I will admit it: there was a strong feeling of amusement among sensible people when the simpleton from Sweden was arrested for protesting in support of the British pro-terrorism group. Greta Thunberg had made a name for herself as a climate kook, but has branched out in support of Hamas, Palestinian terrorism, and against Western civilization defending ourselves from the forces of barbarism, even though it is Western civilization itself which gave her the luxury to protest against anything rather than having to spend her time and energy scratching the dirt in hopes of feeding herself and the three or so kids she’d have popped out by now in a subsistence lifestyle.
But there is a more important point which needs to be made: our British forebears and other European ancestors have been criminalizing the freedom of speech which we take for granted.
Amy Coney Barrett Issues Free Speech Warning
Wednesday, December 24, 2025 | 9:41 AM EST
Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett has warned about threats to free speech in the United Kingdom.
Coney made the remarks during an interview with Bishop Robert Barron for an episode of his podcast, Bishop Barron Presents, which was released on Sunday.
“Think about what’s happening with respect to free speech rights in the U.K.,” Barrett said during a discussion about the purpose of law. “Contrary opinions or opinions that are not in the mainstream are not being tolerated, and they’re even being criminalized. Because of the First Amendment, that can’t happen here.”
It can’t? it wasn’t until Associate Justice Ruth Ginsberg went to her eternal reward and Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed that the Supreme Court took freedom of religion into account when it came to the restrictions that states put on churches to fight the COVID-19 panicdemic.[1]No, that’s not a typographical error; panicdemic was exactly how I intended to spell it, because panic is exactly how governments reacted.
It was under the Administration of President Joe Biden that an FBI “Analyst” submitted a proposal to monitor traditional Catholics who prefer the Tridentine, or Traditional Latin, Mass, “Radical-Traditionalist Catholics,” or RTEs, he called them, because “Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists,” or RMVEs might be interested in using Latin Mass Catholics to spread their goals.
Someone leaked a hand-redacted, redacted by magic marker, copy of the “FBI internal use only” document, and the Bureau decided, rather quickly, that they ought to withdraw the document entirely.
FBI retracts leaked document orchestrating investigation of Catholics
By Tyler Arnold and Joe Bukuras | Thursday, February 9, 2023 | 3:15 PM EST
The FBI says it is retracting a leaked document published on the internet Feb. 8 that appears to reveal that the bureau’s Richmond division launched an investigation into “radical traditionalist” Catholics and their possible ties to “the far-right white nationalist movement.”
In response to an inquiry from CNA, the FBI said it will remove the document because “it does not meet our exacting standards.”
Really? The document is ‘sourced’ citing far-left political sources, including Salon, The Atlantic, and the Southern Poverty Law Center. If there are less biased sources, they were redacted from the document. It’s so bad that it makes me wonder: if it was a great departure from the Bureau’s “exacting standards,” why wouldn’t the document author have realized it, and the Bureau have flagged it before it was leaked? Or is the document not really that great a departure from those “exacting standards,” which calls into question just how “exacting” those standards really are.
Can we tell the truth here? The document was retracted because it was leaked, and the FBI were embarrassed. But without our First Amendment, not only would a government investigation of “radical traditionalist Catholics” be perfectly legal and not questionable at all, but the fact that the “FBI internal use only” document was leaked and published could have been illegal.
Barrett’s comments come as Britain has faced increased scrutiny over its policing of speech, including from Vice President JD Vance, in recent months.
Some critics have focused on the Online Safety Act, rolled out this year, which requires social media companies to remove illegal content on their platforms. Critics say is being implemented too broadly and has resulted in the censorship of legal content.
Even with our First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and of the press, our good friends on the left have waxed apoplectic over the freedoms which allow non-liberal, non-leftist news and opinions to be disseminated, as Michael Tomasky, editor of the New Republic blamed those freedoms for Kamala Harris Emhoff’s defeat, even as his own magazine was using those very same freedoms to publish.
The New York Times has published articles claiming that Free Speech is killing us. Noxious language online is causing real-world violence, and that Twitter’s bans on ‘deadnaming’ and ‘misgendering’ actually promotes freedom of speech. The Times told us how wonderful it was that Jeff Bezos was able to deplatform Parler, but lamented that some of those who lost their speech on Parler migrated to Gab and Rumble.
The left were predictably aghast when Mr Musk did buy Twitter and imposed a much broader freedom of speech regime. When it comes to the American left, and how the Biden Administration tried to create a Ministry of Truth Disinformation Governance Board under the Department of Fatherland Homeland Security, and that very liberal hater of free speech, Nina Jankowicz.
One thing has been made clear: our First — and Second! — Amendment rights have been under attack even here, not by sensible conservatives, but by the left. Under President Biden, himself (purportedly) a Catholic, we’ve seen attacks on the freedom of speech, of the press, of religion, and peaceable assembly, because the left absotively, posilutely hate that their great truths can be challenged.
Thus, while we can chuckle at the fact that a crackpot was arrested for demonstrating in support of the pro-Palestinian British hunger strikers — most of whom have given up their hunger strike anyway — we need to remember that the threats to our freedoms come from the left, and the Biden Administration proved that the plain words of the Constitution mean nothing more than an inconvenient impediment to their goals and them, not a absolute block. We need to support Miss Thunberg’s freedom of speech and peaceable association not because we agree with her, but because we strongly disagree, because that is how we defend ourselves.
References
| ↑1 | No, that’s not a typographical error; panicdemic was exactly how I intended to spell it, because panic is exactly how governments reacted. |
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