John Kerry Accurately Explains First Amendment, MAGA World Loses Its Mind
from the up-is-down dept
In this stupid partisan world we live in, the MAGA world has decided that simply accurately explaining that the First Amendment does not allow for the suppression of speech (which is a good thing!) is somehow a call for abolishing the First Amendment. This isn’t even “blaming the messenger.” It’s misinterpreting the messenger and demanding he be drawn and quartered.
We’ve pointed out a few times how ridiculous both Democrats and Republicans have been of late when it comes to the First Amendment. Unfortunately, both have been making arguments for trimming back our First Amendment rights. Donald Trump has called for jailing those who criticize the Supreme Court (something, I should note, he regularly does himself).
However, as we’ve pointed out, Democrats don’t have the best track record on speech either. They’ve been caught calling for jailing social media execs over their speech, punishing booksellers for selling books they dislike, and making certain kinds of misinformation illegal.
So, I was certainly concerned when I saw a few headlines this week about John Kerry’s conversation last week at a World Economic Forum event, in which he talked about the First Amendment as a “major block” to punishing companies that spread disinformation.
His word choice was awkward and could be interpreted as criticizing the First Amendment. However, after watching the video clip of him saying it, I realized he’s just accurately saying what reality is: the First Amendment is a block to removing disinformation.
Because… it is? And that’s generally a good thing.
He was asked about how to deal with disinformation online, and he says, factually, that you can’t use the law to suppress that speech:
“You know there’s a lot of discussion now about how you curb those entities in order to guarantee that you’re going to have some accountability on facts, etc. But look, if people only go to one source, and the source they go to is sick, and, you know, has an agenda, and they’re putting out disinformation, our First Amendment stands as a major block to be able to just, you know, hammer it out of existence…”
If he then said “and that’s why we need to repeal the First Amendment,” then I’d be right there with the people concerned about this. And I would rather he followed up that statement by saying something along the lines of “and it’s a good thing the First Amendment is a block to such things.” But he still doesn’t appear to be saying that the First Amendment needs to change. He appears to be explaining reality to a questioner from the audience who wants to suppress speech.
But, of course, the MAGAsphere has gone crazy over this. Fox News, the National Review, and RT (of course) are all hammering it. On YouTube, the MAGA nutjobs are going crazy over it. Just a few examples, starting with everyone’s most mocked Russian-paid troll victim, Tim Pool:
Except, nowhere does Kerry call for “ending” free speech at all. He just notes that the First Amendment blocks suppressing speech by the government. Which is true! You’d think that the Russian-paid Tim Pool would, you know, appreciate that?
There are a bunch of others just like this:
Again, if he had actually called to abolish the First Amendment or even to weaken it, I’d be here calling it out. And again, as mentioned above, there have been other Democrats that have, in fact, called for unconstitutional speech suppression.
From the descriptions I initially saw of what he said, I was all ready to write a piece slamming Kerry for this. But then I watched it. And he just was… explaining accurately that the First Amendment blocks the government from suppressing speech.
He doesn’t call for that to be changed. He certainly doesn’t (as some of the folks above claim) call for “abolishing” the First Amendment or for censorship. One of the screenshots above from one of Elon’s favorite Twitter trolls falsely quotes Kerry as saying that the First Amendment “stands as a major roadblock for us right now,” which is not what he said at all. That’s just false.
Since the question itself was regarding disinformation around climate change, he does say that the best way to deal with climate change is to “win the ground” and elect people who can “implement change.” But it’s clear that he’s talking about implementing change regarding the climate, not about changing the First Amendment.
Meanwhile, I’m pretty sure literally none of the people screaming about this have discussed Trump’s announced plans to jail people who criticize the Supreme Court (which is a legitimate First Amendment threat).
I wonder why?
Filed Under: 1st amendment, climate change, disinformation, free speech, john kerry, tim pool
Comments on “John Kerry Accurately Explains First Amendment, MAGA World Loses Its Mind”
Because hypocrisy is a virtue to fascists.
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Yes, and because MAGA types are inferior people equipped with inferior minds. These aren’t people that one can expect to be capable of listening, comprehending, analyzing, or any of the other basic cognitive processes that are part of rational conversations. It’s all that they can manage to blurt out their guns/flag/god/trump bullshit, and they can’t even do that coherently.
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Let us not use the non human claim, it is disgusting.
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Don’t you know? If you want people to fight other people, you get more success if you dehumanize them first. Declare them “inferior” (making you superior) and you can do what you want because you are Better Than Them.
Worked with slavery. Worked with Native Americans. Worked with Women. Worked with LGBT.
Works with The Other Party. (Democrat, Republican, doesn’t matter, as long as they are on the other side.)
Anything to avoid the thought, “There, but for the grace of God go I”.
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There’s no “non human” claim there; they’re labeled as “inferior people”. And the thing is: for the most part, they chose to be so. They chose to be ignorant, racist, misogynist, bigoted thugs. And so I don’t hesitate to call them exactly what they are: inferior.
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Nobody claimed they weren’t human, dumbfuck. Although someone with your horrible reading comprehension might well be.
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Most of us know where that road leads, proceed at your own peril.
Yeah it’s definitely not like Trump has called for people to be put in jail for doing things like burning the flag or disrespecting the flag or late night comedians put in jail for criticizing him or journalist in general or protesters when else am I forgetting?
All for exercising their First Amendment rights.
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And?
We’re literally going to send transgender people to death camps once Trump takes power in January.
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Cool story sis!
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ok hermen
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Who’s we? You got a bigot in your pocket? YOU aren’t going to do a god damn thing.
'Look, he's just like us! I mean no, not like us at all, only the dems hate the first!'
Every accusation a confession, every self-given label a rejection of when it comes to these dishonest and perverted weirdos.
As is so often the case they took what they wanted to hear from his speech and ignored all context or surrounding speech as it would undermine their desired narrative. They hate the first amendment but they can’t outright admit that so they accuse others of holding their position instead.
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disinformation
well, after reading everything I could find the past few years, my conclusion is the real disinformation being spread is by the climate change advocates saying we’re causing it. This started 50 years ago, and not one, zero, nada, nothing they’ve claimed would happen has… kerry claims CO2 is the highest it’s been in 800K years. why 800K years? because before then it was SIGNIFICANTLY higher. WE WEREN’T around to cause that. with that higher CO2 plant life flourished, and O2 was also significantly higher. has anyone thought of the possibility that this human caused climate hoax is just a cash grab? odd, that it’s always money that can fix the CO2 imbalance and libs are simply too simple minded to realize that.
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Counterpoint: Hurricane Helene devastated Asheville, North Carolina—a city in the Blue Ridge Mountains that is so far from the coast and so high above sea level that the kind of flooding Helene caused there was considered unthinkable. You can sit there and tell me that said flooding wasn’t the result of climate change. But I’ve seen videos of Asheville after the hurricane passed, so you’re not convincing me of shit unless you have a better argument than those videos make.
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There’s an entire sub-field of climate research called “attribution science”. It’s intended to answer the question “Can we or can we not show that weather event X is a result of climate change?” and although it’s a relatively new field, it’s already produced some significant insights. The problem that researchers in this area face is that disastrous weather events (like the flooding in western NC) are (a) happening more often and (b) worse than anyone predicted.
In other words, scientists who are by nature conservative in their assessments and predictions keep finding that reality is worse than even their pessimistic projections. Nobody thought a storm like Sandy would devastate the northeast coast…until it did. Nobody thought that a storm like Harvey could cause a rain event like that…until it did. And nobody thought that a fast-moving gulf hurricane could cause inland flooding like Helene has…until it did.
So when reading ANYTHING published about the impact of climate change on severe weather events, it’s important to remember that what you’re reading is probably a best-case scenario…and that reality is going to be worse, potentially much worse.
A good introductory article on attribution science is here at Slate.
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Climate change isn’t real, let alone an existential threat to prosperous Americans, loser.
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Counterpoint: Hurricane Helene would not have gotten as strong as it did without a warm ocean to help it grow in strength. The damage done by Helene, especially in places like Asheville, is a warning. Things won’t get any better unless humanity as a whole takes global climate change far more seriously.
Every year is warmer than the last. Natural disasters have grown in size and strength. Sea levels are rising at a pace that threatens the safety of beachfront property on both coasts, as best proven by all the houses in Rodanthe, North Carolina that have fallen into the ocean. People living in parts of the world that are becoming increasingly uninhabitable will leave those places and look for new homes in places that can better handle the climate—and that includes the United States.
You can like this fact or loathe it, but this is a fact: Climate change is real and it’s affecting the entire world. Sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling “LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU” while hundreds of people are dead or missing in the places devastated by Hurricane Helene, even if your obstinance is mere trolling¹, isn’t going to change reality.
¹ — If your bullshit is an act, it’s a sad one. You don’t seem to have a sincere bone in your body. How pathetic must your life be if you have to say a bunch of bullshit you don’t even believe in for the sake of attention?
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If you’re going to live in a fantasy land, why not make it fun, like believing that little green men from Mars are crashing at your house? Why do your made-up fantasies have to be so dangerous and and not amusing?
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You’re not a “prosperous American,” kiddo. You’re a low grade troll who is more interested in being annoying than you are actually having some idea what you’re talking about.
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Reading isn’t the same has comprehending.
It started over 100 years ago, specifically 128 years ago when Arvid Högbom and Svante Arrhenius published an article noting the measurable increase of CO2 in the atmosphere due to the industrialization will increase temperatures, their calculations still closely follow the measured increase to this day.
You said you read it all and asks why 800K years? Because that’s how far back we have solid data about CO2 from ice-cores. CO2 has fluctuated between 170-300 ppm the last 800K years, it has now passed 400 ppm increasing at a rate never seen before.
Yes, the idiots have since they have been bamboozled into believing in the lies from those who has making big money on making sure that climate change isn’t taken seriously. In reality it’ll costs trillions of dollars to deal with the effects, like increased sea-levels, changing weather patterns leading to droughts in some places and flooding in others, more severe weather events like more and stronger hurricanes, farmers going out of business, water adjacent properties becoming worthless, increased insurance premiums or straight up no availability of property insurance in some places. Just look at how State Farm stopped offering new home insurances in California and how many larger home insurers doesn’t cover “natural disasters” any more. If you want to know what upcoming problems society can expect, look at what things insurance companies strikes from their policies or how the premiums go up for certain things.
How stupid are you really? You also fail to understand the basics of capitalism, if someone is making more money by not doing anything about any problems they cause they’ll keep doing nothing about it since they got their money and they will at best tell you to fuck off if you threaten that.
Seriously, you are part of the problem because you are a simpleton who can’t put 2 and 2 together. Not fixing the CO2 increase is big money, actually fixing the CO2 levels is a big cost, what do you think a capitalist society will choose to do until it becomes untenable and the cost of not doing anything will eclipse the cost of doing business as usual.
Let me put this in simple terms: Doing nothing will fuck over human civilization hard the next 100 years. The US alone will be forced to pour trillions of dollars into handling the effects of climate change the coming decades and unless you are rich you are also fucked.
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“Doing nothing will fuck over human civilization hard the next 100 years.”
It’s (potentially) much worse than that. Quoting noted scientist Kevin Anderson:
“A 4 degrees C future is incompatible with an organized global community, is likely to be beyond adaptation, is devastating to the majority of ecosystems, and has a high probability of not being stable.”
That’s couched in the careful language of science, so let me translate: if we hit +4C, then: countries will collapse, we won’t be able to engineer our way out of it, there will be no food, AND it may abruptly get even worse.
And the truly frightening thing about this is that it’s a conservative prediction. Others think +4C will be far worse, so much so that it’s difficult to even imagine.
We passed +2C in November 2023.
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Shut up, Doomer.
Better yet, kill yourself now.
It’s not like any woman would be willing to bear your children, anyway.
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You better than that, son.
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Your every accusation, a confession.
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Every legitimate climate scientist on this planet disagrees with you. The evidence is overwhelming — and most of it is accessible to anyone of even modest intelligence and education. I recommend starting your remedial education in the fundamentals here:
IPCC reports
These reports are issued at intervals and involve the research and writing of thousands of scientists all over the world. They’re meticulously edited (which is why the errata are so brief despite the large size of some of them) and they’re mandatory reading for anyone who’s seeking a baseline understanding of global warming and its impacts.
Re: And yet here we are
You could have not said anything, and no one here would have known what a fucking dumbass you are.
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Well. Way to own the libs. Don’t slip in the sarcasm there.
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Oh. My. God. It’s a coverup of astounding proportions! How did you find out?
…Wait, this is coming from the same scientists who tell you global warming is real and is happening?
…Did you maybe stop and think for a moment that there might be a difference between now and then?
Yeah, odd that the solution to a major societal problem involves a social tool that humans developed thousands of years ago and integrated so tightly into society that you literally can’t sleep/eat many places without…I mean why would that happen? 🤔 It’s not like the solution to global warming will include math or language, right?
…right?
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…hallucinated nobody mentally competent, ever.
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Full Context
I watched the full two minute clip surrounding the “major block” line. And it’s clear after watching it that Kerry did lament that neither government, nor the dinosaur news corporations can curb the discussions on social media. Describing Kerry’s verbiage as a poorly worded explainer on how the First Amendment works is overly charitable. Kerry views the First Amendment and unregulated speech with contempt.
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So what? He’s allowed to do that. But he didn’t say “we need to change or get rid of the First Amendment”, and that’s the crux of the story here: people lying about or misrepresenting what he said.
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If he wants me voting democrat then no he cannot. Protecting the 1st, 2nd and 4th amendments is important to me, if a democrat ally is going to start speaking ill of those right before the election it makes me want to stay home. (Yes I know the republicans aren’t any better that’s why I said stay home but make your broad assumptions anyway).
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And as the article on which you’re commenting repeatedly says and proves, he didn’t.
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He could have brought up the necessity of it, even if it does make it more difficult to combat misinformation.
But you are correct, he didn’t outright call for a change or abolishment, regardless of whatever his tone might have sounded like according to people. And that’s what this article is about.
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John Kerry is an unpatriotic war criminal.
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ok hermen time for your bedtime
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The article is about people straight up lying about what he said, not his tone being misunderstood. There’s a line there and it’s not even a particularly fine one.
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And why is that bad?
If gun laws kill your child, should you be hated for hating the harm of the 2nd amendment?
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“Kerry views the First Amendment and unregulated speech with contempt.”
Much like how we view anything you say…
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So lets see what John Kerry actually said:
You know there’s a lot of discussion now about how you curb those entities in order to guarantee that you’re going to have some accountability on facts, etc. But look, if people only go to one source, and the source they go to is sick, and, you know, has an agenda, and they’re putting out disinformation, our First Amendment stands as a major block to be able to just, you know, hammer it out of existence. So what we need is to win the ground, win the right to govern, by hopefully winning enough votes that you’re free to be able to implement change.
My points above becomes much clearer if you also look at what else he said:
The dislike of and anguish over social media is just growing and growing. It is part of our problem, particularly in democracies, in terms of building consensus around any issue. It’s really hard to govern today. The referees we used to have to determine what is a fact and what isn’t a fact have kind of been eviscerated, to a certain degree. And people go and self-select where they go for their news, for their information. And then you get into a vicious cycle
And the above quote is quite prophetic in it’s own way, just consider how what he said has been presented in the rightoid media sphere, it has been misrepresented at best but a majority of the non-affiliated media or “influencers” have straight up lied about it.
Regardless how poorly John Kerry said what he said, why aren’t you criticizing the actual liars here? You know, the so-called conservative media? You have proclaimed that you are a big proponent of the truth, haven’t you?
Well duh.
To be a republican is to be too stupid to understand things and or lie when things aren’t as bad as your desire to paint others as evil demons need them to be.
Look harder.
Information is gained how?
Its been a long life. And watching our Gov. feed people with Mis information over the wars we are in, about how many are dying, this and that. Taking 40+ years to Open restricted files, and even then More files buried.
So many things our Gov. Faught the people about that Only favored the Rich, as the restriction on Hemp growing.
So many things that have Slowed just the accumulation of knowledge.
Doesn't anyone check the date Kerry's speech was made?
It’s interesting that no one is mentioning the fact that Kerry made those remarks on February 26, 2013.
https://www.reuters.com/article/world/us-politics/kerry-defends-liberties-says-americans-have-right-to-be-stupid-idUSBRE91P0HK/
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No, he made the comments last week.
The comments you’re referencing are from a decade ago, but are making a similar point (which only goes to reinforce the point that the comments he made last week were more in defense of the 1st Amendment than against it).
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M^2 is a DEMOCRATIC 👏 PARTY 👏 OPERATIVE 👏 !!!
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The emoji clap is sooooo 2000 & late, you impotent, old, coot.
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YOU ARE A RUSSIAN OPERATIVE
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He isn’t, he is a butthurt idiot who lost every argument here on TD and the only way he can feel good is to go down the pure idiot route playing an edgy troll.
Think about that, how fucking pathetic do you have to be to act in that manner? The guy projects is inadequacies every time he shit-post here.
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and i bet it’s the same dude that will resort to nazi shit once you trick him into saying what he wants
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You’re an idiot and I won’t even mock you with sarcastic emojis.
He literally just wants people to understand the situation as step one.
Being expected to understand something is what MAGA finds offensive.
I guess this article is the “more speech” they are talking about when they say the antidote to false speech isn’t censorship, it’s more speech. How’s that working? Whose speech has had greater reach? “More speech” may be necessary, but it is certainly not sufficient. I’m starting to think a combination of more speech and less speech has some redeeming qualities compared to living in an information cesspool.
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Whose free speech rights do you want to revoke? Because that comment sounds like you want to revoke someone’s free speech rights.
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Not ideal for sure. But where is the speech equivalent of laws that prevent a septic system pumper truck from going down the road spraying sewage everywhere?
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You don’t need laws for that, just fucking educate people but that’s evidently something that is too hard for the US to accomplish.
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Um. What laws actually prevent that though? I was under the impression that law doesn’t come in until after the fact to ensure punishment and/or cleanup. And not even then, necessarily, if you look at the BP oil spill (for example).
Please watch the last 20 seconds of the video
Link to John Kerry’s 1:45 video on X:
https://x.com/amuse/status/1840024798568587453
John Kerry explicitly calls for implementing change. Since he doesn’t follow those words with what he is changing, you have to go back to the previous sentences, which is The First Amendment not allowing censure of what is believed to be disinformation.
From 1:22 to 1:45 of the video:
“So what you need– what we need is to win the ground, win the right to govern by, hopefully, having– you know winning enough votes that you’re free to be able to to implement change. Now, obviously, there are some people in our country who are prepared to implement change in other ways. And that’s your question.”
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I was wrong. I missed the author’s last bit on this:
Since the question itself was regarding disinformation around climate change, he does say that the best way to deal with climate change is to “win the ground” and elect people who can “implement change.” But it’s clear that he’s talking about implementing change regarding the climate, not about changing the First Amendment.
I re-watched the clip, and the article’s author is correct – Kerry is referring to implementing climate changes, not 1st amendment changes.
Side note: there are in fact, some people in this world willing to admit they are wrong. Hopefully more people are willing to do so.
It’s not a first amendment violation to restrict who can call themselves a doctor, lawyer, engineer, architect etc or any number of protected professions. Nor is it a violation to restrict what those people can do in the service of their fields. I see no reason that limiting who can call themselves journalist should violate the first admentment, nor should requirements of professional standards, like journalists knowingly lying, be suppression of free speech.
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Define “journalist” in a way that covers who you believe should be considered a journalist and excludes everyone you believe shouldn’t have the right to use that label.
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Yes, it is. It’s not a violation of any amendment of the Constitution to punish someone for practicing medicine, law, etc. without the necessary training and credentials, but it would absolutely be a violation of the First if Dr. Dre (for example) was prosecuted for calling himself a doctor when the most medical thing he has ever done is administer acetaminophen to his kids to treat common childhood ailments.
Kerry's comment
As we all know,you get more out of hearing someone say something compared to just reading their words. I say that because when you hear Kerry, his tone makes it sound like he is disappointed about the 1st Amendment hindering the effort to “hammer [“disinformation”] out of existence”, which is what it sounds like he wants to do.
His words and somber tone certainly don’t .ake it sound like he celebrates the 1st Amendment and the essential freedoms it protects; instead, he somberly calls it a “major block” to the ability to stop one of those freedoms, free speech.
He describes the problem as: “…if people only go to one source, and the source they go to is sick, and, you know, has an agenda, and they’re putting out disinformation…” (Who just goes to one source?) Who decides which sources are “sick” and have an “agenda”? The government, which is run by people with their own agendas? Who decides what is “disinformation”? We’ve all seen that play before and know that our government suppresses speech while using such excuses.
He doesn’t call for more speech as the answer to speech he thinks is wrong. His statement, even if you see more positively, gives no ringing endorsement of the 1st Amendment right of free speech. In the context of Democrat suppression of free speech in social media, their support for speeech codes at colleges, AOC’s statement about reining in the media, Walz’s claim that hate speech is not protected speech, etc., it is easy to see how his words comes across as criticism of the 1st Amendment.
(As for what he talked about changing right after he complained about people spreading disinformation, I’ll have to watch more of the video than is quoted in this article to make a judgment.)
At the least, Kerry could eliminate doubt about where he stands by giving a more enthusiastic embrace of the 1st Amendment, assuming it’s possible for Lurch to express himself that way. Then he wouldn’t come across sounding so on the fence about free speech.
The infantile suggestion that this was nothing more than an explanation of the first amendment would be laughable if it weren’t so dangerous.
Kerry, Speech
The problem is, where your quoting of the speech ended and editorializing in your article began, he went on to say the start of an answer was for the Democratic Party to carry the election so they could start fixing the problem.
It wasn’t just a hamfisted, pragmatic mention of the realities of politics but a genuine statement that free speech in the U.S. needs to be amended and fixed.
Referring to it as an obstacle and opining you couldn’t just “hammer out” opposition voices should worry everyone.
He did not turn around and attempt to balance his statements. He made a clear declaration and let it end and stand there.
He works for WEF. That’s all you need to know.
Holy shit you are a disingenuous hack lmfao. I watched the full relevant segment of the WEF meeting, and his response to the question was SPECIFICALLY about SOLUTIONS on how to tackle climate misinformation. If the question was “how do we pass climate change policy with all this misinformation”, your interpretation is more valid. But since Kerry made a big point about how it’s hard to maintain consensus because of social media and misinformation, and the importance of winning the “right to govern” and to “be free to implement change” IMMEDIATELY after he lamented how democracies suffer from a lack of “truth tellers” and how the First Amendment is the only thing stopping them from fighting misinformation effectively, your interpretation does not hold up at all.
Keep in mind that over the past few years, he’s also been lamenting on how dangerous misinformation is. Are you trying to tell me that he thinks the solution is more speech?
MAGA is celebrating today.