On November 25, 2024 I wrote What you don’t know, and need to know, about Pam Bondi. It reminded readers that it was Bondi as Florida’s Attorney General who appointed the corrupt special prosecutor who managed the political, racist prosecution of George Zimmerman for the lawful, self-defense death of Trayvon Martin. Fortunately, Bondi failed, and Zimmerman was acquitted. I’ve seen some suggestion that Bondi later recanted, but no real confirmation, and my warning apparently went unheeded.
Since taking office she has seemingly. mostly done well--until this:
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Such unforced errors concern Normal Americans because whenever Republicans adopt the deceptive verbiage of Democrats, they give them the advantage in the cultural and constitutional debates. Kurt Schlichter makes the point:
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Even “the wise Latina,” Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, seems to understand “hate speech” is an unconstitutional Democrat invention intended to allow them to label any speech they don’t like, or which exposes their lunacy and malice, as beyond the pale and thus legally and civilly actionable.
Said Sonia Sotomayor, quoted in "Sotomayor rebukes calls to 'criminalize free speech' in apparent swipe at Pam Bondi/The justice, in public remarks, didn’t name the attorney general, who has come under fire for comments to target people over 'hate speech'" (Politico).
And so ends the decades long push — by the left — to criminalize hate speech. Thanks, Justice Sotomayor!
It’s common knowledge the First Amendment prohibits prior restraint of speech. We’re the only nation that has a First Amendment. England, rushing at warp speed down the totalitarian path, can and does ban the publication of all manner of speech and arrests people for Internet speech, and even for silently praying at times and places the police don’t like.
It's a bit less common knowledge that political speech, above all other kinds of expression, enjoys the strongest protection of the First Amendment. That’s necessary if we’re to be an informed people, if we’re to have all the facts about politicians, their pasts and their future intentions. Obviously, that’s just the kind of speech some politicians—largely Democrats—want to regulate.
That urge gave birth to “hate speech” and numerous local, state and federal laws that conjured the existence of special rights for Democrat favored victim/identity groups. To protect those non-existent “rights,” the state gave itself the power to punish Americans for wrong think. Hate crime laws are of necessity thought crime laws. Judges and juries are charged with divining the thoughts of others through their actions, or in some cases, inactions. Get involved in a fight and punch a gay or trans? That’s a hate crime, even if you didn’t know they were gay or trans and punched them in the heat of the moment, not for any other reason such as self-defense.
With the sanctification of DEI and wokeness in general, hate crimes became a mighty weapon against Normal Americans. When Biden’s Handlers established the Orwellian Disinformation Governance Board, Americans recognized it as a free speech bridge too far and it was quickly and quietly quashed. However, it took the second Trump Administration to begin the process of doing away with what had become an enormous, stealthy censorship apparatus, an ongoing process.
It took only a day before someone in the Trump Administration apparently asked of Bondi: “what they hell were you thinking?”
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Bondi’s sort-of mea culpa correctly, if not completely, explains what she may have intended to do with her “hate speech” shorthand. I write “intended” because we can’t be sure she’s not at least partially in league with the Democrat’s totalitarian goals in inventing “hate speech.”
As I’ve so often written, Democrats see politicians as god-like saviors, branding Barack Obama as “The One” and “The Lightbringer” and depicting him with halos. Normal Americans see them all as scoundrels, liars and fools, but are open to being pleasantly surprised, as they have been with Donald Trump and his Cabinet. That necessary caution means they’re always suspicious for no other reason than that they, like the Founders, understand human nature and know, to paraphrase an aphorism attributed to many, "power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely."
Bondi, and all Republicans must not only abandon the words “hate speech,” but must eradicate every hate speech law in America. Understanding the narrow exceptions for provoking violence under the First Amendment, let people’s actions be evidence of their crimes. Adopting Democrat-speak is a fool’s errand.
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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.