During one of the best moments from Senator and 2024 Trump running mate JD Vance on the Tuesday, October 1 Vice Presidential debate, Sen. Vance backed Minnesota Governor and 2024 Kamala Harris running mate into a trap of a corner, challenging him to speak out about and defend free speech.
Particularly, Sen. Vance challenged Gov. Walz to denounce the typical Democrat habit of calling to censor or criminalize so-called “hate speech and misinformation.” As background, both have been found to be protected speech under the First Amendment, and the government has been criticized heavily by the courts for pressuring social media companies to censor so-called misinformation, such as the Hunter Biden laptop.
Sen. Vance, bringing up the matter of the First Amendment and how it relates to the concept of “democracy” that Democrats profess to love, said, “You guys attack us for not believing in democracy. The most sacred right under democracy is the United States’ First Amendment. You yourself have said there’s no First Amendment right to misinformation.”
Then, as Gov. Walz tried to argue with him, Sen. Vance went on to note that VP Harris seems poised to use tech censorship to crack down on free speech, saying, “Kamala Harris wants to use the power of the government and Big Tech to silence people from speaking their minds. That is a threat to democracy that will long outlive this present political moment.”
Still not done, Sen. Vance went on to declare, “I would like Democrats and Republicans to both reject censorship. Let’s persuade one another. Let’s argue about ideas, and then let’s come together afterwards.” That led Gov. Walz, who already appeared overly flustered, to start shouting about the idea of “shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theater,” a limit to free speech immortalized in the since overruled 1919 U.S. Supreme Court case Schenck v. United States.
As Gov. Walz attempted to connect the idea of shouting “fire” in a crowded public place to “misinformation” about the government’s policies or public issues like Hunter Biden and Covid, Sen. Vance torched him, saying, “That is criticizing policies of the federal government, which is the right of every American.” Watch their spat here:
Sen. Vance, after the debate, roasted Gov. Walz for relying on the overruled SCOTUS opinion for pushing censorship, saying, “Governor Walz mentioned yesterday you can’t shout fire in a crowded theater. That line is from a disgraced Supreme Court opinion, one that has been overturned. It’s used to justify censorship.”
Previously, during a rally, Sen. Vance had called out the Harris approach to free speech and censorship, saying, “I genuinely think this is one very big difference between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. I will die fighting to defend their right to speak their mind, even if I disagree with it. Every single person in this room agrees with that because we believe in free speech.”
Continuing, he noted that censorship is generally tiresome and grating to Americans, as we see free speech as a sacrosanct right. He said, “A lot of Americans are sick of the censorship. They’re tired of being told by their government to shut up. We believe in persuading our fellow Americans, not silencing them.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
