Free speech
Dartmouth University’s Polarization Research Lab released results from their National Speech Index this week. It includes a survey of Americans’ free speech beliefs. Sixty-nine percent of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track when it comes to free speech. Only 25% of Americans believe the right to free speech is secure. Disturbingly, 31% of Americans believe the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment protections go too far.
More free speech
This week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a pair of cases relating to free speech and social media platforms. In 2021, Texas and Florida passed laws in response to the revelation that some social media platforms are actively censoring conservative speech. The laws bar platforms from censoring political speech and require companies to provide individualized explanations to users when user content is removed or editorialized. A social media trade organization representing major players like Meta and Google sued claiming the state laws violate the First Amendment. Probably they do. The First Amendment protects against the government limiting speech, not against private companies doing so. One issue, however, is troublesome for the tech companies. A federal law, known as Section 230, protects social media platforms from civil liability for content on their sites under the theory that they are not curators of the content, only a hosting platform. However, the more that social media companies censor content, especially political content as opposed to violent or pornographic content, the shakier their argument for Section 230 protection. Their arguments this week that the First Amendment allows them to censor conservative speech undercuts their arguments in favor of continued Section 230 protection. This adds weight to calls for Congress to remove Section 230 protections. These issues are a part of a tangle of issues involving free speech, tech companies, and government action. You may recall I have written previously about a separate case currently before the Supreme Court where the Biden Administration colluded with tech companies to censor conservative speech. That one does explicitly involve government action. The Supreme Court will deal with some of these issues, but others will require legislation. Unfortunately, it may be a long time before it is all sorted out.
Class
I finished Rob Henderson’s memoir, Troubled, this week. If you are a regular Judex reader, you know I frequently cite Henderson’s work, which he publishes mostly through his own Substack. Henderson is a psychologist popular for developing the concept of “luxury beliefs.” According to Henderson, “Luxury beliefs” are ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class, while often inflicting costs on the lower classes. Elite “virtue signaling” is the broadcasting of “luxury beliefs.” The following excerpt from Henderson’s memoir explains:
Most personal to me is the luxury belief that family is unimportant or that children are equally likely to thrive in all family structures. In 1960, the percentage of American children living with both biological parents was identical for affluent and working-class families—95 percent. By 2005, 85 percent of affluent families were still intact, but for working-class families the figure had plummeted to 30 percent. The Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam at a 2017 Senate hearing stated, “Rich kids and poor kids now grow up in separate Americas…Growing up with two parents is now unusual in the working class, while two-parent families are normal and becoming more common among the upper middle class.” Affluent people, particularly in the 1960s, championed sexual freedom. Loose sexual norms caught on for the rest of society. The upper class, though, still had intact families. Generally speaking, they experimented in college then settled down. The families of the lower classes fell apart.
This deterioration is still happening. In 2006, more than half of American adults without a college degree believed it was “very important” that couples with children should be married. Fast forward to 2020, and this number has plummeted to 31 percent. Among college graduates, only 25 percent think couples should be married before having kids. Their actions, though, contradict their luxury beliefs: the vast majority of American college graduates who have children are married. Despite their behavior suggesting otherwise, affluent people say marriage is unimportant. Gradually, their message has spread.
Crime
The Chicago Board of Education voted this week to remove all school resource officers from Chicago schools. They plan to take the money spent on SROs and “invest it in restorative justice programs” and take “a more holistic approach to school safety,” whatever that means. This is a perfect example of a luxury belief put into action. While it may make some people sound smart and feel good to take a “holistic approach,” it will make things more dangerous for Chicago schoolchildren, and especially dangerous for the poorest among them.
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