Free Republic

How does a public-sector union work? Easy. First, the state creates a monopoly. The monopoly forces taxpayers to fund those workers, whether they do a good job or not. The union then coerces workers to pay dues regardless of whether or not they want to. Then the union uses those dues to help fund political advocacy that perpetuates their monopoly and the union's influence. So, in other words: racketeering. Among many significant problems with this arrangement, the most obvious is that it's an assault on freedom of association. If there is another organization in American life that has a license...

On February 26, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Janus v. AFSCME. The issue in the case is whether public unions can compel workers who have declined to become members to pay them an “agency fee” that supposedly covers the union’s activities other than political action. Mark Janus is a public employee in Illinois and under state law, he must pay “his” union, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees a fee that is 78 percent of the full membership dues. That is the amount that the union says is the “fair share” of workers who decline...

The Christian satire site Babylon Bee has been fact-checked by Snopes and threatened by Facebook after it published an Onion-style article about CNN about purchasing a washing machine to “spin the news.” The Babylon Bee openly advertises itself as a satire site. Recent headlines include, “Local Pastor Hoping Curling Metaphors Go Over Big This Sunday,” “Nation That Calls Trump ‘Hitler’ Demands He Take All Guns Away,” “Calvinist Dog Corrects Owner: ‘No One Is A Good Boy’,” and “New Exercise Bike Forces You To Watch Christian Movies Until You Hit Your Calories Goal.” Not only is this fairly anodyne stuff, but...

Trump’s Win is the Reichstag Fire of Internet Censorship Manufacture a crisis and eliminate free speech. March 1, 2018 Daniel Greenfield Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical left and Islamic terrorism. Trump’s election victory was the Reichstag fire of internet censorship. The fury and conspiracy theories that followed were not just about bringing down President Trump, but ending free speech online. It’s no coincidence that the central conspiracy theory surrounding the 2016 election involves free speech or that the solution is internet censorship. The claim that...

To err is human, or at least that’s what they say. But the question is, how come that Internet behemoths like Google/YouTube, Facebook and Twitter always make ‘mistakes’ when it comes to their right wing users, Donald Trump (whose Twitter account was ‘deleted’ by mistake recently) included? This question has an obvious and not very politically correct answer, but I’ll let you sort it out on your own. Today we learned that Google owned YouTube ‘accidentally’ deleted a number of conservative/right wing channels and/or videos, following the Florida high-school massacre. Obviously, Google claims it was done by mistake, but all...

Organized labor took off the gloves Monday, warning the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court that freeing public employees from mandatory union dues would lead to strikes and union violence. It was ugly. The Court heard oral arguments challenging laws in 22 states and the District of Columbia that force public employees to pay unions to represent them, even if they disagree with the union's demands and politics. Mark Janus, a child support specialist and public employee in Illinois, claims his First Amendment free speech rights are being violated when he is forced to pay money to a union --...

We invited @JamesADamore to speak about viewpoint diversity & his memo. Some were determined to shut us down. Full video: https://youtu.be/VCrQ3EU8_PM

Dear Montana Representatives:On February 13th, I had the opportunity to speak in Dennison Theater at the University of Montana (UM). Events leading to the speech as well as events occurring during the speech made it clear that the Montana legislature must act to restore respect for freedom of speech on its publicly funded university campuses. I write today to ask that you pass specific free speech legislation we have already adopted in my home State of North Carolina.Prior to my speech, in a bizarre statement to the entire university community, UM president Seth Bodnar stated, “Ours is a university driven...

The online publishing platform Medium has suspended the accounts of prominent far-right figures Mike Cernovich, Jack Posobiec and Laura Loomer. Medium spokesperson Sandee Roston told The Hill that the company does “not comment on individual accounts.” Roston did point to a Feb. 7 post detailing an update to its rules. “We have all seen an increase and evolution of online hate, abuse, harassment, and disinformation, along with ever-evolving campaigns of fraud and spam,” Medium's rules update reads. “We have strengthened our policies around this type of behavior.” “We do not allow calls for intolerance, exclusion, or segregation based on protected...

It’s always amusing to see which traditional liberals have been pushed too far by leftists. Not that this is the first time Alan Dershowitz has strayed (see Alan Dershowitz Throws Down on Idiots Who Blame Terrorism on Poverty… and WATCH: Alan Dershowitz Face-Stomps Obama Over Anti-Israel Resolution). It is, however, the most blunt he’s been about it. I’m not worried about a few dozen people with swastikas who want to replace the Jews, because they’re our past. They have no resonance on university campuses today. But the hard, hard left? Anti-Semitism, anti-Christianity, intolerance for speech. It’s the future. These are...

A week after an Oklahoma university refused to let a popular Christian speaker give a presentation on creation on campus, the school has had a sudden change of heart after facing a firestorm of controversy over its initial decision. Ken Ham, the founder of the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter attractions, was scheduled to give a speech next month at the University of Central Oklahoma entitled "Genesis and the State of the Culture." School officials rescinded his invitation after facing pressure from an LGBT group on campus opposing Ham's March 5 appearance. Now, it seems like the event is back...

In a 1989 article in New Republic, Andrew Sullivan made what he called "a (conservative) case for gay marriage." Today same-sex marriage is legal everywhere in America, supported by majorities of voters and accepted as a part of American life. Now Sullivan has cast his gaze on what he regards as a disturbing aspect of American life -- the extension of speech suppression and "identity politics" from colleges and universities into the larger society. The hothouse plants of campus mores have become invasive species undermining and crowding out the beneficent flora of the larger free democratic society. Sullivan can be...

“Anthropology 212: Cultural Freedoms: Hate Speech, Blasphemy, and Pornography,” a course on freedom of expression at Princeton University has been “reluctantly” cancelled, Professor Lawrence Rosen informed his students in an email obtained by THE WEEKLY STANDARD. Rosen’s email, sent at 2:07 p.m. on February 12, went on to say “I think it only fair that you be free, before too much of the semester has passed, to move ahead in another course of your choosing.” Last week Prof. Rosen received national attention for using the N-word in this class on freedom of expression. Some students walked out and protested the...

Jenye “Viki” Knox served Union High School since 2000 as a teacher and faculty adviser for the students’ Bible study group. She began teaching handicapped students 28 years ago. An ordained minister, Knox communicated her opinion openly on social media. In 2013, Knox sued the district for violating her right to free speech and her right to the free expression of her religion. She wanted her job back with back pay and the admission that she was within her rights under the Constitution to express her views on Facebook. The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey admitted that though...

The free speech wars are getting worse, but it seems that none of the warring factions quite grasp the character of the dispute — or precisely what's at stake. At the figurative center of the clash is the norm of near-absolute freedom of speech and expression, which its defenders like to treat as the American default. A number of ideological challenges have arisen in recent years to overturn this norm. On many college campuses, groups of left-leaning students insist that free speech should be conditional on speakers adhering to explicit standards of diversity and avoiding the infliction of emotional harm...

Paying union dues and baking a wedding cake may not seem like classic examples of free speech—except perhaps at the Supreme Court. This year, the high court is poised to announce its most significant expansion of the 1st Amendment since the Citizens United decision in 2010, which struck down laws that limited campaign spending by corporations, unions and the very wealthy.

On January 23, days before Armando Iannucci's new comedy “The Death of Stalin" was due to premiere in Russia, the Culture Ministry revoked the film’s distribution license. Hours before, the movie was screened for a group state officials who roundly criticized it as a mockery of Soviet history. Human rights activists in Syktyvkar have filed a lawsuit challenging the Culture Ministry’s decision to revoke the distribution license... Why sue in Syktyvkar? The region was tightly integrated with the Soviet Gulag, meaning that nearly every family with local roots dating back a few generations suffered directly because of Stalinism. The activists...

As you have probably already noticed, Facebook is going through dramatic changes. Now, they are about to roll out massive updates to its newsfeed that will dramatically change the type of content you see Facebook is going to focus on your nexus of family and friends, in addition to a list of what they label “trusted sources.” Those “trusted sources” aren’t based on what you trust, but what they trust. They claim the pages will be based on “diverse and representative” criteria determined by sample pools of Facebook users. But no one – except Facebook itself – knows just what...

A Georgia State University soccer player who was suspended from the team after she used a racial epithet on social media has withdrawn from the school, officials said. Some students had called for the expulsion of 18-year-old freshman defender Natalia Martinez after the epithet appeared on her Finsta page, a secret version of Instagram that is growing in popularity among teens. “As a progressive, diverse university, we ... feel like this sort of behavior should not be tolerated,” said India Bridgeforth, who created a petition demanding the university take a tougher approach with Martinez. The petition had garnered more than...

<p>Laving signs heralding free speech and chanting "Stand by Deyshia," about 100 people gathered in a light rain Thursday to rally to support Deyshia Hargrave -- the Louisiana teacher ejected from a school board meeting and roughly handcuffed in a video-recorded arrest after she questioned her superintendent's pay raise.</p>