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UpInArms

(51,252 posts)
Thu Jan 14, 2021, 01:46 PM Jan 2021

Republicans Still Don't Get It

One of the persistent mysteries of the past week is what leads Republican House members—some of whom had to crouch on the floor of the chamber as the Capitol was being attacked, while others were whisked into unidentified locations for their own safety—to refuse to accept who was to blame for the insurrection. With the exception of the 10 Republican House members who voted alongside the Democrats to impeach the president, and a smattering of Republicans who acknowledged that the events of last week could easily have ended their lives but wanted to convene a commission to investigate matters, a nontrivial number of Republicans took to the floor on Wednesday to insist the real injury of Jan. 6, 2021 was to their own free speech rights. This was perhaps best embodied in the galactically stupid visual of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the QAnon-supporting representative from Georgia—who falsely tweeted that Trump would stay in office after Inauguration Day—wearing a mask that read “CENSORED” as she spoke freely on the House floor, as captured on national television.

There was also Rep Jim Jordan’s inexplicable claim that one cannot “have a functioning First Amendment when cancel culture only allows one side to talk.” (Again, he was saying this freely on the floor of the House of Representatives.) Democrats are really out to “cancel the president and anyone who disagrees with them,” Jordan said, before warning that “cancel culture will come for us all.” There was also the fractionally less coherent Rep. Glen Grothman from Wisconsin claiming, of the rioters in D.C., that “they’re scared to death that nobody else will fight the cancel culture as we head toward an era when some things can’t be said.”

It is, quite frankly, beyond belief that the very same people who could have died in the United States Capitol just last week have somehow persuaded themselves that they’ve in fact experienced a more acute First Amendment injury than even insurrection itself—and that any effort to impose liability for the property destruction, terror, and death that resulted from the storming of the government is a monstrous encroachment on their right to talk. They make this point, to be clear, as they are talking and talking and talking about the pain of First Amendment encroachments, on the House floor. The real threat is to them, they say, as they point to the long and careening tour of Free Speech casualties of January 2021, from Donald Trump’s Twitter feed, to an armed mob’s vaunted free assembly rights, to their own wholly imaginary right to talk endlessly—which they are, to be clear, doing, even as they whine about it. That it is all performed even when what they say is happening is plainly not happening is eminently incendiary and insane. And herein lies the problem. We have come to a moment in which one half of the country is fighting to be free of crippling, life-ending acts of stochastic terror, while another half of the same country is chillingly preoccupied with their right to just talk shit.

These harms are not the same.

More at:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/republicans-impeachment-speeches-first-amendment.html

9 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Republicans Still Don't Get It (Original Post) UpInArms Jan 2021 OP
Sadly, there are a lot of deranged and deluded people in congress, and more sad they are RKP5637 Jan 2021 #1
They get it, they just don't care Bradshaw3 Jan 2021 #2
"Rep Jim Jordan's inexplicable Pantagruel Jan 2021 #3
Most get it. They pretend they don't because they all participate in Dark n Stormy Knight Jan 2021 #4
More evidence of Republican authoritarianism TheRealNorth Jan 2021 #5
Maybe those Republicans weren't at all afraid of the mob. thucythucy Jan 2021 #6
The "Kool-Aid" is strong Ferrets are Cool Jan 2021 #7
Since When Does Yelling "Fire" In A Crowded Theater modrepub Jan 2021 #8
Typical sociopath talk. Irish_Dem Jan 2021 #9

RKP5637

(67,030 posts)
1. Sadly, there are a lot of deranged and deluded people in congress, and more sad they are
Thu Jan 14, 2021, 01:49 PM
Jan 2021

voted in by similar people.

Bradshaw3

(7,454 posts)
2. They get it, they just don't care
Thu Jan 14, 2021, 01:50 PM
Jan 2021

They, and their terrorist supporters, want to hurt those they hate and destroy our democracy. We better start believing them when they make calls for war.

 

Pantagruel

(2,580 posts)
3. "Rep Jim Jordan's inexplicable
Thu Jan 14, 2021, 01:51 PM
Jan 2021

claim that one cannot “have a functioning First Amendment when cancel culture only allows one side to talk.”

Gym forgets when the Senate GOP refused to allow witnesses to be called during Impeachment number One.

Dark n Stormy Knight

(9,760 posts)
4. Most get it. They pretend they don't because they all participate in
Thu Jan 14, 2021, 01:51 PM
Jan 2021

a coordinated campaign of lies & propaganda.

TheRealNorth

(9,435 posts)
5. More evidence of Republican authoritarianism
Thu Jan 14, 2021, 01:53 PM
Jan 2021

If they can force the media to play all their lying B.S., they can force the media to not give airtime to the Democrats and the left.

thucythucy

(7,983 posts)
6. Maybe those Republicans weren't at all afraid of the mob.
Thu Jan 14, 2021, 01:53 PM
Jan 2021

Maybe they knew or thought they knew that if the mob got to them they would be spared.

I can't help but wonder: maybe they would have gleefully pointed out their Democratic colleagues to the designated assassins, and cheered as their Democratic "colleagues" were being lynched.

modrepub

(3,467 posts)
8. Since When Does Yelling "Fire" In A Crowded Theater
Thu Jan 14, 2021, 02:02 PM
Jan 2021

become protected speech. That's essential what the orange menace did along with everyone else who believes and supports the Big Lie.

Irish_Dem

(45,619 posts)
9. Typical sociopath talk.
Thu Jan 14, 2021, 02:04 PM
Jan 2021

Pretends victim status.
Uses double talk and world salad to confuse others.
Projects own crimes onto others.

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