SPEECH CODES ARE ALWAYS BAD.

I am not a fan of speech codes.  "My stance has always been 'Justice, freedom: still contested territory. Whether it is black or Palestinian or male lives that are being diminished by the administrative ethos, it is the administrative ethos that is wrong."  Nor am I impressed by legislation with ambitious sounding titles, and if the title becomes a twee acronym, my irritation only increases.

With that in mind, let us consider how Common Dreams figure of fun Richard Eskow tackles the "Antisemitism Awareness Act."  (As if we don't have to keep the motorist club distinct from the flak batteries already!)

Totalitarianism rarely shows its true face when it arises. Instead, it often pretends to stand for good and decent values. A new bill claims to fight antisemitism, something all decent people oppose. But antisemitism—that is, bias and discrimination against Jews because of their religion or ethnic identity—is already barred under civil rights law. The real goal of the so-called “Antisemitism Awareness Act” is to suppress free speech.

This dangerous bill was already passed by the House of Representatives and now awaits a Senate vote.

If the self-styled progressives come around to the libertarian principles under which legislating morality and trimming rights that inhere in individuals on the expediency of the moment, that might be a good thing.  Sometimes Mr Eskow has it right, sometimes partly right, sometimes amusing.

Most of his current column spells out the ways in which this act is a speech code, and contrary to our Constitutional rights.  The principle he spells out is one that might apply equally well to the bias response teams at those universities with the U. S. News problem.

Also banned under this law is, “accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.”

Again, fair enough. And yet, again, this is precisely what Israel’s supporters and media allies are doing to Palestinians. They’re doing it to student protesters, too. They search far and wide for someone—anyone—who has said anything antisemitic and can be linked, however loosely, with these peaceful and high-minded demonstrators. Then they broadcast these aberrant individuals’ words all over the news, using them to smear an entire movement.

He doesn't raise the specter of unelected bureaucrats enforcing this law, although to see someone in Common Dreams questioning the use of guilt by association when it's convenient, and standing up for bourgeois norms is at once jarring and encouraging.

These absurdities highlight the bill’s real purpose, which is the state suppression of certain speech.

Despite its name, the “Antisemitism Awareness Act” doesn’t do much to address real antisemitism. And it’s designed to stifle, not promote, “awareness.” It turns the USA’s much-celebrated sense of liberty into a funhouse mirror, a grotesque and distorted reflection of everything this country claims to see in itself. Its passage would make a travesty of everything America's leaders claim to believe in.

Well, no, any more than that currently dead, but not buried, disinformation governance board, would do for a new birth of freedom.