organizations <a href="https://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/william-baude-new-calls-supreme-court-reconsider-qualified-immunity">across the ideological spectrum</a> are urging the Supreme Court – and Congress and even state legislators – to end qualified immunity.
Qualified immunity is getting enhanced scrutiny because of the impact it may have on justice for the family of George Floyd, killed by a Minneapolis police officer. And conservatives should lead the charge to see government respect constitutional rights, opposing qualified immunity because it turns communities against good police officers because it prevents true accountability for the worst ones. But free speech advocates have an additional reason to oppose qualified immunity — it’s a primary reason why university administrators keep getting it wrong when it comes to student and faculty expression rights. There is obviously no parity between the victims of police abusing their power and the frequent fights over campus speech policies. But the same judge-made legal rule stops those in power from feeling the consequences of violating any number of rights. Advocates of free speech and open inquiry on campus, like everyone else, should join this fight to hold the government accountable.
Instinctively, conservatives know that incentives matter here. I’ve sued dozens of public universities for violating the First Amendment rights of students. Every time I sued a university that told a Christian student group they couldn’t share their faith without advance permission from the Office of Student Affairs or literally arrested students for handing out the Constitution on their campus on Constitution Day, concerned conservatives told me: “Make the universities pay! That will stop this!”
That’s a truth that’s universal — people change their behavior when they’re accountable for bad outcomes. If we want government at any level to prioritize protecting constitutional rights, officials must be motivated to prioritize it.
Our country’s free speech challenges extend well beyond campuses and cut across ideology and other demographics.  <a href="https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/SOFAreport2019.pdf">Almost 30 percent</a> of adults say the First Amendment “goes too far” in its protections, 25 percent would give the president power to shutter news media “engaged in bad behavior,” and 50 percent say that <a href="https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/SOFAreport2019.pdf">universities should disinvite speakers</a> who will offend some part of a campus’ population.
But in few places in American life is it so common for government to write down anti-speech policies in ink. <a href="https://www.thefire.org/report-9-in-10-american-colleges-restrict-free-speech/">Roughly 90 percent of public universities</a> maintain speech zones, speech codes, and other formal written policies that, however well-meaning their intent, violate the First Amendment. This is after years of groups like Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, Alliance Defending Freedom, and others working with universities to correct unconstitutional policies and challenging them in court when those rights are violated.
After decades of work, there has been considerable progress — that just 10 percent of colleges now have “green light” policies with no free speech problems is significant, and many of the worst “red light” schools have at least become “yellow light” schools. That’s something. But if 90 percent of municipalities passed laws unconstitutionally restricting what people can say, where they can say it, or with whom they can associate, we would undoubtedly deem that a free speech crisis.
But the reason speech advocates can’t  “make the universities pay” for these violations — and thus encourage them to prioritize getting these policies right — is qualified immunity.
The Supreme Court has interpreted the Constitution to prohibit you from filing suit against the University of California, Berkeley, an arm of the state, in federal court for damages when it violates your First Amendment rights. So your only option is to sue the individuals responsible for the decision. But qualified immunity makes that unlikely to succeed.
Your rights are violated, no one pays, and the officials who continue to draft and enforce those unconstitutional policies are not incentivized to spend the time and effort to get it right.
What happens if we eliminate qualified immunity? Then not only police officers, but all state government officials, including those who run your university, know they are accountable for constitutional violations. The city, university, or insurer will still cover employees’ liability, but by allowing more cases for constitutional violations to go forward, more rights will be vindicated and government will prioritize getting their written policies into compliance with the Constitution and training employees on what it requires of them. Whether police or universities, when government must weigh the cost of getting the Constitution wrong it will be more focused on getting it right.
In other words, we incentivize doing what government is created to do, protect your rights.
Eliminating disincentives to free expression such as qualified immunity would also reduce counterproductive attacks on higher education. <a href="https://www.charleskochfoundation.org/news/ckf-raises-concern-call-intimidate-scholars-courses-online-covid-pandemic/">Some groups</a> have responded to censorial speech policies with efforts to intimidate and antagonize university leaders and faculty. Fighting fire with fire backfires and ultimately chills the environment that allows for diverse speech on campus. It also assumes that the university officials on the other side are trying to silence your views. The reality is that most are simply trying to weigh competing priorities.
Qualified immunity invites them to err too often on the side of restricting protected speech. Change the incentives and you get better results, without attacking the very principles of free expression that you otherwise defend.
When students graduate from universities where free speech and open inquiry is valued, not just in rhetoric but in lived reality, the next generation of teachers and judges and policymakers and community leaders will leave equipped to be the antidote to the broader attacks on civil liberties coming from all directions.
Government’s primary job is to protect your individual rights. Qualified immunity is a made-up judicial doctrine that absolves government of that responsibility on campus as well as in your police force. It’s time we end it. And campus speech advocates, especially the conservatives and libertarians who most often take on these unconstitutional campus speech policies, should welcome the opportunity to partner with anyone to hold government accountable.
Casey Mattox is vice president for legal and judicial strategy at Americans for Prosperity. On Twitter: <a href="http://twitter.com/caseymattox_">@CaseyMattox_</a>
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Freedom fighter

MATTOX: Want To Protect Free Speech On Your Campus? End Qualified Immunity

Diversity

Universities

The same Cornell student groups that sought to get a law professor fired for criticizing the tactics of the Black Lives Matter movement are now seeking to boycott his course.
William Jacobson wrote two articles on his personal website, Legal Insurrection, about the current protests and riots in the wake of the police-involved death of Minneapolis man George Floyd before the calls for this termination began. Having failed to get him fired, the outrage mob is now organizing a boycott of his course.
“Earlier this week, the Black Law Students Association circulated an email statement to the Cornell Law School community repeating many of the false and misleading accusations against me that I have covered in earlier posts,” Jacobson <a href="https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/06/anti-intellectualism-at-cornell-law-school-student-groups-organize-boycott-of-my-course/">wrote</a>. “But it went beyond that. They refused my offer to debate their representative and a faculty member of their choice, issued a call to boycott my course, and demand the law school screen faculty hires for ideological purity.”
Jacobson quoted from the email:
<blockquote>Although the law school recently released a statement regarding Professor Jacobson and his blog, we further urge the administration to critically examine the views of the individuals they intend to employ. Faculty members who challenge students to debate them on the motives of those fighting to preserve Black life are clearly more interested in amplifying their own agendas than engaging in thoughtful and reflective discourse. Professor Jacobson has claimed no expertise nor any specialized training on matters of race and racial justice, rendering any future discussions on the matter entirely unproductive. We are not interested in subjecting ourselves and our community members to dialogue that reinforces the false dichotomy of “right” versus “left” when it comes to our humanity.
By mentioning BLSA by name on his blog and suggesting that we are somehow the cause of some unwarranted vitriol he is receiving, Professor Jacobson invites a hostility that we cannot ignore. Accordingly, the BLSA Executive Board will refrain from participating in the Securities Law Clinic that Professor Jacobson supervises. As the course selection period approaches, we encourage our membership and our allies to reconsider studying under an individual whose views perpetuate hatred towards their fellow students. Thinly veiled racism under the guise of “intellectual diversity” has no place in our law school.</blockquote>
Jacobson said the student effort is now “being amplified by the Cornell Law School chapter of the National Lawyers Guild (a <a href="https://www.nlg.org/guild-notes/article/nlg-national-office-releases-new-radical-law-student-manual/">left-wing</a> national legal group).” He then quoted an email reportedly being circulated to organize the boycott.
“I am reaching out on behalf of the National Lawyers Guild regarding a letter we would like to send to the student body concerning Professor William Jacobson,” the email said. “We hope that everyone has had a chance to read the powerful statement the BLSA executive board sent on Monday regarding Prof. Jacobson. We support their statement, and hope to amplify it in one, unified campaign.”
Jacobson came under fire earlier this month after writing two articles critical of the riots that have broken out across the country, leading to deaths, looting, and destroyed businesses and property. One of those articles was a reminder that the “hands up, don’t shoot” narrative was false; the other was about the riots tearing down the country.
Alumni then began demanding Jacobson be punished, possibly terminated, The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/cornell-mob-comes-for-law-professor-who-criticized-black-lives-matter-movement">reported</a>. Cornell’s law school dean defended Jacobson’s right to free speech while saying he personally disagreed with what Jacobson said.
Jacobson wrote that the effort to boycott his class is “not about my writing on the issues, which they misrepresent and distort in the statement they plan on circulating.” He says it is “an attempt not just to scare students away from my course, but to scare students away from speaking their minds, and to create a faculty and student purity test.”
“This toxic atmosphere didn’t need to take place. At a time when the law school desperately needs an adult in the room, so to speak, we have faculty and a Dean who denounce me,” Jacobson wrote. “This isn’t activism, it’s anti-intellectualism.”
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Angry crowd

Cornell Students Now Boycotting Course Taught By Law Professor Critical Of Black Lives Matter Tactics

Cancel culture

Cornell University

Riots

Last week, Facebook announced plans for a new “independent” Oversight Board. It seems Mark Zuckerberg has formed the board in the sincere hope that Facebook protect free expression, preserve user experience, and avoid accusations of tilting the scales of public discourse in one partisan direction. Unfortunately, the Board as it currently stands will only exacerbate the problems Zuckerberg hopes to solve.
While the censors may be independent of corporate control, they appear nearly uniform in their hostility to conservative views. Conservatives would more likely get a fair shake if Zuckerberg sat at a desk and censored our content himself, which while time-consuming might be a wiser course for the Facebook boss than outsourcing the curation of his platform to a group of unaccountable, likeminded, conspicuously non-American ideologues. Beyond the board’s composition, the sheer timing of this announcement just six months from a presidential election will confirm for many conservatives that Facebook intends to shut us up in 2020.
The board’s most glaring problem is ideological imbalance. The very first board member listed on the website works for George Soros, the most influential and radical leftist funder in the world. Next comes Evelyn Aswad, who ran a State Department office for Hillary Clinton. Third on the list is Endy Bayuni, the Indonesian senior editor of the Jakarta Post who in 2016 lamented, “Authoritarian regimes and dictators around the world must feel vindicated by the just-concluded presidential race in the United States, the one-time champion of liberal democracy.” Bayuni insists on calling himself “nonpartisan,” but that claim flops when one recalls his enthusiasm for the election of Barack Obama and the nomination for president of Hillary Clinton.
Not all of the picks lean left. One notable exception is Michael McConnell, a jurist who can boast both conservative bona fides on issues such as abortion and religious liberty and liberal goodwill stemming from his criticism of the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore as well as his role in launching Barack Obama’s career. McConnell’s legal colleagues on the board seem less fair-minded. Jamal Greene, a liberal law professor who advised Kamala Harris during the vicious Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, once described Trump’s election as “a failure of American politics” and his lack of a primary challenger in 2020 as a “straightforward failure of democratic political technology.” Greene will serve as co-chairman of the board, where he will be joined by fellow law professor Pamela Karlan, who testified before the House Judiciary Committee in favor of impeaching President Trump.
The board’s overwhelmingly foreign composition has expressed similar antipathy to the President, which one might well accept in the spirit of free expression. Unfortunately many of those members have followed their criticism with calls for outright censorship. Pakistani non-profit leader Nighat Dad called Trump “evil” and suggested we “build a wall around him” to “#BanTrump.” Australian professor Nicolas Suzor once “loved” a comparison of Trump to Hitler and suggested Twitter ban the President. Alan Rusbridger, the editor-in-chief of the UK’s most prominent left-wing newspaper encouraged news networks to black out Trump’s press briefings on coronavirus.
Even somewhat right-leaning board members seem shaky. John Samples, a vice president at the libertarian Cato Institute, has publicly bemoaned President Trump’s “assault on American institutions” and accused him of opposing “basic ideals underpinning liberal democracy.” Opposition to “basic ideals underpinning liberal democracy” sounds like prime grounds for censorship, wouldn’t you say? And board member Damian Green, though technically a conservative member of the British parliament, would fall squarely on the Left by American standards.
Speaking of American standards, one can’t help but notice how few Americans will oversee one of the most successful American companies in history. Just five of the twenty people who “will make final and binding decisions on whether specific content should be allowed or removed from Facebook and Instagram&#8221; hail from the United States, where freedom of speech means something rather different than it does in Denmark or Pakistan. Even relatively tolerant countries fine and jail people for expressing heterodox views. America uniquely protects speech. Perhaps Facebook has selected so disproportionately international a group because the majority of Facebook users live outside the United States. But Facebook would not exist—it would be unthinkable—outside the particularly robust American conception and defense of free expression. Americans should constitute a far greater percentage of the next twenty Oversight Board members.
The board chairmen promise, “We are all committed to freedom of expression within the framework of international norms of human rights.” But “international norms” regarding free expression pale in comparison to our own. What a sad irony for a great American company. Facebook began as a platform that promised the expansion of free expression—that is, a uniquely American tradition of free expression—around the world. Now that platform promises to constrict at home the good it seeks to expand abroad. In attempting to please everyone, the Oversight Board as currently constituted will appease no one and heap ever more blame on its founder, to whom it can never again be held accountable. Call it mission drift, call it madness. In any case, Mark Zuckerberg should call for a new plan before it’s too late.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

KNOWLES: Facebook Risks Constricting At Home What It Seeks To Expand Abroad: Free Expression

Constitution

Donald Trump

First Amendment

In a perfect world Dave Rubin wouldn’t have to write “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Burn-this-Book-Thinking/dp/B07W8H9WX7/ref=sr_1_1?crid=P7VE3SUAPN3L&amp;dchild=1&amp;keywords=don%27t+burn+this+book+dave+rubin&amp;qid=1588614905&amp;sprefix=don%27t+burn+this+book%2Caps%2C195&amp;sr=8-1">Don’t Burn This Book</a>.”
The “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJdKr0Bgd_5saZYqLCa9mng">Rubin Report</a>” host wants his fellow Americans to agree to disagree and maybe share a craft beer later. Sounds like ye olde American experiment, right?
Not the 2020 version, sadly.
Rubin accidentally joined the Intellectual Dark Web by chatting with folks from both sides of the aisle. Now, he’s using free speech’s decline as a tool to share his life story, and more, in his easily digested memoir.
“Don’t Burn This Book: Thinking for Yourself in an Age of Unreason” wants to open our minds while sharing his right-leaning take on the culture at large.
Rubin shows a flair for self-awareness while trashing what passes for journalism today.
“If it weren’t for [the mainstream media’s] abject failure to do their jobs, you’d have no idea who I was,” he writes.
“Don’t Burn This Book” offers a primer on Fake News as well as Rubin revealing what happened when he shamed a journalist for trafficking in it.
If you follow any of the biggest names in news the answer won’t surprise you.
Rubin, who is gay, defends straight white men mid-book, a section sure to trigger the usual suspects. It’s more about the Left’s sense of “self-loathing” as much as how Leftists clash with a certain civil rights leader’s <a href="https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/martin_luther_king_jr_115056">famous line.</a>
Part of the book finds Rubin weighing in on a series of hot button issues &#8212; the Second Amendment, abortion and more. He peels off a few nuggets about each, taking firm but reasonable stances along the way.
It still feels like a detour, and an unnecessary one. His whole thesis revolves around thinking for yourself. Perhaps he could break down in depth how he came to a few of these conclusions, a primer for processing facts en route to a bedrock principle. As is, the chapter marks the book’s weakest point.
“Book” also isn’t as riotous as one might expect given Rubin’s stand-up chops. A few laugh lines prove ineffective, though others more than live up to his background.
Far better is watching Dave Rubin, the media personality, spring to life. The author shares some personal struggles, both mental and physical, that led to his unexpected fame.
Rubin remains kindred spirits with Jordan Peterson, the Canadian intellectual who enraged the Left for telling people to clean their rooms and smiting government speech codes. They make an odd pair, but the chapter dedicated to their tour offers some humble life lessons.
Dress for success may sound obvious, but Rubin frames the old saw in a way that could make a difference. Even better is sharing Peterson’s knack for knowing his own limitations.
In today’s age of scorching hot takes, it’s more than acceptable to say, “I don’t know.” In fact, it’s refreshing and raw. Rubin’s thoughts on how we “catastrophize” everything in our First World lives is equally valuable, although it, too, could be better fleshed out.
The author burns plenty of calories repudiating the woke mob, giving specific techniques to keep the pitchforks at bay. He’s right, of course, but for many people the short-term costs will be considerable.
Rubin famously left the Left, which he says fueled the book’s initial premise. That transformation’s fallout, including hateful messages from former “allies” who now see him as Public Enemy Nos. 1-5, must be read to be believed.
Here’s a sample:
<blockquote>“Suddenly longtime friends are leaving venomous voice mails, calling me racist and misogynistic, while others send emails denouncing me as a hateful bigot who deserves to die.”</blockquote>
The scariest part of Rubin’s book is how he describes cultural forces aligning to silence dissent. He name checks an Economist story that dubbed The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro “a pop idol of the alt-right” as Exhibit A.
Yes, those eager to squelch free expression are on the march, but Rubin and “Don’t Burn This Book” have our backs.
“You’re not a Nazi, you’re just somebody who thinks for themselves,” he writes about Americans who don’t tow the progressive line. That sentence alone justifies Rubin’s cultural ascension. It’s also why “Don’t Burn This Book” should be read by every torch-wielding member of the social media mob.
A version of this review was also published at HollywoodInToto.com.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Dave Rubin

TOTO: Read Dave Rubin’s ‘Don’t Burn This Book’ Before It’s Too Late

Ben Shapiro

Jordan Peterson

Media Bias

Political Correctness

Social Media

Late-night television might get a jolt if Dave Rubin has anything to say about it.
The host of “The Rubin Report” tells The Daily Wire he’s exploring a late-night show of his own. And, given his unofficial membership in the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dave-rubin-will-smith-welcome-intellectual-dark-alexander-ruiz">Intellectual Dark Web,</a> he might just revolutionize the format.
For now, Rubin is sharing his anti-P.C. sentiments in “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/609625/dont-burn-this-book-by-dave-rubin/">Don’t Burn This Book: Thinking for Yourself in an Age of Unreason</a>.” Part memoir, part teaching guide, the book asks readers to make up their own minds on hot button issues without fearing the woke mob.
“I’m not saying everyone should agree with me … [the book is] a framework for people to think about the issues of the day,” Rubin says.
“Don’t Burn This Book” excoriates the mainstream media, which he calls “deeply corrupt” and social justice scolds who eschew nuance and context.
That common-sense philosophy comes with a price in today’s culture. It’s something he explores in great depth in the book, but it’s also happening now. He cites a “massive coordinated campaign” on sites like Reddit to sink the book’s Amazon.com reviews.
“That is a modern book burning … It’s not actually tossing books into a bonfire. You burn a book because you don’t want its ideas to get out,” he says, noting his tome cracked the New York Times’ bestseller list despite the protests.
“Don’t Burn This Book” lets Rubin share how his shift from progressive to classic liberal cost him plenty of friends and even his mental and physical health.
He’s now a target due to his right-leaning ways, but liberals can’t escape the mob, either. He recalls a <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/461264-marianne-williamson-clarifies-hot-mic-moment">frank moment</a> from former presidential candidate Marianne Williamson about the Left/Right divide.
&#8220;What does it say that Fox News is nicer to me than the lefties are? What does it say that the conservatives are nicer to me,&#8221; she asked.
The far left “has become this giant movement of destruction, not a movement of creation,” Rubin says, something even select left-leaning guests share off-camera with him.
Rubin’s show hails from California, home for some of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Yet those same celebrities rarely have his, or our, backs on free speech matters.
“They’re a bunch of cowards,” he says flatly. “Hollywood is filled with more cowards than most industries… they’re not providing anything that’s unique. Even the greatest actor could be replaced by a marginal actor tomorrow and we’d still go see movies.
“I have actor friends who agree with me on some [free speech views],” he adds, but they won’t say so publicly.
Rubin’s mission on and off the page is to bring back lively, vigorous debate. He thinks he knows partly why it’s suddenly gone out of vogue. For too many people, the political fight is front and center in our lives.
And that’s only hurting us.
“If politics, the day to day … if that thing is you guiding philosophy every day you’ll wake up to be miserable,” he says, adding it’s why Leftists get so emotional when anyone critiques their world view.
The latter plays out on college campuses nationwide.
“This has become a condition of the Left. We must silence everyone we disagree with,” he says.
If a radical like the far-left activist Linda Sarsour attempts to speak at a university, conservatives will either not show up or assemble a small, peaceful protest against her ideas. Rubin notes. That’s hardly the case when a Ben Shapiro or Dennis Prager touches down on those same universities. Instead of protecting their right to be heard, campuses often kowtow to the woke mob.
“They’ll also tell you words are violent … and the same people say it’s OK to ‘<a href="https://reason.com/video/ok-punch-nazi-berkeley-students-campus/">punch a Nazi</a>,’” he notes of those far-left voices.
He playfully compares the treatment of conservatives to how the Jedis were eliminated by “Order 66” in “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith.”
Yes, Rubin is a “Star Wars” enthusiast in between book deals and streaming interviews.
Not every liberal thinks this way, of course. Rubin cites <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/maher-save-democrats-trump/">HBO host Bill Maher</a>, who he calls the “last liberal fighting” for free speech.
“Most of them are completely cowed into silence,” he says.
Should Rubin join the late-night TV fray he doesn’t sound afraid of the competition. That’s particularly true during the current pandemic.
“We’re seeing how irrelevant these quote-unquote comedians are … they’re barely funnier than your neighbor, and they’re all ideologically the same, all Leftists,” Rubin says.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Dave Rubin Explains What Drove Him To Write ‘Don’t Burn This Book’

Dennis Prager

A woman previously convicted for her role in an infamous racial hoax has had one of her convictions overturned.
Four years ago, Asha Burwell and two other African-American women made national headlines when they claimed they were attacked by a dozen white people on a bus heading back to the State University of New York at Albany. The trio said the attackers hurled racial slurs at them during the encounter as well.
As is always the case with these allegations, students protested on campus before any evidence emerged to back up the women’s claims. The women also received support from across the country.
Police stunned the women’s supporters when <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/more-damaging-evidence-in-the-suny-albany-racial-hoax">they arrested</a> the three women and charged them with assault, criminal mischief, and filing a false police report. Burwell was convicted of filing a false police report and an additional charge of “falsely reporting an incident in the third-degree and causing a public alarm through her tweets,” <a href="https://www.timesunion.com/news/amp/Partial-reversal-in-CDTA-bus-case-cites-free-15189756.php">reported</a> the Times Union, Albany’s local newspaper.
The conviction was overturned by a 5-0 ruling by the Appellate Division of the state Supreme Court’s Third Department. Burwell’s attorney, Frederick Brewington, cited President Donald Trump earlier this year while arguing for the conviction to be overturned. Brewington argued that it was a slippery slope to criminalize Burwell’s tweets, which repeated her false hate crime claims about the bus attack. He said criminalizing such false tweets would have wide-ranging consequences for people “from the top to the bottom,” including the president.
“If, indeed, we put this standard in place, someone would have to arrest our president immediately,” Brewington told the Times Union earlier this year.
On April 9, the justices of the appellate court found Burwell’s tweets to be protected by the First Amendment even though they were false and caused protests and a national outcry.
“Neither general concern nor the Twitter storm that ensued following defendant posting the false tweets are the type of ‘public alarm or inconvenience’ that permits defendant’s tweets to escape protection under the First Amendment and, therefore, the speech at issue here may not be criminalized,” wrote Justice Stanley Pritzker in the court’s decision.
The remaining four justices concurred.
“To that end, although it was not unlikely that defendant’s false tweets about a racial assault at a state university would cause public alarm, what level of public alarm rises to the level of criminal liability?” the decision added. “By the very nature of social media, falsehoods can quickly and effectively be countered by truth, making the criminalizing of flase speech on social media not actually necessary to prevent alarm and inconvenience. This could not be more apparent here, where defendant’s false tweets were largely debunked through counter speech; thus, criminalizing her speech… was not actually necessary to prevent public alarm and inconvenience.”
Even though Burwell lied, the decision is a win for the First Amendment.
Burwells conviction on falsely reporting the crime in the first place was upheld.
In February 2016, audio from two 911 calls and video footage from the bus revealed the women had lied. Footage showed one of the accusers threw the first punch and that it was one of the alleged victims who used a racial slur – toward a white passenger. Further, the 911 calls showed the women laughing about the incident. One said “I think it’s so funny” and “I beat up a boy” before getting connected to a dispatcher. Once connected, the accuser changed her tune and claimed she was the victim of a hate crime.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

NY bus

She Was Convicted Of Falsely Claiming A Racial Attack On A Bus. One Of Her Convictions Was Just Overturned.

Hate Crime

Hoax

New York

The National Football League has issued new guidelines for recruits who will join the league this year, many in the 2020 NFL draft, set to take place &#8220;virtually&#8221; this coming Thursday.
If players are standing for the draft, and hope to be recruited on to a team during Thursday&#8217;s selection ceremony, they should avoid clothing with political statements, shirts with overtly sexual or violent messages, or clothing that promotes a brand not affiliated with the National Football League, <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/04/19/nfl-draft-2020-invitees-must-adhere-to-strict-dress-code/">according to the New York Post</a>.
The memo says that clothing with &#8220;libel or hate speech” or featuring “political statements” will not be tolerated, so if draftees plan on following in former 49ers second string quarterback Colin Kaepernick&#8217;s footsteps, they should be extra careful to keep things off camera.
Other restrictions include clothing that features “racial, religious, or ethnic slurs,” “explicit language” or “obscene, pornographic (or escort services), violent (including firearms or other weapons), or sexual imagery.”
Potential recruits also can&#8217;t wear clothing that features “disparaging depictions of the NFL” or &#8220;defamatory statements regarding the NFL, its owners, employees and/or NFL partners.&#8221;
The restrictions, so far, apply just to potential draftees appearing in Zoom meetings or on livestream from home during Thursday&#8217;s virtual draft, but the NFL does seem to be cracking down on political speech within the league across the board.
Professional football became a flashpoint for political disagreement starting in 2017, when Kaepernick began his &#8220;kneeling&#8221; protest, demonstrating against racial inequality and police violence by taking a knee on the sidelines during patriotic pre-game festivities (including the national anthem). After President Donald Trump became involved, the protest spread league-wide.
The NFL, at first, defended players&#8217; right to protest, but as consumers disengaged from the NFL &#8212; first refusing to purchase tickets and then tuning out of games en masse &#8212; the league felt obligated to step in. After discussions with owners, in 2018, the league adopted a policy largely banning political statements on the field and forcing players to either stand for the national anthem or remain in their locker room during the pre-game.
To assuage player concerns, the league adopted a &#8220;social justice&#8221; initiative.
&#8220;We want people to be respectful of the national anthem,&#8221; commissioner Roger Goodell said at the time, <a href="https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/23582533/nfl-owners-approve-new-national-anthem-policy">per ESPN</a>. &#8220;We want people to stand &#8212; that&#8217;s all personnel &#8212; and make sure they treat this moment in a respectful fashion. That&#8217;s something we think we owe. [But] we were also very sensitive to give players choices.&#8221;
Now that professional sports in on hiatus over coronavirus-related lockdowns, the NFL is likely more cognizant than ever of its appearance to average Americans &#8212; and desperate to stay in Americans&#8217; good graces.
The NFL is planning on having something of a &#8220;regular season,&#8221; and players are reporting to virtual &#8220;summer caps&#8221; this week. Like other professional sports leagues, however, how games are played and managed is likely to change. NFL games may be played in a single stadium or group of stadiums and will likely be played without an audience. Sporting events are included in the final phase of the White House&#8217;s &#8220;reopening plan&#8221; &#8212; a phase that the U.S. isn&#8217;t expected to reach until sometime in 2021.

NFL:

NFL Issues Strict New Guidelines For Draftees: No ‘Political Statements’ On Clothing

Colin Kaepernick

Coronavirus

All I wanted was to share with other students the faith that has changed my life.
I was a junior at Georgia Gwinnett College, and I had some tracts that explained the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I was standing in an open area of campus, offering them to any students who expressed interest.
But college officials stopped me and said I couldn’t distribute literature because I wasn’t in one of the two speech zones the college specifically designated for students wishing to speak freely. It was difficult to find those miniscule speech zones: they only made up 0.0015% of the campus and were only open for about 10% of the school week.
Even those microscopic areas were off-limits, the policies said, unless I had applied to reserve them and unless administrators had okayed the materials I was distributing. So I made a reservation and submitted my literature for approval. That approval was granted. But I had hardly begun speaking and handing out the materials before college security officers stopped me.
Why? “Somebody” had complained. That made me guilty, officers said, of “disorderly conduct.”
It turned out that the college didn’t just have speech zones; it also had a speech code, which said that no one could say anything — there, in the open air, on free American soil, even in the speech zone — that “disturbs the peace and/or comfort of person(s).”
The essence of free speech is the ability to tell people things they do not want to hear. And that is especially true today when almost anything is practically guaranteed to offend someone’s “comfort.” The college’s policies eliminated the heart of the Constitution’s First Amendment: freedom of religion and freedom of speech.
That disconnect was something my attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom impressed on college administrators. Trying to end the lawsuit, those administrators changed their policies but left it unclear where students could speak. Interestingly, this remained true until I graduated and was no longer around to speak.
It wasn’t until then that a federal district court ruled on my case. It decided that, since I had now graduated, and the college had changed its policies, there was really no point in holding administrators accountable for violating my constitutionally protected freedoms. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit later agreed with that ruling.
But my rights were violated — a fact that no court has yet seriously addressed. My case deserves a decision declaring that the college’s officials violated my constitutional rights, not only for my own sake, but for all the other students who are likely to run into the same administrative brick wall I did. If college officials are free to create unconstitutional restrictions, revising them only if and when they get caught, and then to shrug and walk away scot-free, my situation is simply going to play out over and over again at Gwinnett and on other campuses.
Something the state attorney general said, in defending Gwinnett officials, convinces me this is true. He said that when I shared the basic principles of Christianity — that Jesus died to pay for our sins — those were “fighting words.” That’s absurd; “fighting words” are designed to incite violence (so the First Amendment doesn’t protect them). If these are “fighting words” for me, then they are also “fighting words” when presented every week in every church in our great country.
This highlights another problem with the speech zones and codes. College officials didn’t really care about where I was standing. They just didn’t like what I was saying. So they enforced these policies to silence me. But colleges are the marketplace of ideas, and so all views — even my Christian ones — should be welcome.
And when government officials violate my freedom to express those views, they should be held accountable — even after I have graduated, and even after they changed their policies. So far, the courts have ignored that common-sense principle of justice, which many federal courts of appeal have adopted.
That’s why I and everyone from <a href="https://www.adflegal.org/detailspages/press-release-details/atheists-jews-muslims-catholics-file-support-at-us-supreme-court-for-student-free-speech-rights">atheists to Jews, Muslims to Catholics</a>, are hoping the Supreme Court will take <a href="https://www.adflegal.org/detailspages/case-details/uzuegbunam-v.-preczewski">my case</a> — to clear up the legal waters so that no other student has to experience what I endured…and so that all of us may express our views freely.
Chike Uzuegbunum is a former student at Georgia Gwinnett College in Lawrenceville, Georgia.

The U.S. Supreme Court Building

Atheists, Jews, Muslims, Catholics All Asking Supreme Court To Defend Rights My College Violated

Education

Supreme Court

Unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic is not the only epidemic spreading through our country. There’s been another one spreading over the last several years with consequences that threaten Americans’ fundamental ideals of free speech and open inquiry as much as the coronavirus threatens Americans’ lives.
This attack on free speech and suppression of ideas has become so commonplace that, along with the brilliant comedian Adam Carolla, I have made a film, No Safe Spaces, documenting this alarming trend.
To continue the analogy, the college campus has become our Wuhan — the epicenter of idea-suppression. Once a marketplace of ideas, American colleges and universities have become infected with the idea that ‘If I don’t like what you say, you do not have the right to say it.’
This attitude has “gone viral,” spreading as rapidly and as widely as the coronavirus — to the arts, entertainment, news media, and tech industries, all of which have become carriers of the disease. Throughout America, people are silenced, punished, or “cancelled” if they say something that is deemed objectionable to the left — not to liberals, it should be stressed. Liberals have a long history of protecting free speech, but they are now so intimidated by the left, they have abandoned their historic commitment to free speech.
I’ve personally experienced this with my Prager University videos, as we continue to fight a legal battle with Google-owned YouTube over its suppression of our video content online. YouTube has placed about a hundred of our videos on its Restricted List, a parent/school/public library-activated option to filter what videos their child can access, as if they feature violence or pornography. Among those who present PragerU videos are four Pulitzer Prize-winners, three former prime ministers, members of European parliaments, professors from MIT, Harvard, and Princeton, and some of the most eminent thinkers of our time.
No Safe Spaces explores the state of free speech in America, featuring prominent figures on the on the left as well as on the right — progressives such as Van Jones, Cornel West, Barack Obama, and Bret Weinstein. After its successful theatrical run, as we prepared for the home entertainment release, a funny thing happened on the way to the living rooms of America: Mainstream Hollywood decided it didn&#8217;t want Americans to see the film.
When I agreed to be in the film, the producers assured me there would be no resistance to the film from distributors — because distributors’ only concern is whether the film was a success. And it was. No Safe Spaces was the #1 political documentary of 2019 at the box office, and it earned the highest audience score at Rotten Tomatoes.com of any film released in 2019 — 99%.
Distributors, of course, have the right to decide what content to place on their platforms — that’s free market capitalism. But when a movie is as successful as No Safe Spaces — in addition to being the number one political documentary of the year, it grossed $1.3 million at the box office — under normal circumstances, distributors would jump at the opportunity to offer such a film to the public. But they didn’t. This is an important thing for Americans to understand: Hollywood’s bottom line no longer drives their decisions; ideological purity is more important to them than money.
Take Netflix, for example. The streaming giant passed on No Safe Spaces months after it paid ten million dollars to acquire Knock Down This House, another political documentary which had not done any business at all at the box office. But that documentary features Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez.
So, then, a movie with no track record was given piles of cash because it is acceptable to the left while a movie that reaches the top was passed over because it appeals to conservatives and liberals, but not to the left.
In most cases, distributors passed on No Safe Spaces without giving any reason for doing so. But one did. I won’t name them because I appreciate their honesty, but here’s an excerpt from their email to the film’s producers:
<blockquote>“If the film is as provocative in the marketplace as it was in our sales projection meeting, you&#8217;ve got a hit on your hands. That said, in the course of our discussions we discovered a line the majority of the team won&#8217;t cross and that is supporting anything that puts a spotlight on Dennis Prager. The essential message of the film, protecting free speech, is embraced here, but supporting free speech only compels us to permit it, not to spend our time and money promoting a film whose ‘hero’ is someone with some very troubling ideas.&#8221;</blockquote>
Not one of my “troubling ideas” was cited. I suspect they could not find any. I am as mainstream a conservative as there is. If I am “troubling,” what conservative isn’t? So the game is rigged, and it’s important for Americans to know this. The content studios and streaming services offer to viewers has been pre-vetted by people who disdain the most fundamental of American values — people who claim to support free speech while rejecting a film about free speech!
We have therefore looked elsewhere. Salem Media (which owns my radio program) has agreed to make No Safe Spaces available to home viewers on their streaming platform at <a href="http://www.nosafespaces.com/">www.NoSafeSpaces.com</a>. We are also working with another distributor that does value free speech to release No Safe Spaces on other home entertainment platforms later this summer.
Beyond (and predating) our current crisis caused by the coronavirus, we’re in the midst of an epic battle to preserve what is good and unique about America. On that front, good people are divided into three groups: those who fight, those who support the fighters, and those who do nothing. Unfortunately, the largest number of good people fall into the third category. However, those who support the fighters are just as important as the fighters themselves. That’s what conservatives (and liberals true to the liberal commitment to free speech) need to do: support the fighters by seeing No Safe Spaces. It’s as simple as that.
As you sit home during these difficult times, visit NoSafeSpaces.com, download and watch the movie. Buy downloads for all the young people in your life and share it with them. Aside from its critically important message, it is a powerful and entertaining film.
The coronavirus pandemic will pass. But the anti-speech epidemic will remain. No Safe Spaces is an effective vaccine.

Free speech

PRAGER: The Anti-Speech Pandemic

Netflix

This week a pastor was <a href="https://www.christianpost.com/news/pastor-rodney-howard-browne-arrested-for-holding-church-service-defying-safer-at-home-order.html">arrested</a> and charged with criminal offenses for holding a worship service. Let us note that this event occurred not in North Korea or Saudi Arabia, but the United States of America. Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne, of Revival International Ministries, turned himself into authorities after leading his congregation in Sunday worship, which put him in violation of his county&#8217;s &#8220;stay-at-home&#8221; order.
Hillsborough County in Florida, like many other states and localities across the country, has forcibly shut down all establishments that it has deemed &#8220;non-essential.&#8221; As far as I know, no government at any level, anywhere in the nation, has deigned to label churches essential. Our Founding Fathers, who gave the right to assemble and the right to practice religion pride of place in the Bill of Rights, seemed to have disagreed. But in these times we are not subject to the opinions of the Founding Fathers or even the legal document they wrote. We have entered a point in our history where governors, mayors, and local county boards, can come up with any rule they like, outlaw whatever behavior they don&#8217;t like, and enforce their edicts at gun point. But to question this new system, I have been repeatedly informed, is to wish death on our nation&#8217;s elderly population.
Pastor Howard-Browne insists that his church took many precautions. Hand sanitizer was given out. Staff wore gloves. Congregants were spaced out as much as possible. They may not have all been 6 feet apart, but they were certainly better spaced than you will be if you wait in line at the grocery store. As it happens, you can go to the grocery store 10 times a day and load your cart up with snacks, candy, and soda. You can then stand in a crowd of densely packed people as you wait to purchase your items from a cashier who may or may not be wearing gloves. All of this, says our Dear Leaders, is both safe and essential. But sitting in a church, a few feet from the next person, taking care to cover your mouth when you cough, and making sure that your hands are washed, is both unsafe and inessential. Does that make any real sense? Probably not. Can the government simply declare all churches non-essential, close them indefinitely, and thus circumvent the First Amendment with so much ease as to render it effectively nullified from here on out? I doubt that was ever what the men who wrote it had in mind, but here we are.
Meanwhile, many states have officially labeled abortion clinics essential, and allowed them to continue killing humans during a shut down that is supposed to prevent humans from being killed. States that have tried to put the abortion business in the non-essential camp have been <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/30/judge-lifts-texas-abortion-ban-pegged-to-coronavirus-pandemic-156210">overruled</a> by federal judges. As it stands right now, you have no right to go to church or worship in communion with your fellow believers. You do still have the right to kill your child. Never mind the fact that abortionists are probably not able to maintain &#8220;social distance&#8221; while they perform the execution. That practical point, just like the Constitutional and moral point, is irrelevant. We are being governed according to the whims of bureaucrats and politicians who themselves do not appear to be answerable to any higher Earthly authority. This is necessary to keep us safe, we are told. And we believe it, many of us. Forgetting that all tyranny, everywhere, and through all time, has been justified on similar grounds.
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Q8n5oxUi9bU" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
I am trying to imagine a definition of &#8220;religious liberty&#8221; that includes the government closing churches indefinitely on the basis that they are not essential enough to remain open. I cannot think of one that would be at all cogent or meaningful. Indeed, it has become obvious (if it wasn&#8217;t already) that our mainstream notions of &#8220;liberty&#8221; and &#8220;rights&#8221; and &#8220;freedom&#8221; are largely nonsensical, as evidenced by the people who normally assert these concepts as absolutes but now insist that the government has the unquestioned power to lock us in our homes and shut our businesses for as long as it pleases.
Most of us, it turns out, do not have a governing philosophy or set of principles. We are slaves to our emotions. So, if the government scares us enough, we will rip the &#8220;Give me liberty or give me death&#8221; and &#8220;Don&#8217;t tread on me&#8221; bumper stickers off of our cars and stuff them in the closet while we cower along side it. Then when the threat has passed &#8212; or at least we are told that it has passed &#8212; we will proudly affix the bumper stickers back on our bumpers again, and sing bravely about our love of freedom.

Coronavirus church

WALSH: Pastors Are Being Arrested For Holding Worship Services. This Is Not ‘Health And Safety.’ This Is Tyranny.

freedom of religion

Sen. Bernie Sanders said: &#8220;I believe that health care is a right of all people.&#8221; He&#8217;s not alone in that contention. That claim comes from Democrats and Republicans and liberals and conservatives. It is not just a health care right that people claim. There are &#8220;rights&#8221; to decent housing, decent food, a decent job and prescription drugs. In a free and moral society, do people have these rights? Let&#8217;s begin by asking ourselves: What is a right?
In the standard usage of the term, a &#8220;right&#8221; is something that exists simultaneously among people. In the case of our U.S. Constitutional decree, we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Our individual right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness imposes no obligation upon another other than the duty of noninterference.
As such, a right imposes no obligation on another. For example, the right to free speech is something we all possess simultaneously. My right to free speech imposes no obligation upon another except that of noninterference. Similarly, I have a right to travel freely. Again, that right imposes no obligation upon another except that of noninterference.
Sanders&#8217; claim that health care is a right does impose obligations upon others. We see that by recognizing that there is no Santa Claus or tooth fairy who gives resources to government to pay for medical services. Moreover, the money does not come from congressmen and state legislators reaching into their own pockets to pay for the service. That means that in order for government to provide medical services to someone who cannot afford it, it must use intimidation, threats and coercion to take the earnings of another American to provide that service.
Let&#8217;s apply this bogus concept of rights to my right to speak and travel freely. In the case of my right to free speech, it might impose obligations on others to supply me with an auditorium, microphone and audience. It may require newspapers or television stations to allow me to use their property to express my views. My right to travel freely might require that others provide me with resources to purchase airplane tickets and hotel accommodations. What if I were to demand that others make sacrifices so that I can exercise my free speech and travel rights, I suspect that most Americans would say, &#8220;Williams, you have rights to free speech and you have a right to travel freely, but I&#8217;m not obligated to pay for them!&#8221;
A moral vision of rights does not mean that we should not help our fellow man in need. It means that helping with health care needs to be voluntary (i.e., free market decisions or voluntary donations to charities that provide health care.) The government&#8217;s role in health care is to protect this individual right to choose. As Senator Rand Paul was brave enough to say, &#8220;The basic assumption that you have a right to get something from somebody else means you have to endorse the concept of theft.&#8221;
Statists go further to claim that people have a &#8220;right&#8221; to housing, to a job, to an education, to an affordable wage. These so-called rights impose burdens on others in the form of involuntary servitude. If one person has a right to something he did not earn, it means that another person does not have a right to something he did earn.
The provision by the U.S. Congress of a so-called right to health care should offend any sense of moral decency. If you&#8217;re a Christian or a Jew, you should be against the notion of one American living at the expense of another. When God gave Moses the Eighth Commandment — &#8220;Thou shalt not steal&#8221; — I am sure that He did not mean, &#8220;Thou shalt not steal — unless there is a majority vote in the U.S. Congress.&#8221;
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

Medicare for All sign

WILLIAMS: Rights Versus Wishes

Bernie Sanders

Health Care

human rights

Medicare for All

Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, has denied funding for a local campus conservatives group to bring The Daily Wire’s Elisha Krauss to the school as part of a Young Americans for Freedom lecture series.
According to YAF, the student government’s finance committee denied the conservative group’s funding request after discussing whether Krauss would bring a “message” that would align with the university’s value of “honoring the dignity and worth of every person.”
“The finance committee discussed the alignment of the speaker’s message with TU values (specifically ‘honoring the dignity and worth of every person’) and the potential impact on the campus community,” reads the rejection email, which was obtained by YAF.
While the finance committee doesn’t disclose the outcome of the discussion, the email has a clear implication: The students have reservations about whether Krauss would bring a “message” that rejects the inherent dignity of all persons.
In a statement to the Daily Wire, Krauss said that the rejection was a surprise, considering she had not even settled on a topic of discussion, let alone a specific message.
“Curious to know what writings, speeches, or even social media posts I have ever made that don’t adhere to honoring every human person and treating them with dignity and respect,” said Krauss, who then provided a reminder about just how much she values the dignity of every person. “In fact, I often speak on issues about the importance of individual liberties and human rights that begin in the womb.”
According to YAF, Julia Westwick, chairman of Trinity University Young Conservatives of Texas, the student government did not provide any other specifics as to why the speech was denied funding. However, Westwick believes the root concern is that the student government doesn’t like the opinions Krauss holds, and that they don’t support a culture of free speech.
“Trinity’s student government thinks the mainstream view of gender, held by Elisha Krauss and the majority of Americans, is dishonorable and not worthy of being given the same platform they repeatedly give to other student groups,” Westwick told the organization. “This is a clear case of viewpoint discrimination against those who believe in science: the fact that there are only two genders and that men and women have inherent and biological differences.”
“Trinity’s student government should not disadvantage any student group based on a speaker’s opinions,” said Westwick. “In doing so, they are not representing a significant portion of the student body, they are not supporting a culture of free speech, and they are discriminating against students with whom they disagree.”
In the rejection email, the student government’s finance committee reminded Westwick that the conservative group may still hold the event if it receives approval from the Event Review Committee. However, in order to receive funding for the event, the organization would need to appeal the denial to the student senate.
This is the second time in the last couple of weeks that Krauss has faced hostility from college campuses. Earlier this month, a billboard promoting an upcoming speech by Elisha Krauss at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater campus was mysteriously stolen.
Krauss responded to the incident in a statement to the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/billboard-promoting-speech-from-daily-wires-elisha-krauss-stolen-at-wisconsin-campus">Daily Wire.</a>
“It’s continually amazing to me that even the presence of my photo and a promo for a speech about free speech is so triggering to leftists that they must destroy it,” said Krauss. “My seven-month-old and I frequently travel to college campuses to speak about the principles of conservatism, free speech, cancel culture, and the pro-life movement,” she said. “I don’t think we’re that scary.”

Elisha Krauss

University Denies Elisha Krauss Event Funding: ‘Message’ May Deny ‘Worth Of Every Person.’ Krauss Responds.

Amid pressure from a student activist group, the student government of the University of Central Florida, a publicly funded university located in Orlando, recently voted against allowing funds to go to a student event scheduled for March featuring Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro. The move, says the group hosting the event, is another example of left-wing activists discouraging intellectual diversity on American campuses.
The event, scheduled for March 23rd, is part of the Young America&#8217;s Foundation&#8217;s Fred Allen Lecture Series, for which Shapiro has appeared on campuses across the country, including <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-shapiro-dismantles-the-alt-right-and-radical-lefts-dangerous-game">Stanford</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/livestream-ben-shapiro-america-wasnt-built-on-slavery">Boston University</a>. As is the case with most campus events in which Shapiro is featured, protests from left-wing groups have sprung up at UCF ahead of the scheduled appearance, still more than a month away.
As reported by <a href="https://www.yaf.org/news/ucf-student-government-caves-to-protestors-attempts-to-block-funds-for-ben-shapiro-lecture/">Young America&#8217;s Foundation</a>, left-wing student activist groups have mounted a campaign, reportedly spearheaded by the UCF Pride Student Association, which posted a call to action against Shapiro on its <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B8H9zieBN0H/">Instagram page</a>.
&#8220;Stop Ben Shapiro from speaking at UCF,&#8221; reads an online flyer posted by the group last week. &#8220;College Republicans is working with Young Americans for Freedom to bring conservative political commentator, Ben Shapiro to UCF on March 23rd.&#8221;
&#8220;He is known for his homophobic, transphobic and racist commentary,&#8221; the flyer alleges, citing no examples of any such supposed rhetoric from the popular mainstream conservative author and podcast host.
&#8220;If you are against $20,000 of OUR student dollars to be used to hold this event, then stand in solidarity with us and other RSO&#8217;s on Thursday February 6 at 7 PM in the Keywest Ballroom to speak out against this at the next SGA Senate meeting.&#8221;
&#8220;The College Republicans have a bill that will be this [T]hursday on the SGA floor at 7:00 in the Key West Ballroom on that would bring white supremacist Ben Shapiro to our campus using the AS&amp;F funds from our tuition,&#8221; the student group added in a comment along with the flyer on Instagram, again citing no evidence of the smear against Shapiro, an Orthodox Jew. &#8220;We encourage you to use your own judgement, research and perspective on this event and for you to voice that opinion at SGA’s meeting!&#8221;
Amid the protest campaign, members of UCF&#8217;s student government gave an &#8220;unfavorable&#8221; vote, 16-17-1, on Thursday, for the proposed funding bill of $17,000 for Shapiro&#8217;s appearance.
&#8220;Although some students said they felt they did not want their money spent on this bill, other students feel that bringing Shapiro here will give students who oppose him a learning experience,&#8221; UCF student paper <a href="https://knightnews.com/2020/02/ucf-students-protest-in-sg-senate-first-reading-of-bill-unfavorable-for-ben-shapiro-funding/">Knight News</a> reported Friday.
The conservative group hosting the event says members of the student government have singled out Shapiro&#8217;s speech. The bill received more scrutiny than similar proposals, said College Republicans Vice Chairman Didi Malka. The &#8220;unfavorable&#8221; vote is an example of those in power allowing their ideological &#8220;biases&#8221; to stand in the way of &#8220;intellectual diversity,&#8221; something universities have traditionally been committed to promoting rather than discouraging.
&#8220;No other funding bill has been treated with the amount of scrutiny ours has received, and our bill has met every threshold Student Government requires for an RSO to receive funding,&#8221; Malka told YAF. &#8220;I am saddened to see that certain senators have put their own biases in front of providing intellectual diversity and we hope to convince them next week to change their minds.&#8221;
The bill will go to the student senate next week, YAF reports. In order for the funding to be granted, a majority of the senate must approve the request.
Shapiro has been the target of left-wing protests repeatedly in the past, including ahead of his speech last fall at Stanford University, where a group of self-described &#8220;concerned&#8221; Stanford students advertised their planned protest against Shapiro&#8217;s supposedly &#8220;dehumanizing&#8221; ideas by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/see-it-stanford-activists-compare-ben-shapiro-to-insect-while-condemning-dehumanizing-speech">comparing him to an insect in need of extermination</a>.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-alt-right-hecklers-attempt-to-trap-ben-shapiro-fail-miserably">WATCH: Hecklers Attempt To Trap Ben Shapiro, Fail Miserably</a>

Activists Protest Ben Shapiro Speech At UCF; Student Government Moves To Block Funds

Florida

California state Assemblymember Marc Levine (D-Marin County) wants to make it mandatory for residents to vote in elections and give authority to the secretary of state to impose “civil remedies” to promote compliance. 
If the proposal were passed by the legislature and signed by the governor, California voters would be required to submit a ballot either in person or via mail, beginning in 2022, in order to avoid incurring a civil penalty. According to the <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/californians-who-register-to-vote-would-be-required-to-cast-ballots-under-new-bill/ar-BBZH8db">LA Times</a>, voters who did not want to vote in an election could adhere to the law by submitting a partially completed, or blank, ballot. 
“Democracy is not a spectator sport – it requires the active participation of all its citizens,” said Assemblymember Levine in a <a href="https://a10.asmdc.org/press-releases/20200205-democracy-line-levine-calls-mandatory-ballot-casting-all-elections">press release</a> Wednesday announcing the proposal. 
“California is a national leader on expanding voting rights to its citizens. Those rights come with a responsibility by registered voters to cast their ballot and make sure that their voice is heard by their government. This is not a time to be complacent at the ballot box,” said Levine. 
However, through his very own words, Levine has seemingly brought forth a contradiction between the First Amendment, which guarantees the people’s freedom of speech, and the phrasing of his statement announcing the proposal: “&#8230;registered voters to cast their ballot and make sure that their voice is heard&#8230;my [bill] will ensure that the voices of all California voters are heard…”
When former President Obama <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2015/03/19/politics/obama-mandatory-voting/index.html">openly considered</a> a similar election reform five years ago, the <a href="https://www.heritage.org/political-process/commentary/compulsory-voting-unconstitutional">Heritage Foundation</a> was quick to point out that compulsory voting laws don’t square with the Constitution because the First Amendment “includes the right not to speak.”
In proposing that the California state government impose civil penalties on citizens who refuse to use “their voice” in a particular way, Levine has exposed the proposal to clear constitutional challenges.  
The Daily Wire contacted Levine&#8217;s office in order to seek clarity on the contradiction between the First Amendment and the assemblymember&#8217;s official statement. His office declined to comment. 
Advocates of mandatory voting argue that compulsory voting has already been passed in other countries, and Levine specifically mentions that Belgium passed a compulsory voting law back in the 19th century. But to say the least, Belgium has a strained relationship with freedom of speech. 
Just last month, Sophie Wilmes, the country’s interim prime minister, announced a crackdown on online comments following a rescue effort for a capsized boat that was carrying migrants. “More than ever, we need to realise that hate has no place in society,” Wilmes said, according to The <a href="https://www.brusselstimes.com/belgium/91442/racism-is-a-crime-belgian-pm-announces-action-plan-to-fight-online-hate-speech-sophie-wilmes-free-spech-online-comments-inciting-hate-xenophobia-racism-laws/">Brussels Times</a>. “Free speech is sacred, but racism is not an opinion — it is a crime.”
The news agency reports that a 1981 Belgian law prohibits people from inciting violence or hatred against others on the basis of racial or xenophobic motivation, and that the online comments that prompted the prime minister’s crackdown included: “let them swim, it’s not far and we’ll get rid of them,” and  “the most important thing is finding the boat.”

Election day in Signal Hill

California Lawmaker Wants To Make It Illegal To Not Vote

califormia

On Friday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg sat down with Silicon Slopes Executive Director Clint Betts for an interview at the 2020 Silicon Slopes Tech Summit in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The interview was wide-ranging, but at the very beginning, Betts asked Zuckerberg to elaborate on his recent statement that it’s more important to be understood rather than liked.
Zuckerberg replied, first talking about how in Facebook’s nascent stages as a company, he didn’t quite know how to properly communicate, and that despite the poor and vague communication, the company was winning because of the product.
He continued, comparing Facebook’s prior approach to what they’re beginning to do now:
<blockquote>Broadly speaking, for a long time, the basic approach was, “Okay, let&#8217;s try to not, like, do anything that&#8217;s gonna be too offensive &#8230; and we&#8217;ll kind of explain what we&#8217;re doing in broad strokes and talk about the mission of what we&#8217;re doing,” which is something that I really believe in – helping to build community and bring people closer together. But I think we just shied away for a long time talking about &#8230; some of the principles that we believe in that are increasingly controversial in the world, and I just think that we, for one, don&#8217;t have that luxury anymore.</blockquote>
Zuckerberg added that the company’s previous mode of communication allowed people to feel “positive &#8230; but fairly shallow” about Facebook because the company wasn’t “standing for things that people care about.”
He went on to talk directly about freedom of expression and the troubling push for censorship:
<blockquote>In Georgetown last year, I gave this speech around our principles, around free expression, and, you know, that&#8217;s just one of the areas that I really feel like is under attack right now &#8230; increasingly, you know, we&#8217;re getting called to censor a lot of different kinds of content that makes me really uncomfortable. I think that it kind of feels like the list of things that you&#8217;re not allowed to say socially keeps on growing, and I&#8217;m not really okay with that.</blockquote>
Zuckerberg clarified that he isn&#8217;t talking about the necessary removal of things like “terrorism, child exploitation, incitement to violence,” etc, that Facebook has tens of thousands of staff working on around the clock.
<blockquote>At some point I just felt like, alright, we’ve got to stand up and say, “No, we&#8217;re gonna stand for free expression, and yeah, we&#8217;re gonna take down the content that&#8217;s really harmful, but the line needs to be held at some point,” and I think that &#8230; it&#8217;s unfortunate that this is such a controversial thing.</blockquote>
At this, the audience cheered.
The CEO noted that back in 2004, freedom of expression “wasn’t a thing that people were pushing back on that much,” and that he believes “a lot of people” agree with his stand for freedom of expression.
He went on to talk about his thoughts on privacy as well, and how encryption is an important part of that. Some people claim that “tools for privacy are only important to help bad guys,” Zuckerberg stated. “I don&#8217;t believe that.”
<blockquote>I guess &#8230; this is the new approach, and I think it&#8217;s gonna piss off a lot of people, too, but, you know, frankly the old approach was pissing off a lot of people, too, so let&#8217;s try something different.</blockquote>
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Mark Zuckerberg.

WATCH: Mark Zuckerberg Stands For ‘Free Expression’ Even As It’s ‘Under Attack’

Censorship

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