Well, it’s time yet again to ponder the latest dumb thing out of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s dumb mouth. Yes, it’s been a week already.
Just as we were preparing to praise the New York congresswoman for actually getting on board with a decent idea – the plan to bar former lawmakers from every becoming Washington D.C. lobbyists, which she is apparently considering working on with Sen. Ted Cruz, of all people – she managed to raise our ire once again with this ludicrous screed against the First Amendment. And while we wouldn’t mind seeing AOC and Cruz tackle some of the swamp’s swampiest aspects, that problem pales in comparison to the left’s increasing desire to limit our most foundational freedom.
“What people don’t (maybe do) realize is when orgs air these hateful messages, my life changes bc of the flood of death threats they inspire,” AOC tweeted on Tuesday. “I‘ve had mornings where I wake up & the 1st thing I do w/ my coffee is review photos of the men (it’s always men) who want to kill me.
“I don’t even get to see all of them. Just the ones that have been flagged as particularly troubling,” she continued. “It happens whenever Fox gets particularly aggressive + hateful, too. Young interns have to constantly hear hateful messages (far beyond disagreement) from ppl we don’t even rep.
“All of this is to say that words matter, and can have consequences for safety,” she concluded. “For those who believe in ‘free speech’: whose free speech do you believe in? Bc some folks using free speech to defend racism are also supporting folks passing laws to allow running over protesters.”
Hoo boy. There’s a lot to address here, but there’s really no need to get into the particulars. Death threats are already illegal. Calls to violence are illegal. The “free speech” that Ocasio-Cortez is (theoretically) speaking out against is already against the law. So there’s that.
She knows this. Presumably.
So we have to assume that what she’s actually addressing are not the death threats she’s gotten from crazed individuals, but rather this part: “It happens whenever Fox gets particularly aggressive + hateful, too.”
Hmm, how many death threats do you think Donald Trump got last week? How many has Kellyanne Conway gotten since the start of this administration? What about Sarah Sanders? You think anyone has ever vowed to kill her in a poorly-typed email?
AOC’s question – “Whose free speech do you believe in?” – is exactly the question our Founders sought to eliminate. Because the answer, at the end of the day, is “Everyone’s.”
That’s the only way it can be and still remain “free.”
