Democrats truly hate free speech — so much so, in fact, that they actually tried to censor people at a hearing on censorship.
On Thursday, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.) sought to use a technical House rule to try to stop RFK, Jr.’s testimony on the grounds that he had made earlier “despicable” statements.
And he certainly had.
At a press event, as documented by The Post’s Jon Levine, America’s leading anti-vaxxer pushed the insane (and racist and antisemitic) claim that COVID may have somehow been “ethnically targeted” at blacks and whites, while sparing Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people.
He’s also famous for his other kooky thoughts on “Big Pharma” and other vaccines.
Of course, the First Amendment is specifically meant to protect “despicable” speech.
(It’s not needed for remarks no one objects to.)
That includes offensive, scientifically illiterate and tinfoil-hat-ready speech.
Wasserman Schultz’s attempt to shut down RFK, Jr. on a technicality lines up nicely with the blistering hostility her party has shown in recent years toward protected speech.
As does delegate Stacey Plaskett’s (Virgin Islands) effort at the hearing’s start to slash Kennedy’s speaking time.
Plaskett earlier this year threatened journalist Matt Taibbi with jail over his own congressional testimony on . . . you guessed it, government efforts to censor Twitter.
From the feds leaning on social-media companies to suppress opinion and uncomfortable truths as “disinformation” to the assault on open inquiry and discourse on campuses, the left has been waging a guns-blazing culture war on the right of people to express themselves.
The result?
Warnings and blocked posts on social media.
Universities where debate is crippled.
Entire realms of scientific research closed off.
And a media that ignores any fact threatening the progressive narrative on race, economics, public health and every other topic of any consequence.
Funny how the party that sounds the “democracy is dying” siren every five minutes acts so brutally inimical to the bedrock principles of democracy.
Lifelong Dem RFK, Jr. said at the hearing “censorship is antithetical to our party.”
Not anymore, it’s not.
Especially in the pursuit of silencing political opponents. RFK, Jr., who is running against President Joe Biden, is finding out what it feels like to be a Republican.