Ben Weingarten

Reader. Writer. Thinker. Commentator. Truth Seeker.

Tag: First Amendment (Page 1 of 2)

Corporate Media is No Adversary of the Powerful, It’s an Accomplice. That’s a Dangerous Thing.

My speech on the jihad against Joe Rogan as a microcosm for the War on Wrongthink corporate media’s executing in cahoots with our Ruling Class

Last month I had the privilege of speaking before the Leadership Program of the Rockies’ annual retreat during a heterodox panel on media hypocrisy moderated by Kennedy, and featuring Mary Katharine Ham and Hannah Cox.

My speech highlighted not just the corporate media’s rampant hypocrisy, but the fact that that hypocrisy poses a danger: That the greatest beneficiaries of the First Amendment and our free speech tradition are its most zealous proponents, and that the purported adversaries of the powerful have become the powerful’s greatest accomplice as they seek to monopolize Narrative to monopolize power.

Check out the speech at Rumble or YouTube.

Here was my list of the four greatest hypocrisies of our corporate media betters, as prepared:

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Announcing the Launch of a New Show: ‘The NatCon Squad’

On top of the release of our new Federalist media criticism show, “BAD NEWS“–which Ezra Levant graciously had me on The Rebel to discuss–last week we also recorded the first episode of a new show “The NatCon Squad,” a production of the Edmund Burke Foundation.

In the inaugural episode of the weekly program, out today, Conservative Partnership Institute‘s Rachel Bovard, Newsweek‘s Josh Hammer, “BAD NEWS” co-host Emily Jashinsky, and I discuss:

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Robert Spencer on Islamic Supremacism, U.S. Middle East Policy, Defeating Jihad

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My Guest

Robert Spencer (@jihadwatchRS) is the director of the invaluable counterjihadist website, Jihad Watch, and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is the author of eighteen books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS.

Mr. Spencer’s work sits at the nexus of a number of seminal issues, from national security and foreign policy, to identity politics and free speech, and theology and political philosophy. The battle being waged by Islamic supremacism against the West implicates all of these matters, and Mr. Spencer’s insights make him uniquely qualified to discuss them. 

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Legendary Legal Scholar Richard Epstein on Classical Liberalism, the Administrative State, Free Speech, Silicon Valley Regulation


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My Guest

Professor Richard Epstein is the inaugural Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law at NYU School of Law. He previously served as the Peter and Kirstin Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution since 2000. Professor Epstein is also the James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law Emeritus and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago where he taught for 38 years. He is a prolific writer who has authored more than a dozen books on topics ranging from private property to torts, and antidiscrimination law to antitrust, a frequent podcaster and one of the most cited legal scholars of the 20th century.

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Andrew Klavan on the Criticality of Conservative Competition in Culture, Regressive Progressivism, Political Correctness, Free Speech

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My Guest

Andrew Klavan (@andrewklavan) is a screenwriter, bestselling crime and suspense novelist, contributor to publications such as City Journal and PJ Media and proprietor of “The Andrew Klavan Show,” a video podcast on The Daily Wire.

Klavan is witty, he’s got a sense of humor and a keen understanding of the importance of narrative and storytelling to culture.

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PragerU’s Free Speech Lawsuit Challenges Silicon Valley’s Anti-Conservative Bias

On the heels of my comprehensive Gatestone Institute analysis on Big Tech’s jihad against counterjihadist speech, PragerU, the purveyor of educational videos on topics ranging from national security to private property rights — which itself has seen its counterjihadist content censored — filed suit against Google/YouTube.

The charge? Alleged ideological discrimination in restricting/disadvantaging PragerU’s content on the basis of PragerU’s conservative bent, in violation of its First Amendment rights.

I analyze PragerU’s case, and argue that lawfare is but one tool among many we must be using to preserve free speech in cyberspace.

Read the whole thing here.

The Social Media Giants’ High-Tech Lynching of Counterjihadists

Apropos PragerU’s lawsuit against Google/YouTube on grounds of discrimination against and censorship of conservative speech, I recently prepared a comprehensive analysis, kindly published by the Gatestone Institute, on the ongoing war on counterjihadist speech by the social media giants.

In the piece, I extensively document the egregious efforts by Big Tech to snuff out and chill any content dissenting from the prevailing progressive orthodoxy regarding Islamic supremacism, while conversely aiding jihadists both directly and indirectly.

It is simply breathtaking both the kinds of messages social media companies will block, and the lengths to which the companies are willing to go to censor ideas they do not like on phony “hate speech” grounds. Absent pressure from the marketplace, i.e. all of us who use these services, things are going to get far worse.

Read the whole thing here.

On Big Tech’s Stifling of Counterjihadist Speech

When one thinks of the embodiment of “hate,” modern-day jihadists are perhaps without equal.

They murder those who refuse to submit to their totalitarian theopolitical belief system in the most vile and horrific ways, they revile and persecute non-believer “infidels” and engage in sex slaverymass rape and pillaging.

But when today’s sophist Left thinks of “hate,” it focuses its sights not on jihadists, but on those who forthrightly discuss the jihadist threat, among other advocates of non-leftist views.

That is the sad reality in light of the emerging story of the blacklisting of such individuals and organizations by major technology platforms, buoyed by purported civil rights organizations (largely funded by leftists) and journalistic institutions (largely composed of leftists) that in effect serve as fronts to legitimize attacks meant to destroy dissenting, largely conservative voices.

In my latest column at PJ Media, I focus on the narrower issue of the Left seeking to figuratively behead counterjihadists like Jihad Watch‘s Robert Spencer by threatening their ability to operate on the internet, whereby tech titans are unwittingly achieving the Islamic supremacists’ stated desire.

Read the whole thing here.

My In-Depth Interview With Hero Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Islam versus the West and Free Speech

Why Did Huma Abedin Feel the Need to Bring the Desecration of a Koran to Sec of State Clinton’s Attention?

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was understandably kept abreast of all manner of news from all over the world during her tenure as Secretary of State.

But buried amidst the thousands of emails recently released by the State Department is one news report of particular interest sent from top Clinton aide Huma Abedin.

Here is Abedin’s note:

Unclassified email from Huma Abedin to Hillary Clinton dated September 12, 2010 and released August 31, 2015. Doc No. C05772407.

Unclassified email from Huma Abedin to Hillary Clinton dated September 12, 2010 and released August 31, 2015. Doc No. C05772407.

This email begs the question: Why did Huma Abedin feel the need to bring the desecration of a Koran in East Lansing, MI to the attention of the Secretary of State?

Did Abedin feel that Clinton might be concerned about the news “inciting” attacks in America or abroad?

Might she have felt that such a story could be leveraged politically?

Was it just something Abedin as a Muslim found personally reprehensible, that she felt her confidant ought to be made aware of?

Actions like Koran-burning presumably would have been important to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, given her stated support for suppressing such activity.

As I noted elsewhere:

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