H.R. 6090 is the death of the first amendment

A new bill brought to the house floor to quell "antisemitism" has far-reaching implications for free speech.

Full disclosure and partial retraction: I condemn the actions of violent rioters on college campuses in their overt support of terrorists and I do not believe any violent actions of the protesters on these campuses deserve free speech protections, so I revoke the already tenuous support I gave them in my previous piece on that situation.

I will preface this by saying that I do not condone antisemitism, but that I also believe that labeling anything as “hate speech” is a coward’s solution to dissenting voices and there is no clear and fair line to establish acceptable speech that doesn’t fatally hinder discourse, eliminating any possibility of understanding between those of opposing viewpoints.

As stated in my previous article, the death of free speech in the United States has been an incremental process. Figureheads in the government have always angled to quell dissent amongst their constituents by utilizing the lessons to be learned from the inquisitors of the past. Though the rhetoric arbitrarily deemed reprehensible by those in power has changed over the years, the goal is the same: rooting out heretics to be pilloried and punished according to the severity of their thought crimes in order to serve as a deterrent to any challenge to power.

Sensing a long-fought victory over that irritating document we call the Constitution, a document that dares to limit the authority of the self-styled nobility of our dying nation that heinously prevents both elected and unelected officials from stepping on our throats at their leisure, Congress decided to dip their toes into the waters of unassailable tyranny by voting to pass H.R. 6090, also known as the “Antisemitism Awareness Act” - a bill that threatens to start the process of properly nailing the first amendment’s coffin closed once and for all.

Naturally, like all bills meant to further strip rights away from Americans, the Antisemitism Awareness Act was named in such a way so that the very act of debating the contents of said bill offers proponents of it a vector of attack from the standpoint of questioning whether people who are ringing the alarm bells about such bills quelling speech actually just want carte blanche to express their hatred toward Jewish people.

So basically, either you support the Antisemitism Awareness Act, or you hate Jews. I don’t make the rules, sorry. Just a fact. At least that will become the case if this bill is signed into law. And there’s an election hanging in the balance, so you already know how this ends.

”You don’t hate Jews… do you?” your detractors will ask, accusing you of dodging the question if you try to move beyond their silly ad hominem attack in order to unpack just WHY a bill like H.R. 6090 is extremely harmful to the very fabric of what made the United States a country unlike any other at its founding due to the chilling effect it will no doubt have on ALL speech, not just speech that directly addresses Israel or Jews in general.

Remember the cardinal rule of government: Precedent is power. If a bill is passed in response to a specific crisis and sets a precedent that allows for the possibility of infringing on the rights of citizens, then government officials will quickly find justification to expand those powers to other matters. In other words, if free speech can be quelled in one venue - in this case, schools - then it can eventually be quelled in all venues.

After all, the Patriot Act was originally intended to investigate and stop terrorists before they can launch an attack on American soil. It instead was used to allow for unfettered surveillance of American citizens, even if there is no reason whatsoever to suspect that they may, in fact, be terrorists. But I digress.

So let’s dive into this trainwreck. What is the purpose of the bill?

“To provide for the consideration of a definition of antisemitism set forth by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance for the enforcement of Federal antidiscrimination laws concerning education programs or activities, and for other purposes.”

The phrase ”For other purposes” is always a frightening phrase to see in a bill like this because it’s like an asterisk, or a wild card. Simply put, it gives law enforcement carte blanche to use their own judgment when it comes to determining what falls under the purview of this law. So by all rights law enforcement could determine through mental gymnastics of some sort that the phrase “rubber baby buggy bumper” is somehow antisemitic and thus, the person who used that phrase could face civil or even criminal penalties under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

And remember what I was saying earlier about precedent? This bill expands the definition of what constitutes a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by including a specific definition of antisemitism, which they have outsourced to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, or IHRA for short. That is too much power to give to what I can only tell is a private organization. And just imagine the collusion between the U.S. and this largely foreign entity to gradually tighten the strap on the muzzle being placed on the American people. After all, I can only believe that any politician who voted for this bill to pass has salivated over the prospect of European-Style speech controls for a long time.

Think about it: how hard would it honestly be for a government official to suggest that the IHRA drastically increase the amount of applicable definitions of antisemitism after the fact? If they did similar things with their accomplices and colleagues alike in Twitter to ban a Trump supporter for posting memes with a weak excuse such as “copyright infringement” being used as justification with absolutely no regard for fair use and satire laws, they will utilize similar tactics to allow for a website to be updated ad infinitum to shut down speech under the guise of "fighting antisemitism." The rules could change day-to-day even, allowing for what amounts to hotfixes to the law in a manner of speaking so any problematic speech can quickly be added to the list, fast-tracking the creation of a newspeak dictionary for U.S. citizens by telling them what they can and cannot say. This is yet another instance of the government waging a proxy war against the Constitution by using gross fascism through private entities to achieve their aims.

Looking at the leading members of this organization, it’s also interesting to note that I can only find one American among them, a man by the name of Dr. Robert Williams. The rest are a mixed bag of Europeans - including 3 from the UK alone - and someone from Israel, naturally. Do we really want any of these people to be the arbiters of what passes for acceptable speech in the United States? This is more World Economic Forum-style unelected puppet master bullshit from behind the scenes.

We are effectively surrendering our sovereignty when outsiders are freely setting policy for American citizens. The last thing I want in particular is 3 people from the UK having any sort of deterministic power over the first amendment given their dodgy record when it comes to speech. They punish people for admitting to praying silently, even. Isabel Vaughan-Spruce is one such case and, well… just watch.

So not only do they arrest people for social media posts but they seem to also hate the idea of someone just thinking thoughts or talking to the God of their choosing out on the street. The arrest depicted above was all because Vaughan-Spruce decided to stay inside of a “censorship zone” while praying. Simply put, these aren’t the types of people I want being in the driver’s seat for what passes for free speech.

I ultimately have to put partial blame in Trump’s lap for this whole fiasco, as his voracious support for Israel led him to foolishly sign the Executive Order that this bill codifies into law, EO 13899. Basically speaking, he started the ball rolling on handing the purview of what constitutes the definition of antisemitism over to the IHRA in the first place. But then I’ve often espoused that Trump is a part-timer the same as Elon Musk when it comes to supporting free speech, with their childish and mercurial whims often directing their opinion on the matter of the first amendment on a minute-by-minute basis. If you want the definition of “fragility” - that would be it.

Free speech is not something you get to turn on and off just because you don’t like what someone has to say. That, in effect, makes Trump and Musk - and everyone else who feels similarly hot and cold about unfettered free speech - no better than the children having temper tantrums on college campuses right now.

At this point, I’m beginning to wonder if I myself will make it to election day without being thrown in a gulag. We’re losing our country at an alarming rate and comfortable people still refuse to do anything about it. That has to change, and don’t make the mistake of thinking that political solutions will solve this problem.

You can’t destroy the master’s house with the master’s tools.